Ten More Minor Precepts
Chapter 9 covered the first ten minor precepts. This chapter covers the next ten, closing with one of the sūtra's most historically influential passages — the practice of freeing captive life, which shaped East Asian Buddhist devotional practice for over a thousand years.
1. Milestone: Minor Precept 11 — Acting in the Service of War
佛言：「佛子！不得為利養惡心故，通國使命軍陣合會，興師相伐，殺無量眾生。而菩薩不得入軍中往來，況故作國賊。若故作者，犯輕垢罪。」
The Buddha said: "Disciples of the Buddha — you should not, out of profit-seeking or ill will, carry messages between nations for the purpose of war, causing armies to gather and armies to be raised, killing countless beings. A bodhisattva should not even travel back and forth within an army camp, how much less act as a traitor to their own country. If you intentionally do this, this is a light offense."
The first grave precept forbade killing directly. This one extends the same concern one step further back, to the logistics and communication that make organized killing possible in the first place — a bodhisattva is asked to stay clear of the machinery of war, not just the act of violence itself.
2. Milestone: Minor Precept 12 — Trading in Persons and the Instruments of Death
「若佛子！故販賣良人、奴婢、六畜，市易棺材板木盛死之具，尚不自作，況教人作。若故作者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — you should not deal in the trading of persons, whether as slaves or as livestock, nor trade in coffins, planks of wood, or any instrument meant to hold the dead. You should not even do this yourself, how much less direct another to do it. If you intentionally do this, this is a light offense."
The pairing here is deliberate — trading in living people alongside trading in the equipment of death — two ends of the same underlying concern: treating a person's life, or what remains of it, as merchandise.
3. Milestone: Minor Precept 13 — False Accusation
「若佛子！以惡心故，無事謗他良人、善人、法師、師僧、國王、貴人，言犯七逆十重。於父母兄弟六親中，應生孝順心慈悲心，而反更加於逆害，墮不如意處者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if, out of an unwholesome mind, you slander a good person, a virtuous person, a dharma teacher, a monastic, a king, or a person of standing without any real cause, claiming they have committed one of the seven heinous acts or one of the ten grave offenses — you should instead give rise to a mind of filial devotion and compassion toward your own parents, siblings, and close relatives. But if, on the contrary, you inflict harm and cause them to fall into circumstances they never deserved, this is a light offense."
Where Chapter 8's sixth grave precept addressed true faults spoken carelessly, this precept addresses accusations that are simply false — a distinct wrong the sūtra treats separately, whether the target is a stranger or, as the text specifically names, one's own family.
4. Milestone: Minor Precept 14 — Arson
「若佛子！以惡心故放大火，燒山林曠野。四月乃至九月，放火，若燒他人家屋宅城邑僧房田木，及鬼神官物，一切有主物不得故燒。若故燒者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — you should not, out of an unwholesome mind, set a great fire, burning mountains, forests, or open fields — especially between the fourth and ninth months. You should not set fire to another person's house, city, monastery, fields, or trees, nor to the property of a spirit or of the government — nothing that belongs to another may be burned with intent. If you intentionally set such a fire, this is a light offense."
The specific window named — the fourth through ninth months — corresponds to the dry season and nesting season across much of the region this sūtra was compiled in; the precept's concern reaches past human property to the wider harm a fire set at the wrong time of year does to a whole landscape of unseen life.
5. Milestone: Minor Precept 15 — Teaching the Wrong Path
「若佛子！自佛弟子，及外道人，六親一切善知識，應一一教受持大乘經律，應教解義理，使發菩提心，十發趣、十長養、十金剛、十地，三十心中一一解其次第法用。而菩薩以惡心瞋心，橫教他二乘聲聞經律、外道邪見論等，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — whether teaching a fellow disciple, an outsider, a close relative, or any good friend, you should teach each one to uphold the scriptures and discipline of the great vehicle, helping them understand its meaning, so that they give rise to the mind of awakening, and come to understand, one by one, the sequence and function of the Ten Minds of Development, the Ten Minds of Long Nurturing, the Ten Vajra Minds, and the Ten Grounds. But if a bodhisattva, out of an unwholesome or hateful mind, wrongly teaches them instead the scriptures and discipline of the lesser vehicles, or the mistaken treatises of outside paths, this is a light offense."
This precept names, by title, exactly the curriculum this translation project has spent Chapters 2 through 6 unfolding — the Ten Minds of Development, Long Nurturing, Vajra, and the Ten Grounds. What is being protected here is not abstract doctrinal loyalty but continuity of transmission: that whoever teaches next actually passes on this specific sequence, not a substitute for it.
6. Milestone: Minor Precept 16 — Teaching Out of Order for Personal Gain
「若佛子！應好心先學大乘威儀經律，廣開解義味，見後新學菩薩有從百里千里來求大乘經律，應如法為說一切苦行。若燒身、燒臂、燒指，若不燒身臂指供養諸佛，非出家菩薩。乃至餓虎狼師子一切餓鬼，悉應捨身肉手足而供養之。後一一次第為說正法，使心開意解。而菩薩為利養故，應答不答，倒說經律文字，無前無後，謗三寶說者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — you should first study, with a wholesome mind, the great vehicle's own scriptures and discipline of proper conduct, opening up their meaning widely; and when you later see a newly training bodhisattva who has come a hundred or a thousand miles seeking the great vehicle's scriptures and discipline, you should teach them, in accordance with the dharma, of every ascetic practice — burning the body, burning an arm, burning a finger as an offering to the buddhas, without which one is not truly a renunciant bodhisattva; even offering one's own flesh, hands, and feet to a starving tiger, wolf, lion, or hungry ghost. Only afterward should you teach them the true dharma in its proper sequence, so that their mind opens and understands. But if a bodhisattva, for the sake of personal gain, answers when they should not, or fails to answer when they should, teaching the words of the scriptures and discipline out of order, out of sequence, and slandering the Three Jewels by how they teach, this is a light offense."
The self-immolation imagery here reflects a real, documented devotional practice in East Asian Buddhist history, referenced in other Mahāyāna scriptures as well — presented here descriptively, as part of accurately translating what this text says, not as an endorsement or instruction from this site. The precept's actual target is narrower and more concrete than that imagery might suggest: teaching out of proper sequence, or selectively answering questions, in order to profit from a student's need.
7. Milestone: Minor Precept 17 — Currying Favor for Personal Gain
「若佛子！自為飲食、錢物、利養、名譽故，親近國王、王子、大臣、百官，恃作形勢，乞索打拍牽挽，橫取錢物，一切求利，名為惡求、多求，教他人求，都無慈心，無孝順心者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if, for the sake of food, money, personal gain, or reputation, you grow close to kings, princes, ministers, or officials, relying on their power and status, begging, pressuring, or forcing others to give, wrongfully taking money and property, seeking profit by every means — this is called wrongful seeking, excessive seeking; and if you direct others to seek in this way, with no compassion and no filial devotion at all, this is a light offense."
The sūtra names this pattern twice over — "wrongful seeking, excessive seeking" — as though the manner of the seeking and its sheer volume are two distinguishable faults, not one. Proximity to power is not itself forbidden anywhere in this text; what is named here is proximity used specifically as leverage.
8. Milestone: Minor Precept 18 — Teaching Without Genuine Understanding
「若佛子！學誦戒者，日夜六時，持菩薩戒，解其義理，佛性之性。而菩薩不解一句一偈，戒律因緣，詐言能解者，即為自欺誑，亦欺誑他人。一一不解一切法，而為他人作師授戒者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — one who studies and recites the precepts should hold the bodhisattva precepts at all six periods of the day and night, understanding their meaning and the very nature of buddha-nature itself. But if a bodhisattva does not understand so much as a single phrase or a single verse, or the causes and conditions behind the discipline, and falsely claims to understand it, they deceive themselves as much as they deceive others. To understand nothing of the dharma at all, and yet act as another's teacher, conferring the precepts upon them, is a light offense."
This precept applies the fourth grave precept's prohibition on false speech to a very specific case: claiming a competence one does not actually have, in the one role — teacher — where the claim itself does the most damage. Notice the sūtra's own phrasing: self-deception and deceiving others are named as the same act, not two separate failures.
9. Milestone: Minor Precept 19 — Stirring Up Conflict Through Slander
「若佛子！以惡心故，見持戒比丘，手捉香爐，行菩薩行，而鬥搆兩頭，謗欺賢人，無惡不造者，犯輕垢罪。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — if, out of an unwholesome mind, on seeing a precept-keeping monk carrying the incense censer, walking the bodhisattva path, you stir up conflict between two sides, slandering and deceiving a worthy person, committing every kind of wrongdoing, this is a light offense."
"Stirring up conflict between two sides" is a specific, named form of slander distinct from the plainer lying already covered in earlier precepts — manufacturing discord between two parties who might otherwise have no quarrel at all, aimed here at someone actively practising the very conduct this whole chapter describes.
10. Milestone: Minor Precept 20 — Freeing Captive Life
This chapter's tenth precept is one of the most historically consequential passages in the entire sūtra — the scriptural root of fàngshēng (放生), the practice of ransoming and releasing captured animals that became, and remains, a widespread devotional practice across East Asian Buddhism.
「若佛子！以慈心故，行放生業。一切男子是我父，一切女人是我母，我生生無不從之受生，故六道眾生皆是我父母，而殺而食者，即殺我父母，亦殺我故身。一切地水是我先身，一切火風是我本體，故常行放生，生生受生，常住之法，教人放生。若見世人殺畜生時，應方便救護，解其苦難，常教化講說菩薩戒，救度眾生。若父母兄弟死亡之日，應請法師講菩薩戒經，福資亡者，得見諸佛，生人天上。若不爾者，犯輕垢罪。如是十戒，應當學敬心奉持，如滅罪品中廣明一一戒相。」
"Disciples of the Buddha — practise the freeing of captive life out of a compassionate mind. Every man is my father, every woman is my mother — there is no life across all my births that has not come from them; and so every being across the six destinies is my own father or mother. To kill and eat them is to kill my own parents, and to kill my own former body as well. Every particle of earth and water was once my own body; every breath of fire and wind was once my own substance. And so constantly practise the freeing of life — this is the ever-abiding dharma of birth after birth — and teach others to free life as well. On seeing an ordinary person about to kill an animal, use whatever skillful means you can to save it and free it from its suffering. Constantly teach and expound the bodhisattva precepts, saving and freeing beings. On the day a parent or sibling dies, invite a dharma teacher to expound the bodhisattva precept sūtra, so that the merit may benefit the deceased, allowing them to see the buddhas and be born among gods and humans. If you fail to do this, this is a light offense. These ten precepts should be studied and upheld with a reverent mind — they are explained fully, precept by precept, in the Chapter on Dissolving Offenses."
The logic here is built entirely on the cosmology of rebirth: across countless past lives, every being has at some point been every other being's parent, so eating any animal is, without exception, eating a former parent. This single passage is the scriptural root of a practice — buying captive animals specifically to release them — that spread across Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Buddhism and continues at temples today, for better or worse depending on how it's carried out; the precept itself asks for something narrower and less ritualized than the practice it eventually inspired: simply acting, whenever the chance arises, to spare a life about to be taken. This closes the second group of ten minor precepts. Precepts 21 through 30 continue in the next chapter.