The First Ten Minor Precepts
Chapter 8 closed the ten grave precepts. The sūtra now turns to the forty-eight minor precepts — more granular, everyday conduct that fills out what the ten major precepts establish in outline. This chapter covers the first ten: respecting one's teachers, abstaining from alcohol, from meat, and from the five pungent roots, encouraging others to repent, requesting the dharma from visiting teachers, attending dharma lectures, not turning away from the great vehicle, caring for the sick, and not keeping weapons.
1. Milestone: The First Minor Precept — Not Respecting Teachers 不敬師長戒
「若佛子欲受國王位時，受轉輪王位時，百官受位時，應先受菩薩戒。一切鬼神救護王身百官之身，諸佛歡喜。既得戒已，生孝順心恭敬心，見上座、和上、阿闍梨、大同學、同見、同行者，應起承迎，禮拜問訊。而菩薩反生憍心慢心癡心，不起承迎禮拜，一一不如法供養，以自賣身、國城男女七寶百物而供給之，若不爾者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — when about to receive the rank of a king, a wheel-turning king, or any high office, you should first receive the bodhisattva precepts. Every spirit will then protect the body of that king or official, and every buddha will rejoice. Having received the precepts, give rise to a mind of filial devotion and reverence: on seeing a senior in the assembly, a preceptor, a teacher, or one who shares the same learning, the same views, or the same practice, you should rise to greet them, bow, and inquire after them with respect. But if a bodhisattva instead gives rise to a proud, arrogant, or foolish mind, and does not rise to greet and bow with reverence — offering nothing in accordance with the dharma — they should, if necessary, sell their own body, their lands, their sons and daughters, and their seven treasures and hundred possessions in order to provide for such a person. If they fail to do this, this is a light offense."
The image of selling one's own body, lands, and children to properly provide for a teacher is deliberately extreme — the point is not a literal instruction but a scale-setting device, the same move Chapter 8's precept on stinginess made in reverse. There, withholding a single needle out of ill will was enough to break a grave precept. Here, even total material sacrifice is offered as insufficient once respect itself has been withheld.
2. Milestone: The Second Minor Precept — Drinking Alcohol 飲酒戒
「若佛子故飲酒，而生酒過失無量。若自身手過酒器與人飲酒者，五百世無手，何況自飲。不得教一切人飲，及一切眾生飲酒，況自飲酒。若故自飲、教人飲者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — intentional drinking gives rise to boundless faults. If you pass a cup of wine to another with your own hand, you will be born without hands for five hundred lifetimes — how much worse to drink yourself. You should not encourage anyone, any being at all, to drink — how much worse to drink yourself. If you intentionally drink, or direct another to drink, this is a light offense."
Worth setting beside Chapter 7's fifth grave precept, which forbade selling alcohol as one of the ten most serious offenses in the whole sūtra. Drinking it oneself, by contrast, is ranked here among the forty-eight lighter precepts. The distinction the sūtra draws throughout is consistent: an act that puts other people's clarity of mind at risk for profit is treated as gravely as killing or lying; the same act done only to oneself is still wrong, but on a different scale.
3. Milestone: The Third Minor Precept — Eating Meat 食肉戒
「若佛子故食肉，一切肉不得食，斷大慈悲性種子，一切眾生見而捨去。是故一切菩薩不得食一切眾生肉，食肉得無量罪。若故食者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — you should not intentionally eat meat of any kind. To eat meat is to cut off the seed of great compassion itself — every being who sees you will turn and flee. And so no bodhisattva should eat the flesh of any being; eating meat brings boundless offense. If you intentionally eat it, this is a light offense."
This precept is one of the clearer dividing lines within Buddhism's own history: earlier and Theravāda tradition generally permits meat under specific conditions (an animal not seen, heard, or suspected to have been killed specifically for the eater), while texts like this one are part of what shaped the stronger vegetarian norm that became standard across East Asian Mahāyāna monasticism. The reasoning given here is relational rather than nutritional — the claim is not about the body, but about what the practice of eating another being's flesh does to the "seed" of compassion a bodhisattva is trying to cultivate.
4. Milestone: The Fourth Minor Precept — The Five Pungent Roots 食五辛戒
「若佛子不得食五辛：大蒜、革蔥、慈蔥、蘭蔥、興蕖，是五種一切食中不得食，若故食者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — you should not eat the five pungent roots: garlic, the wild onion, the scallion, the shallot, and asafetida. None of these five may be eaten in any food. If you intentionally eat them, this is a light offense."
The classical commentary on this precept offers a reason worth keeping alongside the more familiar one about these roots' strong odor being unfit for community life: the Avataṃsaka Sūtra's own image of eighty thousand tiny creatures said to live within the body, who suffer along with whatever the body suffers and take pleasure in whatever it enjoys — food, on this reading, is never eaten by the self alone, and even a small dietary restraint is framed as consideration for company you cannot see.
5. Milestone: The Fifth Minor Precept — Not Encouraging Repentance 不舉教懺戒
「若佛子見一切眾生犯八戒、五戒、十戒，毀禁七逆八難一切犯戒罪，應教懺悔。而菩薩不教懺悔，共住同僧利養，而共布薩，同一眾住說戒，而不舉其罪，教悔過者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — on seeing any being violate the eight precepts, the five precepts, or the ten precepts, or transgress through any of the seven heinous acts, the eight difficult circumstances, or any other violation of the precepts, you should teach them to repent. But if a bodhisattva does not teach them to repent — living together, sharing in the same benefits of the community, gathering for the same recitation of the precepts — and fails to raise their offense and teach them to repent of it, this is a light offense."
Read this beside Chapter 8's sixth grave precept, which forbade broadcasting a fellow practitioner's faults to outsiders — the two are not in tension. That precept was about what gets said to people outside the community; this one is about what must still be said, directly and privately, within it. Silence toward outsiders and honesty toward the person themselves are the same underlying care, aimed in two different directions.
6. Milestone: The Sixth Minor Precept — Not Requesting the Dharma 住不請法戒
「若佛子見大乘法師、大乘同學同見同行，來入僧坊舍宅城邑，若百里千里來者，即起迎來送去，禮拜供養。日日三時供養，日食三兩金百味飲食、床座醫藥，供事法師，一切所須盡給與之。常請法師三時說法，日日三時禮拜，不生瞋心患惱之心，為法滅身，請法不懈。若不爾者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — on seeing a teacher of the great vehicle, or a fellow practitioner of the same learning, the same views, or the same practice, arrive at a monastery, a house, or a city — whether they have travelled a hundred or a thousand miles — you should rise to greet them and see them off, bowing and making offerings. Make offerings three times a day, food each day worth three ounces of gold, food of every flavor, bedding, and medicine — provide the teacher with whatever they need, giving all of it freely. Constantly request the teacher to speak the dharma three times a day, bow to them three times a day, never giving rise to a mind of anger or resentment; offer your very body for the sake of the dharma, and never tire of seeking it. If you fail to do this, this is a light offense."
The specific figure — food worth three ounces of gold, three times daily — is less a literal budget than a deliberately high floor, the same rhetorical move as the first precept's "sell your own body." What the number is actually arguing for is proportion: measured against what genuine access to the dharma is worth, no amount of ordinary hospitality is being called excessive.
7. Milestone: The Seventh Minor Precept — Failing to Attend Dharma Teachings 不能遊學戒
「若佛子一切處有講毘尼經律，大宅舍中有講法處，是新學菩薩應持經律卷，至法師所聽受諮問，若山林樹下、僧地房中，一切說法處悉至聽受，若不至彼聽受者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — wherever the vinaya or sūtras are being taught, in any great house that has become a place of dharma teaching, a newly training bodhisattva should carry their own sūtra and vinaya scrolls to that teacher's side, and listen and ask questions there. Whether beneath the trees of a forest, in a monastery hall, or anywhere else the dharma is spoken, you should go there and listen. If you fail to go and listen, this is a light offense."
Precepts six and seven work as a pair: the sixth asks a bodhisattva to draw a visiting teacher in; the seventh asks them to go out and seek teaching wherever it is already happening. Between the two, staying put and waiting for instruction to arrive is not really an option the sūtra leaves open.
8. Milestone: The Eighth Minor Precept — Turning from the Great Vehicle 背正向邪戒
「若佛子心背大乘常住經律，言非佛說，而受持二乘外道惡見一切禁戒邪見經律者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if your mind turns away from the eternally abiding scriptures and discipline of the great vehicle, saying these were not spoken by the Buddha, and you instead take up and uphold the mistaken views of the lesser vehicles or outside paths, and every precept, scripture, or discipline built on wrong view, this is a light offense."
This precept should be read as what it plainly is: a sectarian boundary, written from inside the Mahāyāna tradition, at a moment when that tradition's own scriptural authority was still being actively contested by other Buddhist schools. It is presented here for translation completeness and historical accuracy, not as this site's own claim about the validity of other Buddhist paths.
9. Milestone: The Ninth Minor Precept — Not Caring for the Sick 不瞻病苦戒
「若佛子見一切疾病人，常應供養如佛無異。八福田中，看病福田第一福田。若父母、師僧、弟子病，諸根不具，百種病苦惱，皆養令差。而菩薩以瞋恨心，乃至僧坊中、城邑、曠野、山林、道路中，見病不救者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — on seeing anyone who is sick, you should always care for them exactly as you would the Buddha. Among the eight fields of merit, the field of caring for the sick is the very first. Whether it is a parent, a teacher, a monastic, or a disciple who is ill, lacking some faculty, or suffering any of a hundred kinds of sickness, you should care for them until they recover. But if a bodhisattva, out of a hateful mind, sees someone sick — whether in a monastery, a city, an open field, a forest, or on the road — and does not help them, this is a light offense."
"Care for them exactly as you would the Buddha" places the sick, without qualification, at the very top of the eight traditional fields of merit — ahead, in the classical ranking this precept draws on, of monks, teachers, and even one's own parents. This is the same logic Session 4's Chapter of Pure Conduct built an entire text around: the most ordinary, physically unglamorous act available — sitting with someone who is unwell — is treated here as sufficient material for the whole of the bodhisattva path, not a lesser substitute for it.
10. Milestone: The Tenth Minor Precept — Not Storing Weapons 畜殺具戒
The first ten minor precepts close with a return to the concerns of the first grave precept, non-harming, now extended to the mere keeping of the means of harm.
「若佛子不得畜一切刀杖、弓箭、鉾斧、鬥戰之具，及惡網羅殺生之器，一切不得畜。而菩薩乃至殺父母尚不加報，況殺一切眾生。若故畜刀杖者，犯輕垢罪。如是十戒，應當學敬心奉持，下六品中當廣明。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — you should not keep any knife, staff, bow, arrow, spear, axe, or instrument of battle, nor any net, snare, or device used to kill living beings — none of these should be kept at all. A bodhisattva would not even avenge the killing of their own parents, how much less take up arms against any other being. If you intentionally keep such weapons, this is a light offense. These ten precepts should be studied and upheld with a reverent mind — they are explained more fully in the six chapters that follow."
The example chosen here is deliberately the hardest one available — not a stranger's death, but a bodhisattva's own parents — and even there, the text says no retaliation should follow. This is the same logic as Chapter 8's ninth grave precept on holding onto anger, extended one step further: that precept asked whether resentment could be released once someone apologizes; this one asks whether the material means of retaliation should even be kept close at hand in the first place. This closes the first ten of the forty-eight minor precepts. The chapters that follow, not yet translated on this site, continue with minor precepts eleven through forty-eight.