Xing Nian Shifu,
1st Year Student, Buddhist Institute for Nuns
Why should we receive Buddhist precepts?
The process of constantly reflecting on and illuminating the mind is a distinguishing feature of Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhists aspire to become free from all attachments, transcend dualistic notions of good and bad, self and other, inner mind and outer world, and create a bodhisattva path to ultimate liberation from samsara. How? By virtue of the three disciplines: precepts, samadhi, and wisdom.
Precepts, the touchstone for daily practice, regulate physical, verbal, and mental karmas—and make actions, speech, and thoughts more refined. This purification process guards against creating negative karma, provides a foundation for all wholesome dharmas, and gives rise to samadhi power.
By cultivating samadhi, a bodhisattva practitioner becomes more familiar with the principle of emptiness, as it relates to the self and all phenomena. This mental stillness also brings clarity and inherent wisdom, and a crystal-clear understanding of both the provisional and empty nature of all conditions arises. A bodhisattva practitioner finds perfection in the middle-way reality and opens a path to enlightenment for all: adapting to myriad conditions, thereby creating infinite wholesome dharmas free from a notion of self. Precepts, therefore, are the basis for attaining unsurpassed bodhi; each one is a means to liberation.
I had personal insight into the importance of precepts after taking lay bodhisattva precepts at Chung Tai Chan Monastery in August 2017. Demanding a seven-year wait, the ceremony really was a precious opportunity. I tried to make the most of it. I was diligent in maintaining right mindfulness, listening intently to Dharma talks and making great vows. In turn, I was rewarded with new insights on causality, impermanence, and walking the bodhisattva path. Little did I know, on returning to Melbourne, my understanding of these principles would be tested.
Looking forward to getting back to work, I was met with news from two highly revered colleagues: one had been involved in a life-threatening cycling accident and the other had resigned. Days later, my father’s rushed admission to the hospital would mark the start of a year-long battle with cancer, one that could only end by letting go. A mind anchored in virtue, dedication, and forbearance; his death was like witnessing a beautiful gumtree being cut down. With a solid trunk firmly grounded in roots of goodness, I found solace in knowing he would fall in the right direction. In the week following his hospital admission, a break-up and surgery awaited me.
To help get me through, the Buddhist community at Bao Lin Chan Monastery, a spiritual home for more than a decade, and my stalwart mother provided unwavering support and encouragement. At the same time, I also learned to take personal responsibility for freeing myself from attachments, entanglements, and afflictions—no one could do that for me. I reflected: deaths, surgeries, break-ups, and resignations happen every day. They are a wake-up call I had to take sooner or later. These events are not the source of suffering in my life; it is my entanglement in this world. The precepts have given me a lifeline, an absolute cure. With Buddhism, when these calls come, at least I know how to take them.
Through this experience, I saw the false promises that come with love, work and health, and felt a greater sense of equanimity and compassion for humanity as we contend with the sadness of samsara. On reflection, the difficulty of this time—in particular, standing by as my father faced the end of his life and my mother as she bid her best friend a heartbreaking farewell—would end up giving me the courage to leave family, friends, a career, and home in Australia and move to Taiwan.
In August 2023, six years later, I would take tonsure at Chung Tai Chan Monastery and follow the Buddha into the monastic life. Later that year, I travelled to Po Lin Chan Monastery in Hong Kong to attend the Triple Platform Ordination Ceremony.
How do we receive Buddhist precepts?
There are four aspects to formally receiving precepts: repenting mistakes, making vows, receiving the precepts, and dedicating the merits to all sentient beings. Three qualities of mind help develop resonance with the precepts: a mind that seeks for the precepts, a mind of deference that accords with the group, and one of great compassion. Together, they form the practice and principle of precept transmission.
The Abbot of Po Lin Chan Monastery, Master Jing Yin, outlined the four aspects of receiving the precepts formally: repenting mistakes, making vows, receiving the precepts, and dedicating merits to all sentient beings. The goal of this process is to help the mind resonate with the Dharma.
Repentance involves prostrating before a statue of the Buddha while chanting his name or the repentance verse: “All the harm I have ever done, since time immemorial, are caused by greed, anger, and ignorance, and produced through body, speech and will. Now, I confess and repent before the Buddha.” Repentance allows me to see my imperfections and feel a sense of remorse for how I have hurt others. Generally, repentance before receiving precepts helps reduce karmic obstacles and create a smooth path ahead. In terms of my personal practice, however, my goal of repentance is to have the wisdom, courage, and composure to face the inevitable difficulties.
Even after receiving precepts, repentance is still important, especially if we have broken them. Doing so, afflictions naturally reduce over time as the mind accords more closely with the Dharma. As the saying goes, “wherever there is a repentant person, the true Dharma can endure.” This interconnected process of repentance and reformation helps me get back on my feet after a tumble. Imperfections, therefore, did not deter me in taking precepts; they remind me why precepts are so important.
Prostrating before the Buddha at Po Lin Chan Monastery every night I would focus on a particular affliction and reflect on how it has impacted on my relationships with others and resolve to overcome it. On finishing, I would contemplate the empty nature of all phenomena and let go of the notion of repentance. Gradually, I would expand the repentance not just for myself, but for all beings: with the world in so much turmoil, encountering the right Dharma is like finding that needle in the haystack, like discovering a diamond in the sand. Through my repentance, I hope everyone can hear this Dharma and realize the intrinsic Three Jewels.
As well as reflecting on my past mistakes, I also set my intention for the future by making great bodhisattva vows. These vows provide both a focus and the power to reach my goals in practice. At the same time, I also contemplated on the core of Mahayana Practice, as set out in the Diamond Sutra: bodhisattvas and mahasattvas vow to liberate all sentient beings; on liberation, ultimately no sentient beings have been liberated. That is, adapting to conditions, creating all expedient means and fulfilling vows is done free from a notion of self and other. Bodhisattvas are like sprinkling sugar in a glass of water: while the granules dissolve, the water nevertheless becomes sweet.
Repentance and making great vows prepare the mind to receive the precepts. This mental cultivation throughout the whole process is key, as the quality of mind at the very moment of transmission determines the quality of precepts received: a pure mind receives pure precepts; a great, vast mind receives superior precepts; the unsurpassed bodhi mind receives ultimate precepts. This principle was reinforced in advice from a monk at Chung Tai: “When the Precept Master is transmitting the essence of the precepts you have to go for it, at that moment your mind had to resonate with it; do not pay attention to anything else going on around you.” A nun also imparted some advice before my tonsure ceremony: “Conditions for ordination have only arrived when you are in them, ordination is only complete after you have left the hall. Until then, keep the mind firmly reflecting inwards, unmoved and impartial. Do not even talk about it with others.”
Taking these words of wisdom to heart, I approached the ordination ceremony as I would a meditation retreat. As much as possible, I tried to maintain right mindfulness and allow the mind to settle in the present moment. During rest breaks, I would meditate, memorize the Everyday Vinaya, read the Diamond Sutra or sleep; idle conversation and thinking was kept to a minimum. While reading the Diamond Sutra, a particular theme caught my attention: a bodhisattva who “realizes the Dharma of non-self,” who “attains the forbearance of the selfless nature of all dharmas.” In small breaks throughout the ceremony, whether lining up or before a lecture, I continued contemplating these sections of the sutra.
At the point of formal precept transmission, my mind was very clear and calm. I realized committing this present mind to the bodhisattva path, the bodhi mind is no other; and the essence of mind is not apart from that of the precepts. On receiving the shramenera precepts, I vowed to always follow the Buddha into monastic life, overcome my afflictions, and find liberation from samsara. Taking the bhikshuni precepts, I dedicated my mind to follow the precepts set out by the Buddha—the only way to sustain the right Dharma in this world.
Receiving the bodhisattva precepts, I fell to my knees and placed my palms together in a final guard of honour before the Precept Masters as they left the ceremony. The quote from the Diamond Sutra made sense: there is nothing in this world apart from this mind. Cultivate merit and virtue, create wholesome conditions in the perfection of enlightenment; but know there is no condition that gives rise to this perfect mind. Hold no sense of self and other, nor of merit and virtue, but dedicate them for the benefit of all sentient beings—the final stage in the process of receiving precepts.
While the truth of this very mind is unconditioned, realization of it is impossible without supportive conditions. As they came together for the Triple Platform Ordination ceremony with the efforts of Po Lin and Chung Tai Chan Monasteries, I learned what it meant to “glorify the bodhisattva path.” The resplendent Ten-Thousand Buddha Hall at Po Lin Chan Monastery formed the backdrop of our daily services. The range in the monks’ chanting was breathtaking: at times it felt like an Italian opera, at times a rock anthem.
Everything in the physical environment was used with a mastery of the worldly truth that only comes from lifetimes of practice. It was not an ordinary feat. We prostrated up to a mountain-like bronze Buddha, chanted under the kaleidoscope of colours in the Ten-Thousand Buddha Hall, winded through a rainbow lantern bridge on an alms-round, came together in a night-time group formation of lotus lamps, ventured out to monasteries tucked away behind winding mountainous tracks, and travelled across the country to pay respects to the magnificent Guanyin statue at Tsz Shan Monastery. These special moments opened my mind to the glorious world of Buddhism, instilled my faith in the Three Jewels, and gave me the inspiration and power to continue the bodhisattva path.
The Triple Platform Ordination Ceremony at Po Lin Chan Monastery was also an immersion in Chinese Buddhist language and culture. As a monastic with Scottish and English heritage, what I am most thankful for is the wisdom, guidance, and intensive training provided by Chung Tai Chan Monastery to help prepare me for full ordination in the Chan tradition. This support has helped me appreciate that cultural differences are not barriers to spiritual practice. Understanding them is itself a part of practice. The month-long immersion at Po Lin helped me to develop a stronger affinity with Chinese Buddhist language and culture.
In making the necessary arrangements, from training to transport, everything was meticulously planned and executed by the community at Chung Tai Chan Monastery and its meditation center in Hong Kong, Pu Guang. On packing, when my suitcase bulged with supplies, it was promptly replaced with a brand-new one. I will never forget the support of the Pu Guang volunteers, especially during the over-night stay in a nearby hotel. Even after spending the day preparing for our arrival and welcoming us with a beautiful spread for dinner, volunteers arrived at our hotel rooms in the late evening to deliver flip flops for use in the showers at Po Lin. They then returned in the early morning to deliver breakfast. In these gestures, they exemplified the thoughtfulness of the Chung Tai community.