Question asked by Marco
Dear Pastors,
I was informed that if a person break the root bodhisattva vow, then the person can never reach the first bodhisattva level in this life. I would like to ask is that still the case even if the person do the vajrasattva purification? If that is the case, what will be the result of that person. Is there any suggested path and practice for this kind of people who break the root bodhisattva vow. In this life, what is the meaningful path for this kind of person if the person cannot reach the first bodhisattva level. Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Yours faithfully,
Dear Marco,
In The Bodhisattva Vow by Geshe Sonam Rinchen, he has mentioned that a restoration of vow is possible is we have broken the Bodhisattva vow bearing in mind that there’ll still be consequences for breaking the vow. Breaking a bodhisattva vow is creating an obstacle to reaching the Bodhisattva level; one will not become an exalted Bodhisattva in this life nor accumulate the positive energy necessary to become an exalted Bodhisattva.
Breaking a vow is the same as breaking one’s promise, commitment and samaya. His Eminence Tsem Rinpoche taught that when a student purposely and without conscientiousness breaks their samaya:
1. It creates the karma for the students to find ideas, thoughts, and paths that lead to harm, selfishness and grasping attractive.
2. The students will be easily influenced by friends who promote attachments, activities that waste time and generally away from the spiritual path.
3. Their worldly works become ‘better’. Negative karma easily manifests in the students samsaric attachments manifesting very easily to draw them away from spiritual practice. This is to encourage them towards more samsaric activities and less dharma.
All these activities goes against the fundamental of the Bodhisattva vow, which is to generate Bodhicitta – the wish for enlightenment for ourselves and a strong wish to lead other sentient beings to full enlightenment.
Within Bodhicitta, compassion plays a very important role to lay the foundation in the practice of the Bodhisattva vows. In The Main Path to Enlightenment, Lama Tsongkhapa said that there are two unwholesome mental factors we must avoid, shamelessness and lack of consideration for others. These two unwholesome mental factors are referred to as “purposely and without conscientiousness” by His Eminence in the earlier paragraph.
1. Shamelessness is a lack of concern about our own well-being, meaning we lack the concern about our own life – now and in the future. Without the concern for our life is very risky as we will not do anything to create good causes for the future.
2. Lack of consideration for others mainly referring to people who are important in our lives such as our parents, spiritual guide or anyone who are concerned with our spiritual life, without which we are most likely not keeping our vows.
It is important for us to understand that we must refrain from unwholesome activities regardless we have vows or not, because all negative actions will cause us and others to suffer. It is more so if we were to cause those important to our spiritual growth harm that they will feel extreme pain when we let them down. If we fail to even do this now, what more can we expect from our spiritual practice, not to mention reaching the first Bodhisattva level, within this one life time.
Coming back to the Bodhisattva vows, there are sixteen of the eighteen root downfalls that will only be considered as complete downfalls if the following four factors are included at the time when one is transgressing the vows: 1) not being mindful of the disadvantages; 2) having no desire to stop the action; 3) indulging in the act with great pleasure and delight; 4) lacking any shame or conscience. With one or more of these factors missing, it is still an infringement but the consequences will be slightly lighter. If the four factors are all there, then the consequences will be heavy. However, if after breaking a vow, we regretted for having done it, seen the disadvantages of breaking it and have no sense of satisfaction and pleasure from it, the result is immediately lighter.
The two root downfalls that do not need all four factors to be considered broken completely are: holding wrong views and giving up the pledge of altruistic aspiration. The moment we have either one of these two on our mind, we have completely broken the vow. We can’t even consider ourselves a Buddhist if we do not believe in the law of cause and effects, not to mention to be a Bodhisattva path practitioner, for example. As mentioned earlier, the fundamental of the Bodhisattva vow is Bodhicitta, giving up bodhicitta means we have the wish to not want to help others. It is obvious that this vow does not need the four factors in order for it to be considered as a downfall.
In The Living Buddha Within, His Eminence Tsem Rinpoche has mentioned that all purifications are based on the four opponent powers. The purification practices can include prostrations pair with taking refuge, mandala offerings, Vajratsattva meditation and the Thirty-five Confessional Buddhas meditation. They can also include visiting holy places, serving our spiritual guide, making offerings to the Three Jewels, performing charities and so on. For a purification practice to be effective it will not depend on the amount we do or how and where we do it. For any of these purification practices to have any effect, it must be based on the four opponent powers: 1) regret, 2) resolve, 3) remediate actions, 4) doing the opposite actions. So, to answer your question, the transgression of any of the sixteen root downfalls can be restored with the Vajrasattva practice. Please refer to https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/vajrasattva-and-prostrations-transcript.html for more information on the practice.
There are many ways to repair our transgression:
1. Re-taking the vows in a proper ceremony from our spiritual guide or any other qualified practitioners.
2. Restoring the vows in front of at least four fully ordained monks or nuns (if unavailable, four lay person who hold their bodhisattva vows fully) who understand and hold the vow themselves.
3. If we have not really fully broken a root vow, we can restore the vows in front of our’s spiritual guide or a person who understands and holds the vows.
4. Lastly, if there is nobody available, we can restore the vows in front of a Buddha statue or through visualisation.
Please bear in mind that after a sincere confession and restoring of the vows, the original negative consequences cannot be complete wiped away, but at least the negative karma will not be increased further.
I hope this helps and apologies for the delay in answering your question.