Speech That Moistens
The ten courses of wholesome action continue, and three of the remaining six concern speech. The sūtra spends far longer here than on killing or theft — seventeen kinds of harsh speech named and abandoned, ten kinds of good speech named and taken up in their place. Then the three that concern mind alone, and a plain observation about why any of it has to be done oneself first.
Three Courses of Speech
Divisive speech is defined by its mechanism — carrying words between two parties — and then closed off at the place most people would leave open. Harsh speech is given the longest treatment of any of the ten, and it is treated as a replacement rather than a prohibition.
性不兩舌，菩薩於諸眾生無離間心、無惱害心，不將此語為破彼故而向彼說，不將彼語為破此故而向此說，未破者不令破，已破者不增長，不喜離間，不樂離間，不作離間語，不說離間語，若實、若不實。
By nature they do not speak divisively. Toward all sentient beings the bodhisattva holds no mind to divide and no mind to do harm. They do not take what one party has said and repeat it to another in order to break that other, nor take what the other has said and repeat it back in order to break the first. What is not yet broken they do not cause to break; what is already broken they do not enlarge. They take no pleasure in division and no delight in it; they neither compose divisive words nor speak divisive words — whether those words be true or untrue.
性不惡口，所謂：毒害語、麁獷語、苦他語、令他瞋恨語、現前語、不現前語、鄙惡語、庸賤語、不可樂聞語、聞者不悅語、瞋忿語、如火燒心語、怨結語、熱惱語、不可愛語、不可樂語、能壞自身他身語，如是等語皆悉捨離，常作潤澤語、柔軟語、悅意語、可樂聞語、聞者喜悅語、善入人心語、風雅典則語、多人愛樂語、多人悅樂語、身心踊悅語。
By nature they do not speak harshly — that is to say: poisonous and injurious speech, coarse and violent speech, speech that causes others pain, speech that provokes others to anger and resentment, speech made to a person's face and speech made behind their back, base and evil speech, vulgar and contemptible speech, speech unpleasant to hear, speech that displeases the hearer, speech of anger and rage, speech that burns the mind like fire, speech that knots up enmity, speech that scalds and torments, speech that cannot be loved, speech that cannot be enjoyed, and speech able to ruin oneself and others alike. All such speech as this they wholly abandon, and constantly make speech that moistens, speech that is gentle, speech that pleases the mind, speech pleasant to hear, speech that gladdens the hearer, speech that enters a person's heart well, speech elegant and well-formed, speech that many love, speech that many delight in, and speech that lifts up both body and mind.
性不綺語，菩薩常樂思審語、時語、實語、義語、法語、順道理語、巧調伏語、隨時籌量決定語，是菩薩乃至戲笑尚恒思審，何況故出散亂之言！
By nature they do not speak frivolously. The bodhisattva constantly delights in considered speech, timely speech, true speech, meaningful speech, Dharma speech, speech that accords with reason, speech that skillfully tames, and speech weighed and settled according to the occasion. This bodhisattva remains considered even in jest and laughter — how much less would they deliberately utter scattered and disordered words!
若實、若不實 — whether those words be true or untrue — is the clause that makes the treatment of divisive speech unusually strict. Truthfulness is normally the defense against a charge about speech, and here it is explicitly removed as one. What is at issue is not accuracy but what the speaking is for, and a true report carried between two people in order to set them against each other is the thing being forbidden.
The harsh-speech passage does not stop at abandonment. Seventeen kinds of speech are given up and ten are taken up in their place, and the positive list is not simply the negative one reversed — it includes speech that is elegant and well-formed, speech that many delight in, speech that enters a person's heart well. Silence would satisfy the prohibition and does not satisfy this. What is being asked for is a different way of talking, not less talking.
潤澤語, speech that moistens, uses the same image that appeared among the ten minds of the first ground, 潤澤心 in Part 408. Both describe something that keeps a surface from going hard and dry, and it is worth noticing that the sūtra applies it to the mind's own condition and to what that mind then says.
Three Courses of Mind, and the Reason
The final three courses concern nothing anyone else can observe. Then the sūtra states, without ornament, why a bodhisattva who intends to help others must first do this themselves.
性不貪欲，菩薩於他財物、他所資用，不生貪心，不願不求。性離瞋恚，菩薩於一切眾生恒起慈心、利益心、哀愍心、歡喜心、和潤心、攝受心，永捨瞋恨、怨害、熱惱，常思順行，仁慈祐益。又離邪見，菩薩住於正道，不行占卜，不取惡戒，心見正直，無誑無諂，於佛、法、僧起決定信。
By nature they are without covetousness. Toward another's goods and property, and toward what another makes use of, the bodhisattva gives rise to no covetous mind; they neither wish for it nor seek it. By nature they are free of ill will. Toward all sentient beings the bodhisattva constantly gives rise to a mind of loving-kindness, a mind of benefit, a mind of pity, a mind of gladness, a mind of harmony and moisture, and a mind that gathers others in; they forever cast off anger, enmity, and scalding torment, and constantly think upon conduct that accords, upon benevolence and kindness that help and benefit. And they are free of wrong views. The bodhisattva abides in the right path; they do not practice divination, do not take up wrong observances, and are upright in mind and in view, without deceit and without flattery, giving rise to a settled faith in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha.
「佛子！菩薩摩訶薩如是護持十善業道，常無間斷，復作是念：『一切眾生墮惡趣者，莫不皆以十不善業；是故我當自修正行，亦勸於他，令修正行。何以故？若自不能修行正行，令他修者，無有是處。』
"Child of the Buddha! A bodhisattva mahāsattva who thus guards and upholds the ten courses of wholesome action, constantly and without interruption, thinks further in this way: 'There is not one among all sentient beings fallen into the evil destinies who did not come there by the ten unwholesome actions. Therefore I should cultivate right conduct myself, and should also urge it upon others, causing them to cultivate right conduct. And why? Because if one cannot oneself practice right conduct, then to cause another to practice it is simply not possible.'
The three courses of mind are the only ones on this ground that leave no trace anyone could check. Nothing is said or done; a covetous thought or a flicker of ill will harms no one directly. Their inclusion means the second ground's purity is not a matter of conduct that would satisfy an observer. 離垢, free of defilement, is being applied to a place no one else can see into.
The closing argument is stated as a matter of possibility rather than of hypocrisy — 無有是處, there is simply no such case. The bodhisattva does not say that teaching what one does not practice would be shameful, though it would be. They say it does not work. Whatever it is that gets transmitted from one person to another in this domain, it apparently cannot be transmitted by someone who does not have it.
Part 415 Complete
This continues the second of the Ten Grounds. Chapter 26 continues in Part 416 as the bodhisattva reflects further on what these same ten courses produce — the ten unwholesome ones leading to the hells, the animal realm, and the hungry ghosts, and the ten wholesome ones to the human and heavenly states up to the summit of existence — and then how the very same ten, practiced at their highest degree, yield the śrāvaka vehicle, the solitary-awakened vehicle, or the vast practice of a bodhisattva, according to the breadth of the mind that undertakes them.