Khenpo Tsültrim
Gyamtso Rinpoche
 

July 19, 2013

Guarding Disipline

Practice 26: The Second Paramita - Guarding discipline

          If lack of discipline prevents you from benefiting yourself,
         Then your wish to benefit others is just a joke.
         Therefore, to guard discipline
         With no longing for worldly existence
          Is the practice of a Bodhisattva.

In general, discipline is of three types: First is the discipline to abandon all faults of body, speech, and mind. Second is the discipline to accumulate virtue. Third is the discipline to work for the benefit of sentient beings.

As applied to the three vehicles, giving up harming others is the discipline of the Sravakayana; benefiting others is the discipline of the Mahayana; and developing the ability to see all appearances as pure is the discipline of the Vajrayana.

If, without discipline, you cannot benefit even yourself by accomplishing the one-sided peace of nirvana, how will you be able to accomplish Buddhahood for the benefit of all other beings?

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, From The 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, 1993, p. 117.

Translated by Susanne Schefczyk.