Bodhisattva Precepts

The Bodhisattva Precepts (traditional Chinese: 菩薩戒; ; pinyin: Púsà Jiè, Japanese: bosatsukai) are a set of moral codes used in Mahayana Buddhism to advance a practitioner along the path to becoming a Bodhisattva. Traditionally, monastics observed the basic moral code in Buddhism, the Pratimoksha (such as that of the Dharmaguptaka), but in the Mahayana tradition, monks may observe the Bodhisattva Precepts as well.

The Brahmajala Sutra translated by Kumārajīva (c. 400 CE) has a list of ten major and forty-eight minor Bodhisattva vows. The Bodhisattva Precepts may be often called the "Brahma Net Precepts" (Chinese: 梵網戒; pinyin: Fànwǎng Jiè), particularly in Buddhist scholarship, although other sets of bodhisattva precepts may be found in other texts as well. Typically, in East Asian Mahayana traditions, only the 10 Major Precepts are considered the Bodhisattva Precepts. According to the sutra, the 10 Major Bodhisattva Precepts are in summary:

Breaking any of these precepts is described as a major offense in the sutra. A fuller description is as follows:

Asanga (circa 300 AD) delineated 18 major vows and forty-six minor vows in the "Bodhisattvabhumi" section of the Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra. These Bodhisattva vows are still used in all four major traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. The eighteen major vows (as actions to be abandoned) are as follows:

According to Atiśa, the Prātimokṣa vows are the basis for the Bodhisattva vows. Without keeping one of the different sets of Prātimokṣa vows (in one of the existing Vinaya schools), there can be no Bodhisattva vow.

In the Sōtō school of Zen, the founder Dōgen established a somewhat expanded version of the Bodhisattva Precepts for use by both priests and lay followers, based on both Brahma Net Sutra and other sources. Many various translations exist, the following is used by John Daido Loori, rōshi at the Zen Mountain Monastery:

...
Wikipedia