No One Should Proclaim the Faults of Monks' Body, Speech, or Mind

Laypeople and all secular individuals should not and have no right to slander, criticize, reproach, or abuse the lifestyle and conduct of monastics. However, what should be done when facing monastics who preach erroneous Dharma teachings, expound content contrary to the original meaning of the Buddhist scriptures and the path to liberation, preaching non-Dharma as Dharma?

Dharma teachings concern the cycle of birth and death for sentient beings across countless lifetimes, constituting a grave matter. Errors should be rectified. Apart from this, any secular behavior of monastics or the monastic community should not be criticized or publicized, especially malicious publicity, publicity driven by ulterior motives, personal bias, a desire to achieve personal goals, or sowing discord, all aimed at damaging the image of monastics. The karmic retribution for such actions is extremely heavy, potentially even beyond repentance, and may bring karmic retribution in this very life. The retribution in this life (flower retribution) is much lighter than the retribution in future lives (fruit retribution), but where there is flower retribution, there will inevitably be subsequent fruit retribution. Combined, both constitute very heavy retribution.

Even monastics themselves should not publicize or deliberately openly criticize the physical, verbal, or mental actions of other monastics, causing laypeople to learn of them, develop scorn, and create unwholesome karma, thereby falling into the three lower realms to suffer retribution due to such actions. Any sentient being who has generated the Bodhicitta of the Great Vehicle should be respected and revered. Those with great merit and virtue, those of virtuous conduct, should all be respected. If one gives rise to slanderous thoughts and actions against them, the offense is also very grave, causing one's own merit and virtue to be rapidly exhausted, leading to the arising of various adverse conditions and obstacles. Actions that deplete one's own merit must be endured and restrained; do not commit them.

Slandering the Three Jewels, slandering virtuous individuals, or committing any other unwholesome karma is like spitting toward the sky—the spit falls back on one's own face. It is like picking up a stone—it ultimately lands on one's own foot. Do not contend with others, do not contend with karma, and do not contend with the Tathagatagarbha. Human calculations cannot match the calculations of heaven; one cannot outwit the law of karma inherent in the Tathagatagarbha. Conversely, all wholesome karma and meritorious deeds created by an individual also return to oneself; one benefits oneself. Wholesome karma is created for oneself; one reaps the wholesome results. All retribution falls upon oneself; it lands nowhere else.