Nineteen Marks of Genuine Moral Discipline
Following generosity, the treatise turns to moral discipline itself, unpacking a well-known five-part scriptural formula for what it means to genuinely possess precepts, then continuing with fourteen further marks of bodily and verbal conduct — together portraying, in remarkably concrete psychological detail, what a genuinely, thoroughly virtuous practitioner's inner life and outward bearing actually look like.
1. Five Qualities of Genuinely Possessing Moral Discipline
如契經說：成就尸羅，善能防護別解脫律儀，軌則所行皆悉圓滿，見微細罪生大怖畏，於諸學處善能受學。云何成就尸羅？能受能護淨尸羅故。云何善能防護別解脫律儀？能善護持出離尸羅故。云何軌則所行皆悉圓滿？具淨尸羅難為毀責故。云何見微細罪生大怖畏？勇猛恭敬所學尸羅故。云何於諸學處善能受學圓滿？受學所學尸羅故。
As the sūtra says: one who possesses moral discipline, is skillfully able to guard the restraint of individual liberation, is fully accomplished in both proper conduct and proper range of activity, feels great dread at even the subtlest fault, and is skillfully able to undertake the training-points.
What is possessing moral discipline? Being able to undertake and to guard pure moral discipline. What is skillfully guarding the restraint of individual liberation? Being able to well protect and maintain the moral discipline that liberates. What is being fully accomplished in proper conduct and range of activity? Possessing pure moral discipline so thoroughly that one is difficult to reproach. What is feeling great dread at even the subtlest fault? Studying one's moral discipline with vigor and reverence. What is skillfully undertaking the training-points fully? Genuinely undertaking and training in the very precepts one has vowed to keep.
2. Fourteen Marks of Bodily and Verbal Conduct
從是已後依止尸羅釋佛經中護身等義。云何名為防護身語？由彼正解所攝持故。云何身語具足圓滿？終不毀犯所毀犯故。云何身語清淨現行？由無悔等漸次修行，乃至得定為依止故。云何身語極善現行？染污尋思所不雜故。云何身語無罪現行？遠離邪願修梵行故。
On the basis of moral discipline, the treatise now explains the sūtra's own further account of guarding the body and the rest.
What is guarding body and speech? Being upheld by correct understanding. What is body and speech fully accomplished? Never violating what should not be violated. What is body and speech's purified manifestation? Gradually practicing free of regret and the like, all the way to relying on concentration itself as one's own support. What is body and speech's most excellent manifestation? Being unmixed with defiled discursive thought. What is body and speech's blameless manifestation? Practicing chaste conduct free of any wrongful aspiration.
云何身語無害現行？不輕陵他易共住故。云何身語隨順現行？由能隨順涅槃得故。云何身語隨隱顯現行？隱善顯惡故。云何身語親善現行？同梵行者攝受尸羅故。云何身語應儀現行？於尊尊位離憍慢故。云何身語敬順現行？於尊教誨敬順受故。
What is body and speech's harmless manifestation? Not belittling others, and being easy to live alongside. What is body and speech's accordant manifestation? Being genuinely capable of according with the attainment of nirvāṇa. What is body and speech's manifestation of concealing and revealing appropriately? Concealing one's own virtues, and openly revealing one's own faults. What is body and speech's manifestation of genuine friendliness? Being embraced within moral discipline together with fellow practitioners of chaste conduct. What is body and speech's manifestation of fitting deportment? Being free of arrogance toward those in a position deserving respect. What is body and speech's manifestation of respectful compliance? Receiving a respected teacher's instruction with reverence and compliance.
云何身語無熱現行？遠離苦行熱惱下劣欲解故。云何身語不惱現行？棄捨財業無悔惱故。云何身語無悔現行？雖得少分不以為喜而無悔恨故。
What is body and speech's manifestation free of feverish distress? Being free of the burning distress that inferior aspiration toward pointless austerity produces. What is body and speech's untroubled manifestation? Renouncing wealth and worldly occupation without any subsequent regret. What is body and speech's manifestation free of remorse? Even upon attaining only a small measure of progress, feeling neither excessive joy nor any regret over it.
T1606 fills in several of these marks with vivid concrete detail worth drawing out. "Concealing one's own virtues, and openly revealing one's own faults" is glossed as a deliberate practice of humility — actively hiding one's own good qualities from others while being forthright about one's own shortcomings, the precise reverse of ordinary self-promotion. "Fitting deportment" is illustrated as showing due respect and service to elders and those of equal standing, as one would properly attend upon a worthy guest. "Free of feverish distress" is glossed pointedly against certain non-Buddhist ascetics' own self-mortifying practices — refusing to burn oneself up through pointless, self-punishing austerity of the kind such outside schools mistakenly pursue as spiritual practice. And "renouncing wealth and worldly occupation without regret" describes someone who has genuinely, permanently set aside worldly livelihood for the sake of practice, and who, precisely because that renunciation was never half-hearted, feels no later pang of regret or longing for what was given up.
Taken together, these fourteen marks — closely paired with the five qualities of possessing moral discipline just given — build up a strikingly complete portrait of a genuinely accomplished practitioner's entire inner and outer bearing: not merely someone who refrains from the ten unwholesome karma-paths in the abstract, but someone whose settled understanding, freedom from regret, humility, ease of companionship, and steady equanimity toward both worldly renunciation and spiritual progress all cohere into a single, recognizable way of being in the world.
Part 48 Complete
Nineteen marks together — five defining what it means to genuinely possess moral discipline, and fourteen further describing its actual bodily and verbal manifestation — are now examined. Part 49 closes 集諦 entirely: a final reflection on karma's own genuinely inconceivable scope, and the treatise's own four-part summary of what "origination" as a whole actually means.
Continue to Part 49 — The Truth of Origination Closes →