Twenty downfalls
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone! 🙏🙏🙏
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
Five Downfalls of a King
The five downfalls of the king are so called because people in positions of power are liable to commit them. But of course they are downfalls for anyone who has taken the bodhisattva vow. They are:
- With an evil intention, to take the property of the Three Jewels or to induce others to do the same.
- To repudiate any of the three vehicles or to lead someone into the belief that they do not constitute the path to liberation.
- To rob, beat, imprison or kill wearers of the monastic robe, or to force them to return to lay status.
- To commit any of the five crimes with immediate retribution.
- To hold wrong views.
Five Downfalls of a Minister
The first downfall of a minister is to destroy a homestead, village, small town, large town, or region. The other four downfalls correspond to the first four downfalls of a king.
Eight Downfalls of Ordinary People
- To teach emptiness to those who are unprepared for it, since they will abandon bodhichitta.
- Consciously to direct people of a Mahayana disposition away from the Mahayana path.
- By injudicious praise of the Mahayana, to lead people of a Hinayana disposition to give up their pratimoksha vows.
- To maintain that following the Hinayana path does not eradicate defilements or that the shravakas do not have an authentic path to liberation.
- To criticize bodhisattvas openly and to praise oneself.
- To claim falsely that one has realized the profound view.
- To encourage powerful people to persecute practitioners, and secretly to appropriate offerings.
- To disrupt the practice of meditators by appropriating their goods, or disturb those engaged in shamatha meditation with bad rules and regulations.
Two further downfalls, abandoning the bodhichitta of aspiration and action, are sometimes added to make a total of twenty downfalls.