Restraint, Non-Restraint, and Neither
The treatise turns to a new threefold division of karma cutting across everything examined so far: restraint, non-restraint, and neither. This part takes up restraint itself, unpacked into three distinct kinds — the individual liberation vows undertaken by the sevenfold monastic and lay community, the restraint that arises automatically with meditative attainment, and the uncontaminated restraint of one who has already seen the truths directly.
1. Individual Liberation Restraint, Across Seven Communities
又業差別有三種，謂律儀業、不律儀業、非律儀非不律儀業。云何律儀業？謂別解脫律儀所攝業、靜慮律儀所攝業、無漏律儀所攝業。別解脫律儀所攝業者，即是七眾所受律儀，謂苾芻律儀、苾芻尼律儀、式叉摩那律儀、勤策律儀、勤策女律儀、鄔波索迦律儀、鄔波斯迦律儀，及近住律儀。
Karma, further, is of three distinct kinds: restraint karma, non-restraint karma, and karma that is neither. What is restraint karma? Karma belonging to individual-liberation restraint, to meditation-born restraint, and to uncontaminated restraint.
Karma belonging to individual-liberation restraint is precisely the restraint undertaken by the seven communities: the restraint of a bhikṣu, of a bhikṣuṇī, of a śikṣamāṇā, of a śrāmaṇera, of a śrāmaṇerī, of an upāsaka, of an upāsikā, and of one observing the one-day precepts.
依止何等補特伽羅建立出家律儀？依能修行遠離惡行、遠離欲行補特伽羅。依止何等補特伽羅建立鄔波索迦律儀鄔波斯迦律儀？依能盡受遠離惡行、不遠離欲行補特伽羅。依止何等補特伽羅建立近住律儀？依止不能遠離惡行及不能遠離欲行補特伽羅。
On what kind of person is monastic restraint established? On one capable of cultivating both freedom from wrongful conduct and freedom from sensual conduct entirely. On what kind of person is upāsaka and upāsikā restraint established? On one capable of fully undertaking freedom from wrongful conduct, but not freedom from sensual conduct. On what kind of person is one-day restraint established? On one capable of neither freedom from wrongful conduct nor freedom from sensual conduct, fully and permanently.
若唯修學鄔波索迦一分學處，為說成就鄔波索迦律儀、為說不成就？應說成就而名犯戒。扇搋、半擇迦等，為遮彼受鄔波索迦律儀不耶？不遮彼受鄔波索迦律儀。然遮彼鄔波索迦性，不堪親近承事苾芻苾芻尼等二出家眾故。又半擇迦有五種，謂生便半擇迦、嫉妬半擇迦、半月半擇迦、灌灑半擇迦、除去半擇迦。
If one undertakes only a portion of an upāsaka's training-points, should this person be said to possess upāsaka restraint, or not? They should be said to possess it, though they are also said to have violated a precept. Are eunuchs and the sexually indeterminate barred from receiving upāsaka restraint? They are not barred from receiving it — but they are barred from full upāsaka status, since they are unfit to closely attend upon the two monastic communities of bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs. The sexually indeterminate are further of five kinds: those born so, those made so through jealousy-driven mutilation, those affected only periodically, those made so through ritual sprinkling, and those surgically altered.
T1606 explains the underlying logic sorting the sevenfold community into three tiers of restraint: the monastic tier undertakes total freedom from both wrongful conduct and sensual activity for life; the lay tier (upāsaka/upāsikā) undertakes total freedom from wrongful conduct but does not renounce sensual activity itself; and one-day restraint is a temporary, twenty-four-hour undertaking for those not yet ready for either fuller commitment, deliberately structured this way — T1606 notes — precisely to gradually acclimate lay practitioners toward eventually taking on both fuller trainings. The upāsaka case is worth flagging as a genuinely important point of Buddhist ethical theory: partial precept-observance is still real precept-possession, not simply "no precepts at all" — one who has vowed five precepts but broken one still possesses upāsaka restraint overall, they are simply also, additionally, guilty of a specific violation. The two are not mutually exclusive.
2. Meditation-Born and Uncontaminated Restraint
靜慮律儀所攝業者，謂能損伏發起犯戒煩惱種子，離欲界欲者所有遠離、離初靜慮欲者所有遠離、離第二靜慮欲者所有遠離、離第三靜慮欲者所有遠離，是名靜慮律儀所攝身語業。
What is karma belonging to meditation-born restraint? Restraint capable of suppressing the seeds of the afflictions that give rise to precept-violation — the freedom possessed by one already free of desire-realm desire, the freedom possessed by one already free of desire for the first dhyāna, and correspondingly for the second and third dhyānas — this is called bodily and verbal karma belonging to meditation-born restraint.
無漏律儀所攝業者，謂以見諦者由無漏作意力所得無漏遠離戒性，是名無漏律儀所攝業。
What is karma belonging to uncontaminated restraint? The uncontaminated freedom, in its very nature as moral discipline, that one who has already seen the truths obtains through the power of uncontaminated mental application — this is called karma belonging to uncontaminated restraint.
Meditation-born and uncontaminated restraint are worth distinguishing sharply from individual-liberation restraint, since they operate entirely differently: individual-liberation restraint must be deliberately, ceremonially undertaken through a formal vow — no one simply acquires bhikṣu precepts by accident. Meditation-born restraint, by contrast, arises automatically and effortlessly the moment one genuinely attains the corresponding level of meditative absorption; a person who has actually attained the first dhyāna, for instance, simply finds that certain kinds of unwholesome conduct no longer arise from them at all, without any separate vow being taken. Uncontaminated restraint arises the same automatic way, but on the strength of direct realization of the truths rather than meditative attainment — a noble one who has seen the truths directly no longer needs deliberate willpower to refrain from serious wrongdoing, since the very clarity of that realization itself already constitutes a kind of moral restraint no formal vow could match.
Part 44 Complete
Restraint karma, in all three of its kinds, is now fully examined. Part 45 turns to its opposite — non-restraint, the deliberate, ongoing commitment to a livelihood built on harm — and to the large residual category of ordinary karma belonging to neither restraint nor non-restraint at all.
Continue to Part 45 — Non-Restraint, and Neither →