u/SentientLight

I'm not including any of the footnotes here, but the actual translation will contain notes on what the references are alluding to.

I've also a bunch of notes for my master where I'm not entirely sure if I'm correct, but this is the first section of this text I've completed in a few years, so I'll share the early version of this section.

I'm also specifically working off of Thich Thanh Tu's translation into modern Vietnamese from Sino-Vietnamese (Chu Nom), and Master will be making suggestions and revisions based on other versions or his knowledge of the original text / classical language.

In any case, I hope this early version can help to enrich your practice or study of the tradition, in honoring the Buddha and our Ancestors, especially with Vesak right around the corner. 🙏🏼🙇🏻‍♂️

> The Five Precepts

> from Tran Thai Tong's Instructions on Emptiness

> Homily on the Precept to Refrain from Killing:

> All sentient beings, whether born from egg, embryo, moisture or transformation have the same nature—their faculties for seeing, hearing, and understanding are not different. It is solely because of the karma they have created and the enmities they have forged that they now bear different names and forms. In the past all beings were undifferentiated, but now are delineated into myriad distinct species. Beings are born in one time as friends, in another time as siblings. Going from one life to another, they cast off their robes, sashes and hats, transforming into creatures of scales, wings and feathers. Wives forget husbands, husbands forget wives; children disown their fathers and fathers disown their children. Look at how they cast aside their forms and transform their faces, and still they are dragged back time again to have their bellies slit and their limbs hacked off. And yet, despite their desperate clinging to life and their trepidation over death, they are unable to utter even a single cry to voice their agony. You kill them, they kill you; next he devours you, then you devour him in turn, on and on without end, incessantly committing karmic misdeeds. Lifetime after lifetime, they exact vengeance upon one another; generation after generation, they perpetuate their mutual enmity.

> Those who turn their heads from this violence find their true homes, while those who are careless will remain mired in hell. The Confucian classics instruct, “Do virtuous deeds.” The Taoist scriptures teach, “Treasure all beings and covet life.” The Buddha states that just to refrain from killing is to keep [all] the precepts—we must be diligent to abide by this and never transgress it.

(Summary in verse:) 
Whether scaled or feathered or furred, all beings are imbued with sentience;
their fear of death, their yearning for life, is no different from our own nature.
From ancient eons onward, the Sages and Saints have struggled to endure the suffering of beings—
How then could they possibly stand idle and watch them die—
these creatures clinging so desperately to life?

> Homily on the Precept to Refrain from Stealing:

> Those who engage in charity are called paragons ; those who engage in thievery are called scoundrels. The noble paragon harbors a compassionate heart striving to aid the destitute, while the ignoble scoundrel greedily strives only for his own material gain. He appropriates and claims what belongs to others as his own property, eschewing the norms of decency, fixated only on what may benefit himself. He does not know that wealth is gifted from Heaven, the scoundrel indulges only in greed. Like a hound locked onto the trail of a scent, he tunnels through earth, chisels through walls, and bores his way through fortress barricades, avariciously following in the footsteps of the Sơn Dương general , cultivating that same rapacious craft as the Lương Thượng platoon . The ignoble scoundrel covets in defying the natural order between Heaven and Earth; he flouts the law and holds authority in contempt. While he lives, he is punished by the state, when he dies, [his fate] shall be adjudicated in the Courts of Hell.

> This precept is not merely a matter of gold ingots or slabs of refined jade, but also extends to [stealing] even a single blade of grass or a stray strand of hair. To merely inhale the fragrance of a lotus blossom from a pond invites the rebuke of the Earth Spirits; to lend money at interest incurs the punishment of the King of Hell. The Net of Heaven is vast and all-encompassing—those who do virtuous deeds shall escape its grasp, while those who do evil shall be ensnared. A nation’s laws are [similarly] broad and far-reaching—those working for the welfare of the public fall outside its scope, while those working for private gain shall be prosecuted.

(Summary in verse:)
Drilling through walls and tunneling beneath—
the intent never ceases;
With a hundred schemes and a thousand stratagems, 
one strives in bitter pursuit. 
If, in this life, one succeeds in seizing another's wealth,
Little does one know of the myriad lifetimes 
to be spent as a beast of burden.

> Homily on the Precept on Bodily Conduct:

> A maiden with a slender waist and silky hair so easily bewitches and infatuates the mind; her graceful figure, her brows carefully sculpted to arch like swallow’s wing, is so utterly enchanting we become like bewildered ghosts wandering aimlessly. A mere sidelong glance, though nowhere near as sharp as a knife, rends the heart asunder all the same. A sonorous voice as lilting as a kite-flute compels everyone around to pause and listen. Those who’ve been enchanted are then quick to sever any bonds of kinship and friendship that might obstruct them, as moral virtue dissolves to dust. In the public sphere, ethical governance becomes submerged in decadent corruption; behind closed doors, the domestic order of one’s home collapses into disarray. Whether common layperson or erudite scholar, all become enchanted by fine raiment and the allure of adorning themselves. Just as the moral discipline of the state was jettisoned to revel in the pleasure terrace of Tô Đài , the integrity of keeping the precepts becomes buried deep within chambers of lust and debauchery.

> All of this is the result of casting our gaze outward in pursuit of external pleasures, rather than turning our heads inward to look within. Stripping away every silken garment that veils the body, we stand exposed, our bare flesh and skin beneath revealed. The single-horned sage, by drawing too near to a nunnery, retrogressed and abandoned his asceticism for the mundane world; a true paragon, unenchanted by the Charcoal Woman, ascends to the heavens. Those who refrain from chasing after sensual forms attains the five supermundane powers ; those infatuated by form forfeit their practice of the precepts.

(Summary in verse:)
Her cheeks, faintly scented with plum blossoms; 
her face the hue of peach pistils;
To behold her just once enchants the eyes to never look away,
 and stirs the heart with longing;
Yet all of us are mere sacks of foul-smelling skin 
silently rending out our entrails using no knife.

> Homily on the Precept to Refrain from False Speech:

> Just as the mind is the root of both virtue and vice, the mouth is the doorway that opens into both fortune and calamity. Harboring a single thought invariably invites a karmic response without fail; likewise, utter a single word and a shadow then trails behind it without deviation. The noble paragon weighs their words with delicate deliberation, just as the ancients guarded their speech as if handling a fragile vessel. When [a paragon] speaks, their words are upright and impartial, never allowing their words to be twisted or deceitful. They do not extol one thing and disparage another thing, nor do they assert their own righteousness while chastising others as wrong. Never daring to idly wag their tongue, they exercise constant vigilance over their mouth and words. While the karmic burden of physical deeds is indeed heavy, the karmic calamity born of the mouth bears the first fruit—for not only does the speaker commit the transgression of reckless speech in the first place, but their words may also incite listeners to act deviously as well.

> In this life, one who commits false speech is scorned by others; after death, they will be dragged along by the weight of their karma. They may suffer the agony of having their tongue torn out by iron pincers, or else they must endure the torment of having molten copper poured down their mouth.

(Summary in verse:)
Side by side, they laugh and chat, their tongues wagging;
Forever they remain purveyors of deceitful speech.
Driven solely by the desire for wealth and the need to please others,
In the end, they cannot escape the karmic pull that drags them down.

> Homily on the Precept to Refrain from Alcohol:

> Those fond of drink suffer a decline in virtue, their speech becomes rife with error. The liquor’s searing heat ulcerates the stomach, while its pungent bite erodes away the liver and intestines. Their minds become scattered and disordered, and their mental faculties grow cloudy and dull. They think nothing of their parents and habitually commit the Five Weighty Offenses. They may provoke incidents in taverns and shops, or in their drunken stupors collapse and lay sprawled out on the public roadways. They revile Heaven and Earth and disparage the Buddha and the Sangha alike. Their mouths babble in the cacophony of drunken songs while they dance their naked bodies about in wild abandon. They offer neither reverence nor alms to the Buddha, choosing instead to consort with unrighteous, dark-clad rogues. The ruin of one’s body and the loss of one’s life arises from this one source; the habit of drink is the very root from which springs the downfall of the nation and the devastation of the home.

> Abstinence from alcohol invites the convergence of a thousand blessings; indulgence in alcohol summons a hundred calamities to descend. Đại Võ disdained alcohol, and thus myriads of people rallied behind him; conversely, Thái Khang was so infatuated with wine, his five sons grew to resent and conspire against him. It is not only the debaucherous who must heed this warning, but the truly accomplished as well who must be vigilant in their abstinence. How many individuals, once radiant luminaries in this world, have found their brilliance dimmed into darkness by their fondness for drink?

(Summary in verse:)
From a single bottle of fermented drink,
how many countless wise ones have lost their wits!
It is not just that monks fail to uphold the precepts—
from just this one vice, nations collapse, homes are destroyed.