Shikshasamuccaya 265

265

"Furthermore, novice bodhisattvas become double-tongued and present themselves falsely. They recite, study, memorize, intone, and explain this Mahāyāna for the sake of fame, praise, and renown, and for the sake of gain and veneration; and they teach to others mere book-learning. And they will say: 'We are Mahāyāna followers, not others.' Out of a desire for gain and veneration, they envy others: when those [others] obtain items of use and enjoyment from people, they become furious on that account, spread dispraise of them, revile them, defame them, and show disgust for them. And they exalt themselves, not them. Hence, driven by envy, they proclaim themselves to possess superhuman dharmas. Consequently, fallen and defeated on that account, [severed] from the bliss of the Mahāyāna, they incur this extremely heavy downfall by which they become bound for realms of misery. Just as a man might go to a jewel island, embarking on the ocean in a boat to go there, and in the great ocean he would break that boat himself and meet his death right there—even so, novice bodhisattvas who wish to embark on the ocean of great qualities say such things driven by envy. On that account, having destroyed the boat of faith, they meet with separation from the life of wisdom. Thus those foolish novice bodhisattvas, driven by envy and through reliance on falsehood, incur an extremely heavy downfall. This is a novice bodhisattva's fifth root downfall."