Morality
In the Revealing the Profound Secrets Sutra the Buddha tells World Voice Perceiver Bodhisattva:
There are three kinds of morality. The first is the morality of turning away from and abandoning the unwholesome. The second is the morality of turning towards and developing the wholesome. The third is the morality of turning towards and developing that which benefits sentient beings.
T676, 16.705c15-705c17
The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana describes the perfection of morality as follows:
How do you practice the gate of morality? It is not to kill, not to steal, not to engage in sexual misconduct, not to use malicious speech, not to use harsh speech, not to lie, and not to idly chatter. It is to stay away from greed, envy, deception, dissimulation, hatred, and wrong views. If you have left home to subdue defilements, you should stay away from hustle and bustle but always dwell in quiet, tranquil places, cultivating contentment with few desires and the practice of the dhuta. Even minor transgressions should arouse dreadful fear in the mind. Moral shame, moral dread, and repentance should not be taken lightly in the face of the Tathagata’s regulations and precepts. You should guard against blaming others or being resentful so that you do not cause sentient beings to arouse their delusions and commit transgressions.
T1666, 9.581c22-581c28
In the Bodhicharyavatara (Introduction to the Practice of Awakening) by the Indian Mahayana monk Shantidva (c. 685 - c. 763), the following is said about the nature of the perfection of morality:
11. Where can fish and other creatures be taken where I might not kill them? Yet when the mental attitude to cease from worldly acts is achieved, that is agreed to be the perfection of morality.
12. How many wicked people, as unending as the sky, can I kill? But when the mental attitude of anger is slain, slain is every enemy.
13. Where is there hide to cover the whole world? The wide world can be covered with hide enough for a pair of shoes alone.
14. In the same way, since I cannot control external events, I will control my own mind. What concern is it of mine whether other things are controlled?
The Bodhicaryavatara 5.11-14 as translated by Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton.
Shantidva warns that mindfulness and awareness are needed to guard oneself so that one does not carelessly act in a way that is harmful to oneself or others:
26. Many, though learned, possessing faith, and though absorbed in effort, are befouled by offenses due to the fault of lacking awareness.
Shantideva also states that for the bodhisattva, the overriding concern is to act for the benefit of all being:
83. Each of the perfections, beginning with generosity, is more excellent than its predecessor. One should not neglect a higher one for the sake of a lower, unless because of a fixed rule of conduct.
84. Realizing this, one should always be striving for others' well-being. Even what is proscribed is permitted for a compassionate person who sees it will be of benefit.
Ibid, 5.26,83-84.
Here are a few more of Shantideva’s verses concerning the cultivation of beneficial conduct and mindful awareness:
101. One should do nothing other than what is either directly or indirectly of benefit to living beings, and for the benefit of living beings alone one should dedicate everything to Awakening.
108. In brief, this alone is the definition of awareness: the observation at every moment of the state of one’s body and one’s mind.
Ibid, 5.101 and 5.108.
Among many examples, here is a story in which the bodhisattva who becomes Shakyamuni displayed the perfection of morality:
In one of his previous existences, Shakyamuni Buddha was practicing the bodhisattva way as King Shrutasoma (or Sutasoma, the name means “Universal Brightness”). One day, the king was visiting a garden when he encountered a poor brahmin who begged him for alms. The king agreed to give him something but before he could he was kidnapped by the demonic King Kalmashapada (or Deer Feet or Spotted Feet). King Kalmashapada took King Shrutasoma back to his castle where he had imprisoned ninety-nine other kings. According to some versions of this story, he intended to eat them. King Shrutasoma was visibly upset and when asked why, he told his captor that it was because he would not be able to fulfill his promise to give alms to the brahmin. King Kalmashapada granted King Shrutasoma permission to return to his kingdom for a week to fulfill his promise on the condition that he come back to be eaten. King Shrutasoma accepted this. He fulfilled his promise to the brahmin and set his heir on the throne. Everyone in his kingdom vowed to fight to protect him if he stayed and King Kalmashapada tried to get him back by force, but King Shrutasoma insisted on returning so as not to break his word and become a liar. When King Kalmashapada saw that King Shrutasoma had returned, he was so impressed by the latter king’s integrity that he freed him and also the other ninety-nine kings.
A long and convoluted version of the story of King Sutasoma (the Pali version of his name) is number 537 in the Pali language collection of Jataka tales.
A much more succinct version is given as the twelfth story in the third division of the Cariyapitaka (Basket of Conduct) in the Pali canon.
The story is mentioned in some versions of the Lankavatara Sutra. In D. T. Suzuki’s translation of the sutra, the background of King Spotted Feet is recounted in the following passage:
Mahamati, there was another king who was carried away by his horse into a forest. After wandering about in it, he committed evil deeds with a lioness out of fear for his life, and children were born to her. Because of their descending from union with a lioness, the royal children were called the Spotted Feet, etc. On account of their evil habit-energy in the past when their food had been flesh, they ate meat even [after becoming] king, and, Mahamati, in his life they lived in a village called Kutiraka (“seven huts”), and because they were excessively attached and devoted to meat-eating they gave birth to Dakas and Dakini who were terrible eaters of human flesh.
The Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana Text, p. 216.
A version of this story is told in the Great Perfection of Wisdom Treatise.
A version of this story is also told The Three Jewels: A Study and Translation of Minamoto Tamenori's Sanboe.
There is another version told in the Benevolent Kings Sutra. According to that sutra, King Spotted Feet believed in a non-Buddhist teacher, who suggested that he should take the heads of one thousand kings and dedicate them to a certain god. He captured nine-hundred and ninety-nine kings and then the thousandth king named Universal Brightness begged for and was allowed to hold a lecture meeting on the Benevolent Kings Sutra by one hundred Buddhist masters. King Spotted Feet was so delighted by the lectures that he realized he had been led astray by one of the non-Buddhist teachings.
Citing the conversion of King Spotted Feet, Nichiren Shonin taught that King Universal Brightness was a good friend to King Spotted Feet. (WNS1, p. 53-55) He also mentioned him as an example of someone who would not violate the precepts even at the cost of his life in a letter to a follower. (WNS7, p. 16 & p. 139)