大般涅槃經集解 16.98

16.98

Baoliang notes: The Vehicle is the overarching guideline for protecting the Dharma; the precepts are specific practices belonging to the Vehicle. Once the overarching guideline is established, all myriad practices are thereby raised. Yet the Vehicle is fundamentally mounted upon the precepts; if there were no precepts, what would one mount? Therefore, the precepts also must not be slackened. Earlier it was said that for the sake of sentient beings they manifest as having transgressions, but in truth they have not transgressed. In manifesting such a state, the precepts are indeed slightly slackened; hence it is said that they may be slackened.