Fourteen Root Downfalls: Jamgön Kongtrul

The following is respectfully quoted from “Buddhist Ethics” by Jamgön Kongtrul:

Fourteen root downfalls of the commitments of training are explained in [Shantideva’s] Compendium of Trainings in accordance with the Akashagarbha Scripture. Five of them apply mainly to kings, one applies exclusively to ministers, and eight apply to beginners. The five [downfalls] that apply mainly to kings who are bodhisattvas-in-training are the following:

1. To steal [or have someone steal] property that has been offered to representations of [the Buddha’s] body, speech, and mind, or to the monastic community.
2. To reject [or cause someone to reject] the teachings of the Universal or Individual ways [by saying that they are not the words of the Buddha or that they are not the means to attain liberation];
3. To harm someone who wears the attributes of a monk, regardless of whether he maintains vows purely or is an immoral monk.
4. To commit any of the five evil deeds of direct retribution, i.e., matricide, patricide, murder of a saint, causing a schism in the monastic community, or out of malice, causing a buddha to bleed; and
5. To profess nihilistic views claiming that actions do not bring results and that there are no future lives, and engaging in unvirtuous types of behavior [or encouraging others to do so].

Five root downfalls that apply mainly to ministers: the first four are the same those prohibited for kings, and the fifth is to plunder a town.

The five root downfalls that apply mainly to ministers who are bodhisattvas-in-training include the first four root downfalls for a king, plus plundering a town and the like.

To plunder [a town] comprises five kinds of ravage: of a village (inhabited by four castes); a town (inhabited by eighteen kinds of artisans); a county (an area that includes several towns); a province (an area consisting of several counties); or a country (an area consisting of several provinces).

The eight root downfalls that apply to beginners are to teach emptiness to the untrained,
To cause another to give up the intention to awaken, to make someone abandon the Individual Way,
To assert that the Individual Way does not conquer emotions,
To praise oneself and belittle others,
To falsely claim realization of emptiness,
To cause a king to inflict a fine and then accept stolen property as a bribe,
To disrupt meditation or to give the possessions of a contemplative monk to one who merely recites scriptures.

The eight root downfalls [that apply mainly to] beginner bodhisattvas are as follows:

1. To teach the profound subject of emptiness to those who are of limited intellect or those who are untrained [in the Universal Way], causing them to be intimidated [by the Universalist’s doctrine] and thereby to lose faith in it.
2. To cause someone to give up the intention to become fully enlightened and to enter the way of the proclaimers or solitary sages when that individual is already following the Universal Way, by declaring that he or she is not able to practice the six perfections and other aspects of [the Universal Way].
3. To advise someone with an affinity for the Individual Way to abandon that path and then cause him or her to enter the Universal Way without special necessity to do so.
4. To believe and to cause another to believe, without any special necessity, that by following the Individual Way, one cannot conquer the emotions.
5. To praise oneself when one is not worthy and to belittle others when they do not deserve it, for the sake of wealth and honor.
6. To [falsely] claim, for the sake of wealth and honor, to have attained [direct] realization of profound [emptiness] by saying that one has understood profound truth and to incite others to meditate to achieve the same goal.
7. To cause a king or other person in a position of power to inflict a fine on a Buddhist monk by slandering him. If as a result the monk steals property of the Three Jewels in order to bribe oneself [the instigator] and one accepts it, one incurs this downfall. If one gives the property to the king, both [instigator and king] incur this downfall.
8. To cause a good monk to abandon mental quiescence or other forms of spiritual practice by imposing unfair punishment on him, or to deprive a contemplative monk of his life necessities to give these directly or indirectly to a monk who merely recites scriptures. If the recipient is an accomplice to one’s act, he or she also incurs this downfall.

These are the fourteen downfalls that apply to acute practitioners, five for kings, one exclusive to ministers, and eight for beginners.

Four downfalls that Apply to Average Practitioners[B’]

Downfalls for average practitioners are to give up awakening mind, be ungenerous, angry, or hypocritical.

Four [downfalls] apply mainly to average practitioners. These are stated in the Compendium of Trainings, based on their presentation in the Skill in Means Scripture:

To abandon one’s awakening mind;
Not to give alms to mendicants
Out of strong attachment and avarice;
Not to forgive
But to strike others in anger
Even though they try to please one;
And to present false teachings as the Buddha’s teachings
Motivated by an emotion or in order to please others.

One Downfall that Applies to Obtuse Practitioners [C’]

An obtuse practitioner must at least maintain the aspiration to awaken.

Having entered the Universal Way, an obtuse practitioner must, at the very least, maintain the aspiration [to awaken]. Accordingly, the Advice to the King Scriptures states that all precepts are fulfilled in this alone. To abandon one’s [aspiration] is a very serious root downfall for any bodhisattva, whether acute, average, or obtuse. The Condensed Transcendent Wisdom Scripture states:

Though [a bodhisattva] may have tread the path of the ten virtues for ten million eons,
If his goal shifts to becoming a solitary sage or a saint,
His ethics deteriorate and his commitments are lost.
Such a setback is far more serious than the defeating offense [of a monk].