Kadamapa Precepts 1

"The following chapter is a collection of precepts of the Kadampa (Preceptors) lineage founded in the eleventh century by "Teacher" Drom. Atisa's chief disciple. The title of the collection is Kadamthorbu, "Precepts Collected from Here and There." These precepts, which concern subjects relative to the understanding and practice of Buddhism, begin with dialogues between Atisa and his closest disciples and are followed by teachings of Drom and his later successors. The precepts were assembled and written down by Tsun-ba-je-gom. The book was written primarily for monks. However, for the most part the teachings in this book are applicable to laymen as well.

Precepts Collected from Here and There
"When Atisa arrived in Tibet, his three disciples, Ku, Noke, and Drom asked him, "For attaining the high state of liberation and omniscience, which is more important, to follow the precept of the Lama or to follow the scriptures and commentaries?"
Atisa replied, "The precept of the Lama is more important than scriptures and commentaries."
"Why is that?" they asked.
"Even if you know that the primary characteristic of all phenomena is Voidness, and can recite the Tripitaka as well, you and the Teaching will be completely separate if you do not apply the precept of the Lama at the time of practice."
Again the disciples asked, "Please define the practice of the precept of the Lama. Is it simply striving to do virtuous deeds in body, speech, and mind, and acting in accordance with the three vows: the vow of individual liberation, the Bodhisattva vow, and the Tantric vow?"
"Both of these are insufficient," Atisa answered.
"But why?"
"Although you keep the three vows, if you do not renounce the three realms of samsara, your activities will only increase your worldliness. Although you strive to perform virtuous deeds in body, speech, and mind, both day and night, if you do not dedicate this work to the enlightenment of all, you will end up with numerous wrong concepts. Though you meditate, and are considered a holy and wise teacher, if you do not abandon your interest in the eight worldly concerns, whatever you do will be only for the purposes of this life, and in the future you will not find the right path." 

So in the precept of the Lama you get something much more directly related to your individual requirements. You get the distillation. Many people have had the experience that sometimes you want to know what to do, say in connection with meditation, what should you actually do. How should you proceed at a certain point. So if you want an answer to that sort of question, what should I do in this specific situation, at this point in my meditation, then you can only get it from some other individual more enlightened than yourself. So the need for the contact with the individual more experienced than yourself will tend to arise more if you practice.  So the emphasis on the Lama is very much connected with the emphasis on practice. And of course the Tantric tradition did emphasize practice. In a way it is the whole practical wing of the Mahayana. 
the purely general knowledge that you have about Voidness and the Tripitika,
this isn't enough when it comes to the time of practice. There you need something much more specific, much more direct, something much more related to your actual situation. 
I mean you can get very good general advice from the scriptures but very rarely
do you get any specific guidance. 
There are so many scriptures. So very few individual Buddhists are in the position to do that for themselves, go through all the scriptures to find relevant advice) very few have got the actual equipment. So therefore you need contact with someone who can give you the essence of the matter in a few words as it applies to your actual individual situation. Obviously the importance of the Lama will increase as Buddhist tradition becomes older and more complex. 
In the Buddha's day everything that the Buddha said was a precept. There was no general teaching, so you can say that what are scriptures today were precepts yesterday. It is just the same with this 'Precepts collected from here and there'. They were precepts in those days but now they have become, sort of scriptures. But they are relatively close to us. We can probably still get quite a bit from them as precepts. So the Buddhist scriptures are, on the whole, the Buddha's own precepts to his personal disciples. So in a sense in Buddhism there is no such thing as scriptures, there is only precepts. 

In works like the Udana, much of what is said is of the nature of a precept for an individual. But as time goes on a number of precepts are collected together and then generalizations are made from those precepts. In that way you work out a sort of philosophy of the precepts, a general religious philosophy, as it were. Which is useful as far as it goes. It certainly helps to clarify things. In fact it may, in the hands of a gifted teacher, itself become a precept. Tsongkhapa's writings are of this nature. 

Or you can say the Lama himself is a living precept and the precept need not be connected with words, the precept can even be an action 

There's the well known example of the master who told one disciple to go slow because he was too quick and told another to go more quickly because he was too slow. The two teachings are diametrically opposite. He is telling one disciple to go more slowly and the other to go more quickly but actually it is the same teaching because he is bringing them both to the same point but with different methods, even opposite, apparently. 

, all this is about is getting in touch with a certain spirit which underlies everything. Well presumably the precept of the Lama, here, is, in a way, an expression of that. As long as one isn't in touch with that no amount of knowledge would do you any good. 

Atisa is saying there is not much point in observing vows externally if there is no real spirit of renunciation of conditioned things. Possibly he has in mind a sort of
worldly ecclesiastic. Who is keeping up all the monastic vows quite faithfully but whose inner spirit is of a very worldly kind. 
I don't think there is any sort of inbuilt safeguard apart from the teaching itself that you must be on your guard against that sort of thing. You can't have any organizational device, 

But here it suggests that the only right motivation ultimately is that which aspires to Enlightenment for all. If you are performing virtuous deeds in body speech and mind simply in order that you can get to heaven or you can gain Nirvana, well this is not the highest motivation, though it is a good motivation as far as it goes. But the highest from the Mahayana point of view is that you should perform your virtuous deeds, follow the spiritual path not just for the sake of your own liberation but in
order that everybody may benefit. In other words the Bodhisattva ideal
It is not a question of renouncing an existent Nirvana but of renouncing the attitude that Nirvana is something that can be individually possessed. 

Yes but you can also say I am just the same or I am worse, the ego is always there. But if you are actually better than others then there is the possibility of getting a little bit further beyond the ego. In fact part of the betterness consists in that. But not to try and become better than others so that you won't feel egoistic is quite useless, because you can feel egoistic about being equal or inferior even. 

these eight worldly concerns cover all the vicissitudes of life . Especially in terms of the pairs of opposites, that you move about in the midst of the vicissitudes of life but your mind is not affected. You are not elated by praise, you are not depressed by blame, you are not elated by good fortune or depressed by misfortune, you are the same in the midst of all these changes, in the midst of all this turmoil. 

A rule is something general whereas a precept really is something more specific.
A precept is more like personal advice, it being understood that the personal advice relates directly to spiritual matters, especially to the question of your personal development and whatyou should do or not do in the interests of your personal development. 

We usually tend to think of truth as something abstract and general. The more abstract it is the truer it is but from a spiritual point of view we can say that the opposite is the case. And very often it becomes so general it is just a matter of words not even of ideas. 

the precept itself, ideally, should pertain to quite a deep level. It shouldn't necessarily be couched in terms of 'you should do this or you should do that' it is much more a sort of clarification of the situation. Because also there is the question of freedom in that relationship, as in any other. So it is more like a clarification and a throwing
light on rather than telling someone just to go off and do this and do that. The precept isn't an order.