The Remaining Five Grave Precepts
Chapter 7 opened the ten grave precepts with the first five — killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and selling intoxicants. This chapter completes the set: speaking of others' faults, self-praise paired with disparaging others, stinginess, holding onto anger, and slandering the Three Jewels — closing with the sūtra's own account of what is at stake in keeping, or breaking, any one of the ten. What follows next, not yet translated on this site, are the forty-eight minor precepts.
1. Milestone: The Sixth Grave Precept — Speaking of Others' Faults 談他過失戒
「若佛子！自說出家在家菩薩、比丘、比丘尼罪過，教人說罪過，罪過因、罪過緣、罪過法、罪過業。而菩薩聞外道惡人，及二乘惡人，說佛法中非法非律，常生悲心，教化是惡人輩，令生大乘善信。而菩薩反更自說佛法中罪過者，是菩薩波羅夷罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if you speak yourself of the faults of a renunciant or lay bodhisattva, a monk, or a nun, or direct another to speak of their faults; if you engage in the cause of faultfinding, the condition of faultfinding, the method of faultfinding, or the very act of faultfinding — a bodhisattva, on hearing outsiders or evildoers, or evil adherents of the lesser vehicles, speak of what is neither dharma nor discipline within the Buddha's own teaching, should instead constantly give rise to a compassionate mind, teaching these very people until they come to a wholesome faith in the great vehicle. But if, on the contrary, a bodhisattva speaks of the faults of those within the Buddha's own teaching, this is a bodhisattva's pārājika offense."
Notice what this precept does not forbid: hearing outsiders criticize Buddhist teaching, even unfairly, is not the offense — the bodhisattva's instructed response to that is patient teaching, not silence or defensiveness. What is forbidden is a bodhisattva broadcasting the faults of people within their own community. The line the precept draws is not between criticism and praise, but between correction offered from genuine care and disclosure that simply damages other people's trust in the teaching itself.
2. Milestone: The Seventh Grave Precept — Self-Praise and Disparaging Others 自讚毀他戒
「若佛子！自讚毀他，亦教人自讚毀他，毀他因、毀他緣、毀他法、毀他業。而菩薩應代一切眾生受加毀辱，惡事自向己，好事與他人。若自揚己德，隱他人好事，令他人受毀者，是菩薩波羅夷罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if you praise yourself and disparage others with your own mouth, or direct another to praise themselves and disparage others; if you engage in the cause of disparagement, the condition of disparagement, the method of disparagement, or the very act of disparagement — a bodhisattva should instead take on every being's blame and insult in their place, turning wrongdoing toward themselves and good deeds toward others. But if a bodhisattva instead makes a show of their own virtue, hides another's good deeds, and so causes that person to be disparaged, this is a bodhisattva's pārājika offense."
The precept names two things joined together — praising oneself and disparaging another — and it is worth knowing that the tradition treats each half, taken alone, as a lighter matter; it is the pairing that completes this grave offense. And the instructed alternative is not modest silence but an active redirection: taking on others' blame in their place, and turning credit outward. The precept is not asking a bodhisattva to think less of themselves — it is asking them to point the attention they'd otherwise spend defending their own reputation toward someone else's instead.
3. Milestone: The Eighth Grave Precept — Stinginess and Abuse of Others 慳生毀辱戒
「若佛子！自慳，教人慳，慳因、慳緣、慳法、慳業。而菩薩見一切貧窮人來乞者，隨前人所須，一切給與。而菩薩以惡心瞋心，乃至不施一錢一針一草，有求法者，不為說一句一偈一微塵許法，而反更罵辱者，是菩薩波羅夷罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if you are stingy yourself, or direct another to be stingy; if you engage in the cause of stinginess, the condition of stinginess, the method of stinginess, or the very act of stinginess — a bodhisattva, seeing any destitute person come to beg, should give that person whatever they need. But if a bodhisattva, out of an unwholesome or hateful mind, will not give so much as a single coin, a single needle, or a single blade of grass, and to one who seeks the dharma will not teach so much as a single phrase, a single verse, a single mote-sized fragment of the teaching, and instead reviles and humiliates them, this is a bodhisattva's pārājika offense."
This precept names two distinct forms of stinginess side by side — withholding material things, and withholding the dharma itself, down to a single verse — treating them as equally grave. Set beside the Diamond Sūtra's teaching on giving without dwelling and the Chapter of Pure Conduct's 141 wishes for all beings, this precept turns that same generosity into an enforceable floor: not a single needle, not a single blade of grass, withheld out of ill will.
4. Milestone: The Ninth Grave Precept — Holding Resentment and Refusing Apology 瞋不受謝戒
「若佛子！自嗔，教人嗔，嗔因、嗔緣、嗔法、嗔業。而菩薩應生一切眾生中善根無諍之事，常生悲心。而反更於一切眾生中，乃至於非眾生中，以惡口罵辱，加以手打，及以刀杖，意猶不息，前人求悔，善言懺謝，猶嗔不解者，是菩薩波羅夷罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if you give rise to anger yourself, or direct another to give rise to anger; if you engage in the cause of anger, the condition of anger, the method of anger, or the very act of anger — a bodhisattva should instead give rise to the wholesome root of freedom from contention among every being, constantly giving rise to a compassionate mind. But if, on the contrary, a bodhisattva reviles any being — even a being without sentience at all — with harsh words, strikes them with their hand, or attacks them with a knife or staff, and their anger still does not subside; and if that person seeks forgiveness, offering sincere and humble words of apology, and still the anger will not release, this is a bodhisattva's pārājika offense."
Read the precise trigger carefully: anger alone is not what completes this offense — the sūtra's own wording turns on anger that persists after the other person has already sought reconciliation with sincere words. This is not a precept demanding a mind that never becomes angry. It is a precept about whether anger, once someone has genuinely reached out to end it, can actually be released.
5. Milestone: The Tenth Grave Precept — Slandering the Three Jewels 毀謗三寶戒
「若佛子！自謗三寶，教人謗三寶，謗因、謗緣、謗法、謗業。而菩薩見外道及以惡人一言謗佛音聲，如三百鉾刺心，況口自謗，不生信心孝順心。而反更助惡人邪見人謗者，是菩薩波羅夷罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if you slander the Three Jewels yourself, or direct another to slander the Three Jewels; if you engage in the cause of slander, the condition of slander, the method of slander, or the very act of slander — a bodhisattva, on hearing even a single word of slander against the Buddha spoken by an outsider or an evildoer, should feel it as though three hundred spears were piercing their own heart — how much more so, then, should they never slander with their own mouth, or fail to give rise to a mind of faith and devotion. But if, on the contrary, a bodhisattva helps an evildoer or a person of wrong view to slander the Three Jewels, this is a bodhisattva's pārājika offense."
Notice the order this precept is built in: it establishes the bodhisattva's felt response to hearing others slander the Three Jewels — three hundred spears through the heart — before it ever turns to the bodhisattva's own speech. The prohibition on self-slander is presented as the smaller, more obvious extension of a feeling the text assumes is already there, not as a rule standing on its own.
6. Milestone: Conclusion of the Ten Grave Precepts 結成門
Having given all ten, the sūtra closes with a direct statement of what is at stake — not framed as arbitrary rules, but as protection for everything the seven prior chapters of this translation have already covered.
「善學諸仁者，是菩薩十波羅提木叉，應當學。於中不應一一犯如微塵許，何況具足犯十戒。若有犯者，不得現身發菩提心，亦失國王位、轉輪王位，亦失比丘比丘尼位，亦失十發趣、十長養、十金剛、十地佛性常住妙果，一切皆失，墮三惡道中，二劫三劫不聞父母三寶名字。以是不應一一犯。汝等一切諸菩薩，今學、當學、已學，如是十戒應當學敬心奉持，八萬威儀品當廣明。」
"Good students, all of you: these are the bodhisattva's ten prātimokṣa, which you should study. Not one of them should be broken, even by so much as a single speck of dust — how much less, then, should all ten be broken at once. Whoever breaks them will not, in this very body, be able to arouse the mind of awakening; they will forfeit the rank of a king, the rank of a wheel-turning king, the rank of a monk or a nun; they will forfeit the Ten Minds of Development, the Ten Minds of Long Nurturing, the Ten Vajra Minds, the Ten Grounds, and the wondrous, ever-abiding fruit of buddha-nature itself — all of it lost, falling into the three evil destinies, where for two or three kalpas they will not so much as hear the names of their own parents or of the Three Jewels. For this reason, not one of these should ever be broken. All of you bodhisattvas — studying them now, who will study them, who have already studied them — should study these ten precepts and uphold them with a reverent mind. They are explained fully in the Chapter on the Eighty Thousand Forms of Dignified Conduct."
Read what is named as lost: not an abstract punishment, but specifically the Ten Minds of Development, the Ten Minds of Long Nurturing, the Ten Vajra Minds, and the Ten Grounds — by name, the exact forty mind-gates Chapters 2 through 6 of this translation spent five chapters unfolding. The sūtra is not describing these precepts as a separate, additional demand layered on top of everything already translated here. It is describing them as the condition on which everything already translated remains actually available. This closes the full set of ten grave precepts. What follows next in the sūtra, not yet translated on this site, are the forty-eight minor precepts — the more granular, everyday conduct that fills out what these ten establish in outline.