39. Restraint of the Body, Speech, and Mind

Overall Teaching

The Buddha teaches that Bodhisattvas must perfect bodily, verbal, and mental restraint to gain unobstructed wisdom and full awakening: bodily restraint means refraining from harmful actions; verbal restraint abandons unwholesome speech; mental restraint renounces wrong views and sees all phenomena as dreamlike illusions. The teaching concludes with three hundred phrases on pure karma, urging a vision of the three realms as illusory and culminating in non-discursive samādhi.

Summary

• The Buddha addresses a Candraprabha and emphasises the necessity for a Bodhisattva to cultivate restraint of body, speech, and mind, which will develop wisdom and all the Buddha-dharmas.

  1. Bodily Restraint:

1. • • Bodily restraint means refraining from harmful physical actions, using one’s body in wholesome ways, and thereby attaining unobstructed wisdom in all dharmas.

       • It results in attaining the 32 marks of a great being, the 10 powers of a Buddha, the 4 fearlessnesses, 4 unobstructed wisdoms, and 18 unique qualities of a buddha. Moreover, it brings forth the ability to realise the three doors of liberation (emptiness, signlessness, wishlessness) and the ability to cultivate the four immeasurables.

       • Bodily restraint is also the foundation for the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right efforts, the four bases of supernormal power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening, and the noble eightfold path.

       • It supports the attainment of the four dhyānas, four formless absorptions, and great compassion and cessation.

     • It is practised by abstaining from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter, greed, anger, and wrong views.

     • As an example of bodily restraint, the Buddha tells the past life story of the Buddha Jñāprabhāsa and King Viveśacintin:

       • Buddha Jñāprabhāsa lived for sixty billion years. 

       • King Viveśacintin and his retinue of eighty billion people visit Jñāprabhāsa Buddha

         • Jñāprabhāsa teaches bodily restraint in a verse that compares bodily restraint to space, echoes, dreams, illusions, mirages. He teaches that true precepts are beyond characteristics, unborn, free of attachment. That knowing emptiness/selflessness is connected to perfectly upholding precepts. Thus, one should see all dharmas as empty, non-arising, and practice accordingly.

1. • • • King Viveśacintin, inspired by these verses, leaves home for ten billion years, practices noble conduct, and benefits countless beings. 

       • King Viveśacintin at that time was Śākyamuni Buddha's own previous life in his bodhisattva career.

1. 1. • Śākyamuni Buddha further adds that bodhisattvas with pure bodily actions do not fear birth in lower realms or harm by humans, non-humans, animals, natural calamities. They gain supernormal powers, being able to reach anywhere in the cosmos, hear anything, know anyone's thoughts, and remember all past lives of themselves and others. Most importantly, they understsand the twelve links of dependent origination in both arising and cessation and the Four Noble Truths as part of wisdom gained through bodily restraint.

   2. Verbal Restraint:

      • Verbal restraint is abstaining from false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter. One never utters coarse words to parents, teachers, elders. One comes to see speech as ultimately empty (like echoes, dreams, illusions, mirages, shadows).

      • Verbal restraint results in: 

        • The “inconceivable sixty kinds of unobstructed, pure, and wonderful voices of the Buddha.” (In Secrets of the Tathāgata Sūtra, chapter on the Inconceivable Secret of the Tathāgata's Voice) One's words that are spoken become trustworthy and accepted by others. 

        • It also results in attaining the 32 marks of a great being, and 10 powers, etc. (as with bodily restraint).

      • These teachings are reitereated in verse form.

   3. Mental Restraint:

      • Mental restraint is abandoning wrong views, anger, stinginess, laziness, deceit, greed, delusion. Never abandoning the mind of awakening; always nurturing faith and joy. It also involves seeing all dharmas as dream-like, illusory, empty, free from going or coming.

      • It results in:

        • All Buddha-dharmas, all supernormal powers, and immovable liberation of mind. Also, the attainment of the “vajra samādhi,” blazing light, and the subtle voice of the Buddha.

• • • • The thirty-two marks, ten powers, etc. (as before).

      • It resulst in abiding in great compassion, equanimity, and peaceful and tranquil awakening.

    • The teaching is reiterated in verse form.

• Next, the sūtra features three hundred phrases on pure karma and bodhisattva practice. They are structued in a question and answer format: "What is X? It is Y."

• Initial Statement on Pure Karma: “Seeing the three realms as like a dream,” disenchanted, without craving: this is pure karma.

• The aggregates, sense bases, and dharmas should be understood as illusions, mirages, dreams, reflections. One should abandon attachment and craving to them.

• Most of the teachings given in the phrases are teachings found elsewhere in chapter. But unique to this chapter include:

  • • Not delighting in the taste of meditative absorption but using it to leave the three realms.

    • Knowing how to question, answer, and expound Dharma with parables.

    • Abandoning idle speech, praising the upholders of precepts, reproaching those who break them.

    • In working to liberate all beings from suffering, one assumes the role of a great guide and physician-king.

    • In culmination, one attains the samādhi of the equality and non-discursive nature of all dharmas, that transcends all conceptual proliferation, seeing all phenomena as dream-like, empty, and signless.

Commentary

According to Thrangu Rinpoche’s commentary, the chapter on the restraint of body, speech, and mind can be read as one chapter or split into three, but the meaning remains the same. Bodily restraint (the precepts of the body) chiefly involves abandoning killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, yet certain actions—normally “negative”—may become virtuous if performed with intelligence and a pure, unselfish motive (as in the story of Prince Fortitude). Verbal restraint (the precepts of speech) likewise concerns forsaking false speech, divisive talk, harsh words, and idle gossip, but may be skillfully employed to benefit others in rare circumstances. Mental restraint (the precepts of mind), however, always requires refraining from greed, ill will, and wrong views, since these can never become virtuous. Finally, the Buddha provides “300 instructions” largely emphasising emptiness—likening the aggregates to a mirage and the sense bases to magical illusions—to foster direct insight into the dreamlike nature of all phenomena.

In Mañjuśrīkīrti’s commentary, he expands on the teaching restraint of body, speech, and mind:

1. The ultimate restraint of body, he explains, refers to the realization of the dharmakāya, or “the body that is the nature of all phenomena.” This insight sees all phenomena as empty, luminous, and signless, and it ultimately grounds the attainment of buddhahood’s highest qualities. The conventional vow of body, meanwhile, involves abstaining from the ten nonvirtuous actions (killing, stealing, etc.) and upholding ten virtuous actions, illustrated by specific examples (cheating on scales, binding others, and so forth).

2. In discussing verbal restraint, he enumerates the “sixty qualities” of Buddha’s speech, clarifying that truly pure speech arises from the same realization of emptiness that undergirds bodily discipline.

3. As for mental restraint, ultimate mental restraint means realizing the nature of mind as empty and unborn, such that there is no actual māra or affliction separate from mind itself. One thereby attains a vajra-like samādhi—utterly unshakable and free from fear, afflictions, and conceptual fabrications. On a conventional level, this vow entails not associating with the mental states of wrong view, covetousness, laziness, or malice, and continuously upholding the awakened mind (bodhicitta). By seeing all phenomena as illusions—mirages without coming or going—one avoids clinging and thus becomes “unmoved” by worldly pressures, just as Mount Meru cannot be moved by ants.