Preface · An Ability Grown into the Body

The book in your hands is about the most often misunderstood word in the Buddha's house—the precept.

Often misunderstood, because when most people today hear "the precept," what rises in the mind is a list. Do not kill, do not steal, do not speak falsely—"don't" after "don't," like a coil of rope, binding a person fast. Keeping the precepts, it seems, is just cinching that rope a little tighter: hold back, don't move.

The list exists; the rope is a misunderstanding. What this book will lead you to see is the thing beneath the list—something far wider, and far more alive.

A Question as Plain as Can Be

Twenty-five hundred years ago, in Sāvatthī, in Jeta's Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika's Park. One day, near evening, the venerable Ānanda rose from sitting meditation, came before the Buddha, and asked one question:

World-Honored One, what is the meaning of keeping the precepts?

Keeping the precepts—what, in the end, is it for? The Buddha's answer was not "so as not to fall into the evil destinies," nor "so as to store up merit." He said: keeping the precepts is so that no regret arises in the heart. With non-regret, the heart grows joyful; joy gives rise to rapture; with rapture the body grows tranquil; tranquil, it receives happiness; and happy, the mind becomes concentrated; concentrated, it can see things as they really are—link pushing link, from one precept all the way to the further shore of liberation.

Look clearly at the direction of this answer: the precept is not a rope that ties a person to the spot; it is the first step of a long road. It does not pull you back—it pushes you forward.

This book walks down from that one question. From that evening in the park, all the way to the Chan school's sign-less precept—"the mind-ground without wrong"—it walks the whole road to its end.

The Precept Is Something That Grows

To walk this road, you must first change your eyes.

When we look at "keeping the rules," we always suppose they are fitted onto us from outside, one by one. But the precept the Buddha taught is, at root, another kind of thing: an ability grown into the body. Like a man who has written characters for decades—the strokes come out upright of themselves. It is not that he grits his teeth and reminds himself at every stroke; the uprightness has grown into his hand. The one who truly keeps the precepts is like this too: not holding back, day after day, from breaking them, but finding that those things, in him, gradually, no longer happen.

So the precept this book speaks of is one that grows. First it is a plain definition (the Pāli roots); then it is handed, rule by rule, into the hands of living people (the field of the Āgamas); then, person by person and case by case, it grows into a rigorous Vinaya (the gate of the Vinaya canon). In the Mahāyāna it is stretched wide—wide enough that the good to be cultivated and the beings to be delivered are themselves established as precepts; wide enough that its root moves from body and speech onto the mind. Going deeper still, the patriarchs of the Chinese land asked the deepest question of all: at the moment of receiving the precepts, what exactly is new in body and mind? The answer is a single seed—a wholesome seed perfumed into the deepest place of the mind, not lost unto the very end of future time. After the seed, there is the Buddha Bhaiṣajyaguru, guarding the conditions for those who stumble; and there is prajñā, gently setting down even the mark of "keeping the precepts"—and with the mark set down, the precept, far from toppling, stands at its steadiest. At the last, three great sūtras—the Śūraṅgama, the Lotus, the Huayan—establish the precept as a complete circle: it is the ground of concentration; it is itself a gate into concentration; its form is "to abide in," not "to keep away from"; and it deepens with the depth of one's practice—one precept, held to the buddha-ground.

From a list, to an ability grown into the body, to a single seed, to a complete circle—this is how the precept grows. One sentence says this whole book: The precept is not a rope that binds you; it is a wall that guards you—not a yoke pressed onto the body, but an ability grown into the body. The rule enters the heart and becomes its substance; even the mark 'I am keeping the precept' can be set down—and all along, it is the ground of concentration.

Its Place among the Six Practice Gates

This book belongs to the series called the Six Practice Gates—mindfulness, giving, repentance, the precept, concentration, vow: six gates that can be practiced day by day. The precept is the fourth gate.

Its position is carefully placed. The mindfulness gate established a sustained awareness; the giving gate loosened the hand clenched around "mine"; the repentance gate washed clean the karma of years—and after the "I" is lost and the karma washed clean, a person needs to receive a new, clean boundary, to guard the way forward. That boundary is the precept. The Heart Sūtra says 'neither arising nor ceasing'—and it is exactly this 'not' that the precept gate answers to: after the loosening and the cleansing, a boundary is received that does not turn with circumstances and guards your action. And when that boundary stands firm, the next gate opens of itself—when the precept is pure, concentration comes of itself.

This Book Is Written for You

This book is not written for scholars.

It debates with no one, and it does not compare the precept of the Buddha's house with this or that ethics or self-cultivation elsewhere. What it does is one plain and simple thing: it tells you, item by item, following the scriptures, what this "precept" the Buddha once taught really is—what it is, when He taught it, how it is practiced, what it means.

The book quotes many sūtras, many Vinaya texts, many treatises: from the Pāli scriptures and the Āgamas, to the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the Lotus Sūtra, and the Huayan Sūtra, on to the works of patriarchs such as Vinaya Master Daoxuan and Great Master Zhiyi. But set your mind at ease: the catalog numbers, the original Sanskrit and Pāli words, the scholars' notes on editions are all gathered into the appendices at the back, not laid in the body text to trip your feet. In the body text there is only a monk, following the scriptures, telling it to you slowly.

It is written for you—for someone willing to live a little more cleanly, a little more steadily. You need not know Sanskrit. You need not memorize the rules. You need not first become a scholar. You need only be willing to listen—and willing, when the listening is done, to try doing a little.

Walk Slowly; There Is No Hurry

The book is divided into nine parts, like nine stretches of road; between stretch and stretch, eight short "transitions" carry your breath. You may read from the first page to the last, following the road; or you may go first to whichever stretch speaks to your heart.

And if you are impatient—if all you want to know is "then what, right now, do I actually do"—you might turn first to the final chapter, "The Precept as Teacher." That chapter gathers the whole road into four words. When you have read it, come back and walk slowly from Part One, and you will see how long, how deep a road stands behind those four words.

At the Last

The precept, in the end, is very simple: live your days clean, guard your heart, and do it, day by day.

However thick this book, however much it says, it is all for one thing only: that you may do that simple thing with a more settled heart, and a clearer one.

May there come a day, as you read, when the book can be set down, and the list can be set down too—and what remains is a person who no longer needs to remind himself: the uprightness has grown into his hand.

Homage to the Original Teacher Śākyamuni Buddha.