菩薩戒本疏 2.18

2.18

Seeing a violation and not instructing them to repent violates the principle of mutual benefit. A śrāvaka protecting oneself is not even permitted to do so, how much less a great being? According to the literal wording, it seems to fall under the precepts of benefiting sentient beings: towards those with faults, harboring intimacy within, with an exalted resolve (adhyāśaya) for benefit and comfort, taming, reprimanding, punishing, and expelling them in order to make them emerge from unwholesome states and establish them in wholesome states. However, a bodhisattva teaching and transforming sentient beings is itself the fulfillment of the Buddha-dharmas; therefore, this precept is also proscribed under the precepts that gather wholesome dharmas. It is also contained within accurately and clearly knowing one's own transgressions and deeply perceiving faults. Although self and other are distinct, perceiving faults and repenting to eliminate them are the same, hence it is proscribed in both Mahāyāna and the Śrāvakayāna. The two monastic assemblies fully commit it, and logically it also extends to the remaining three assemblies and the householders. 'The eight precepts and the five precepts' are householder precepts. 'The ten precepts' are the ten precepts of a śrāmaṇera. 'Breaking the prohibitions' refers to the precepts of bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs. Alternatively, the ten precepts refer to the ten parājika offenses, and breaking the prohibitions refers to the forty-eight duṣkṛta offenses. 'The seven ānantarya sins' are as explained below. As for 'the eight difficulties': some say these are the eight parājika offenses, while others say they are the eight difficulties of the three destinies and so forth. Because offenses incur the eight difficulties, the effect is spoken of in terms of the cause. We now maintain that among the thirteen difficulties, excluding the dual-gendered, the neuter, animals, non-humans, and those who disrupted the two paths, the remainder are called the eight difficulties. The four including the dual-gendered are retribution obstacles (vipākāvaraṇa) and do not have the meaning of being eliminated through repentance. As for those who disrupted the two paths, because they were in a different path and then re-entered the Buddha-Dharma, they lack the condition of dwelling together and sharing requisites. Therefore, these five do not enter into the count of instructing repentance. The seventh precept among the forty-four states: 'If a bodhisattva, towards cruel, evil, and precept-violating sentient beings, harbors a mind of resentment, harbors a mind of anger and annoyance, and taking their cruelty, evil, and precept-violation as a condition, expedites abandoning them without benefiting them, this is called an offense and a transgression; it is a defiled transgression. If, out of laziness and negligence, one abandons them, or due to mindfulness being lost one does not benefit them, this is called an offense and a transgression; it is a non-defiled transgression. Why is this? Bodhisattvas do not generate compassion and the desire to benefit those sentient beings whose physical, verbal, and mental karma is pure, keeps the precepts, and functions in tranquility, in the same way they do towards cruel, evil, and precept-violating sentient beings who are presently operating in causes of suffering. Regarding non-offenses: if one's mind is deranged, or if one wishes skillfully to tame and subdue them—explained in full as before; or in order to safeguard the minds of many sentient beings, or to safeguard the regulations of the Saṃgha, one skillfully abandons them and does not benefit them—in all such cases there is no offense.'"