འཕགས་པ་ལྷག་པའ་བསམ་པ་བསྐལ་བ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.6

intro.6

The Buddha’s countervailing instruction is to refrain from judging the veracity or quality of a Dharma teaching by the character or motivation of the teacher who offers it. Śāntideva (late seventh to mid-eighth century) emphasizes this point in his Śikṣāsamuccaya , citing this sūtra at length¹ to assert that a genuine follower of the Buddha must refrain from judging the conduct of fellow practitioners of the Bodhisattva Vehicle; instead, one must focus on detecting and correcting one’s own faults. The Buddha later advises Maitreya that what marks someone as a follower of his teachings, and as an ordained member of his community, is not the formality of vows or the semblance of piety, but rather one’s cultivation of the qualities of the path, including renunciation, concentration, restrained speech, and the pursuit of wisdom.²