"Transgressing" means stepping across. The samaya is the pledge with the buddhas received at consecration.
In Sanskrit, samayātikrama: samaya (pledge) joined with atikrama (to step across) — the combination means just what it says. But it is not an everyday word for forgetting a promise or running late for an appointment. It refers to turning one's back on the teaching one has taken upon oneself through consecration and the receiving of the precepts, on the aspiration for awakening (bodhicitta), and on the order of transmission.
So there is no need to read this article and go searching for signs that "perhaps I too have committed a samayātikrama without knowing it." What is asked is from whom you received what, and which pledge you bound. Even when someone who has received them feels uneasy, one should not pass judgment on oneself on the strength of a single word; one confirms the matter with the master who conferred them, or with an ācārya of the same Dharma lineage.
krayavikrayānuśayaḥ samayātikramas tathā / strīpuṃsayogaḥ steyaṃ ca dāyabhāgo 'kṣadevanam //
samayavyatikramāt kṣipraṃ bhasmīkuryat kulāni tu //
The term is also written 越三昧耶. The sin of transgression is specifically called the "sin of samayātikrama." In this article, following the usage of the Shingon school, we generally write it as 越三摩耶.
In the two lineages of consecration manuals (kanjō shidai, texts of ritual procedure) quoted here, there is a moment when the disciple takes into the mouth perfumed water (kōzui) purified through the repeated empowerment of the buddhas. This is called the pledge water (seisui).
The Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra (Darijing shu) likens this act to a worldly oath of alliance. Before the assembly of the noble ones, one takes the perfumed water into one's mouth and vows for oneself never to turn back from the aspiration for great awakening. It is not a story of a power of punishment dwelling in the drink. It is a rite for taking the pledge upon oneself, through the body, as one's own affair.
A ritual manual of a separate Sanskrit lineage calls that same water nectar if the pledge is kept, and water that burns the body if it is transgressed. It is a stern ritual admonition urging resolve upon the one receiving the precepts. It is not a claim that an ordinary reader is punished merely for reading this quotation, nor a story that ties one's small past waverings directly to hell.
加持誓水一遍、令弟子飲誓水。
此即名爲誓水、亦順世諦猶如盟誓之法、令於一切衆聖前噬此香水自誓其心、要令不退大菩提願也。
idaṃ te nārakaṃ vāri samayātikramād dahet | samayarakṣaṇāt siddhiḥ piba vajrāmṛtodakam ||
The Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra explains the samaya through four functions. These four are distinct from the four precepts that appear later.
三昧耶是平等義、是本誓義、是除障義、是驚覺義。
說三昧耶持明。三昧耶者、是平等義、是本誓義、是除障義、是警覺義。
One
The Tathāgata sees that all living beings, in body, speech, and mind, are one and all equal to the buddhas. It is the view that everyone is endowed, just as they are, with the capacity to become a buddha.
Two
Seeing that all sentient beings possess the capacity for buddhahood, the Tathāgata made a great vow: "I will exhaust every means, and bring them all, without fail, to awakening."
Three
The buddha-mind we inherently possess lies covered by the faintest film of delusion, and we fail to notice it. This is the vow to strip that covering away.
Four
It is the working that rouses us, asleep in delusion, and wakes us with words of truth.
The samaya is not a contract imposed on human beings alone. First there is the original vow by which the Buddha never abandons sentient beings, and the practitioner responds to it. If the severity of samayātikrama is cut away on its own, this order is lost.
What the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra admonishes first is not one specific act, but the orientation of a heart drifting away from the pledge.
Four are named. Erecting walls of superiority and inferiority between persons and teachings. Narrowing, at one's own convenience, the range of those one will save. Putting fame and profit first and losing the purpose of benefiting sentient beings — all that lives. Sinking into negligence and failing to rouse oneself. Every one of these is a heart turned aside from the Buddha's equality and original vow.
Yet this is not a self-diagnosis chart on which you find one weary day or one tremor of the heart and at once pronounce a grave sin. No judgment can be made apart from intention, persistence, and the content of the precepts one received. If something troubles you, consult your teacher before your fear swells.
越三摩耶の三つのかたち
心の越
人や物事を分けへだてる見、平等の誓いにかぎりを設ける心、名利への随順、放逸懈怠。
平等の義に背く『大日経疏』巻九
作法の越
印・真言・曼荼羅の軌則を誤り、菩提心に住さずに修法する。諸仏菩薩を謗るに同じとされる。
本誓の義に背く『大日経疏』『蓮華胎蔵瑜伽』
秘密の越
灌頂を受けた者が、まだ資格のない人へ秘法を漏らす。師と弟子が結んだ誓いを破る。
師資の誓いに背く『現証三昧大教王経』
若菩薩於衆生諸法中作種種不平等見、則越三昧耶法。若於此平等誓中作種種限量之心、亦越三昧耶法。諸有所作隨順世間名利、不爲大事因縁、亦越三昧耶法。放逸懈怠不能警悟其心、亦越三昧耶法。
真言門修菩薩行諸菩薩已發菩提心、應當住如來地、畫漫荼羅。若異此者、同謗諸佛菩薩、越三昧耶、決定墮於惡趣。
若有不見大曼拏羅者、汝不應爲說此三昧法。若爲說者違越三昧。
The three quotations in this section are not meant to create a separate classification; they show that the primary sources speak of samayātikrama in different settings: the orientation of the heart, ritual practice, and the boundary of transmission. Do not merge the four meanings, the four hearts, and the four cardinal precepts into a single list.
Apart from the four meanings above, the four cardinal precepts (shijūkin) of the samaya precepts point to four foundations the practitioner must never let go.
The Mahāvairocana Sūtra teaches that these are to be guarded like one's own life. The reason the Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra goes so far as to call them "the life-root of the mantra vehicle" is that the true Dharma, the aspiration for awakening, the transmission of the Dharma, and the benefiting of others come before any technique of practice. The powerful simile of the "corpse" that follows is an admonition showing the one who has received the precepts the weight of these foundations. It must not be used as a word that pronounces ordinary readers, or someone who has been temporarily negligent, to be among the dead.
佛子汝從今、不惜身命故、常不應捨法、捨離菩提心、慳悋一切法、不利衆生行。佛說三昧耶、汝善住戒者、如護自身命、護戒亦如是。
今此四夷戒是真言乘命根、亦是正法命根。若破壞者、於祕密藏中猶如死尸、雖具修種種功德行、不久敗壞也。
Hearing the words of a sutra, chanting the services a temple presents, and cultivating the mudras, mantras, and contemplations after consecration are not the same act.
What the various ritual manuals sternly admonish is assembling particular mudras, mantras, contemplations, and altar procedures on one's own, in one's own way, without receiving the transmission. The range covered by the terms "stealing the Dharma" (tōhō) and "transgressing the Dharma" (etsuhō) is not constant across texts and periods. Apart from who conferred and who received what, and how far each party went, no single word can settle the matter.
The Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra explains that the reason the practice must be received from a teacher is that otherwise the "ground" on which the transmitted Dharma rests is lost. It is not secrecy for keeping people at a distance, but an order for handing the teaching on without damaging the teaching, the practitioner, or the lineage. As for individual recitation and daily services today, do not expand a single historical document into a rule for the whole school; follow the order of practice indicated by the temple to which you belong.
設爾修行、自招殃咎、成盜法罪、終無功効。
違越三世諸佛祕密法則、得越法罪。越法罪者、此中所謂犯三昧耶、四波羅夷中第三戒也。
佛說此經要從師受、不得輒爾修行。若無明師、則所傳無寄故也。
真言陀羅尼を授からずして誦ふれば、越三昧耶とて仏の制戒に違がふ罪あり。光明真言は、授からざる人も皆 誦ふる事は、是 観世音菩薩 我人衆生に代りて一切如来より御授かり置給りし真言なるが故なり。余の真言陀羅尼は、授からざれば決して誦ふべからず。
The scriptural phrase "the head splits into seven pieces" has a different target in each text. It is not a list of the karmic rewards of samayātikrama.
In the Middle Length Āgama (Zhong ahan jing), the phrase appears in the scene where the Tathāgata expounds the liberation of the precepts in a sangha where an impure monk is present. In the Fundamental Ritual Manual Sūtra of Mañjuśrī, it is a phrase of subjugation aimed at obstruction-makers who do not obey the command of the wrathful deity. They serve as materials for comparing the phrase's history, but neither can be read as an announcement to ordinary people who have committed samayātikrama.
Gathering stern warnings does not make the teaching more exact. What the main body of this article must confirm is from what pledge one has parted, whom one has harmed, and how one returns.
彼人則便頭破七分。
彼障難者若不順其命、頭破七分如阿梨樹枝。
saptadhāsya sphuṭen mūrdhā arjakasyeva mañjarī |
若有越三摩耶者、當用受三摩耶忿怒印而作調伏。
The Buddha never violates the original vow. That is why we too, from the very place where we turned our backs, can remember the pledge and return.
The scriptures and manuals of esoteric Buddhism teach not only the admonition against transgression but also the procedures of repentance and recovery. Samayātikrama is not a verdict of no recovery.
One manual transmits a verse of repentance that confesses in the first person, "I have violated and transgressed the samaya." Another explains a procedure by which, even when the precepts have been broken by mistake, the fault is removed and one returns to wholeness. In the primary sources, the stern admonition and the recovery stand as a pair.
If you have received the precepts or consecration and carry a worry, do not decide the name of your sin alone. First, go to the ācārya who conferred them. If you cannot reach him, consult the temple to which you belong, an ācārya of the same Dharma lineage, or the school's office of doctrine and temple affairs. The repentance needed, or a re-receiving of the precepts, is guided according to the Dharma you received and your circumstances.
Repentance practices such as the hundred-syllable mantra are not things to be assembled and performed out of an article's mudras, mantras, and contemplations. What matters is not to shut yourself up in fear, but to return into the relationship in which the pledge was bound.
邪見覆心故、違越三昧耶。今對大聖尊、盡心而懺悔、如先佛所懺、我今亦如是。願乘加持力、衆生悉清淨。
修行者設有越法誤失三業破三摩耶戒、由結此印、誦真言加持故、能除諸過、皆得圓滿。
瑜伽者破三昧耶、或阿闍梨非法失師位、由建立此輪壇、則復本阿闍梨位、修一切三摩地真言速得成就。
The Preface to the Samaya Precepts (Sanmaya-kai jo) is traditionally ascribed to Kūkai and has influenced the Shingon school's understanding of the samaya precepts. Modern scholarship, however, debates its authorship. We do not treat it on the same footing as Kūkai's secure works.
Kūkai positions the samaya buddha-precepts as "the precepts preached by the Dharma-body of Mahāvairocana itself." And he explains that the substance of these precepts is the pure aspiration for awakening with which sentient beings are from the outset endowed equally with the buddhas. The samaya precepts are not rules imposed from outside; they are the pledge by which one receives, and does not forget, the original equality that says, "You are from the outset equal to the buddhas."
Precisely for this reason, it leads directly to attaining buddhahood in this very body. The equality we inherently possess is made manifest in this very body, here and now, through the contemplations, the mantras, and the practice of the three secrets (the workings of body, speech, and mind). That is attaining buddhahood in this very body, and the samaya precepts are the precepts that guard its entrance.
今所授三昧耶佛戒者、則是大毘盧遮那自性法身之所説眞言曼荼羅教之戒也。
大毘盧遮那四種法身四種曼荼羅、此是一切衆生本來平等共有。
The word samayātikrama itself does not appear in Kūkai's secure works. Its doctrinal basis lies in the Mahāvairocana Sūtra and its Commentary.
The word samaya is also often heard in one other setting: the samaya-form (sanmaya-gyō), the attribute that symbolizes a buddha.
Kannon's lotus, Fudō's sword, Vajrasattva's five-pronged vajra. These are called samaya-forms. One manual declares outright: "the samaya is the form of the original vow." The lotus and the sword are not mere decorations. They are that buddha's vow and working crystallized into a visible form.
In esoteric Buddhism, a single buddha is represented in three stages: the seed syllable (shuji, the Siddhaṃ letter), the samaya-form (the attribute), and the honored form (the figure itself). The Mahāvairocana Sūtra teaches that the honored ones have three kinds of bodies: letter, sign, and image. Kūkai too, in The Meaning of Attaining Buddhahood in This Very Body (Sokushin jōbutsu gi), called this "sign" — attributes such as swords and lotuses — the samaya maṇḍala. The pledge (abstract) becomes a sign (the attribute), and the sign becomes the figure of the buddha (concrete). We can see the one word samaya spreading from pledge to form.
Note that samaya (the pledge) and samādhi (zanmai, the settling of the mind into one) are different words.
祕密主、諸尊有三種身、所謂字印形像。
印謂種種幖幟、卽三昧耶曼荼羅。
This article was written by Taniguchi Shinryō, head priest of Byōdōji, a temple of the Kōyasan Shingon school, on the basis of the scriptures of Shingon esoteric Buddhism and modern research. The Chinese originals are quoted from the text of the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō (Taishō canon), and sources are indicated by volume, text number (Tnnnn), and page and register. The Sanskrit follows the editions held by GRETIL and MUKTABODHA.
Articles for learning more about the samaya and the pledges of the buddhas.
What it means to enter the Buddha's pledge. The word for the side of the entrance, paired with samayātikrama.
ReadTracing the meaning and history of the four lines recited before the sutra, through the primary sources.
ReadFrom the rule of one buddha per world and the idea of the buddhas of the ten directions, a look at the expanse of the buddhas' world.
ReadMay laypeople read it? A scripture in everyday Shingon use where the line of samayātikrama is actually questioned.
Read