bodhisattva-śīla or bodhisattva-saṃvāra, traditional Chinese: 菩薩戒; ; pinyin: Púsà Jiè, Japanese: bosatsukai; Tibetan: byang chub sems dpa’i sdom pa) are a set of ethical trainings (śīla) used in Mahāyāna Buddhism to advance a practitioner along the path to becoming a bodhisattva.
With the emergence of Mahāyāna traditions, alternative moral codes were established, found in texts such as the Bodhisattvabhūmi, Candragomin's Bodhisattvasamvaraviṃśaka, and the Brahmajāla Sūtra.
Formal ceremonies for conferring bodhisattva precepts, along with confession rituals modeled on uposadha practices, are detailed in various Mahāyāna texts.
Some focus on interpersonal relations, encouraging compassion and altruism, while others address broader responsibilities, such as the prohibition against destroying cities.
[3] The most important source for the three kinds of precepts is the Bodhisattvabhūmi, which explains these as:[4][5][3] The first category aligns with the disciplinary rules of early Buddhism (Hīnayāna), while the second and third reflect distinctly Mahāyāna ethical principles.
A fuller description is as follows:[8] The forty eight minor precepts include refraining from numerous negative acts such as: eating meat, drinking alcohol, not respecting teachers, failing to make offerings or attending Dharma teachings, abandoning the Mahayana, keeping weapons, trading slaves, arson, promoting non-Mahayana teachings, divisive speech, wrong livelihood, selling weapons, persecuting Dharma followers, etc.
In the Sōtō school of Zen, the founder Dōgen also wrote on these precepts in his Busso shōden bosatsukai kyōju kaimon.
[10] The Sutra of the Ethics of a Lay Follower (Upāsakāśīla sūtra, Chinese: Youposai wu jie weiyi jing 優婆塞五戒 威儀經, Taisho no.
[11] Minor precepts include things like making offerings to parents and teachers, looking after the sick, and greeting monastics and elder lay disciples.
[12] According to Alexander Berzin, the bodhisattva vows transmitted by the 10th-century Indian master Atisha "derives from the Sutra of Akashagarbha (Nam-mkha'i snying-po mdo, Skt.
"[15] In practice, the acceptance of and ordination of the Bodhisattva Precepts varies greatly depending on the school of Mahayana Buddhism.
In Buddhism in Japan, the "Four-Part Vinaya" was deemphasized with the rise of Saichō and the Tendai sect[16] and a new monastic community was set up exclusively using the Brahmajala Sutra's Bodhisattva Precepts.
Later Buddhist sects in Japan, including the Sōtō school of Zen, Jōdo-shū and Shingon Buddhism, adopted a similar approach to their monastic communities and exclusive use of the Bodhisattva Precepts.