The

21 Precepts of Conduct


Your conduct is the truest demonstration of your spiritual life. The activities of your
body, speech and mind each demonstrate the degree of wisdom and compassion
that you have thus far realized in your spiritual practice. Therefore conduct is the
final measuring stick to determine exactly what stage of the path you are traversing.

Conduct is also an excellent integration practice as well. Remaining in awareness
through the use of the technique of second attention, you are able to consciously
choose how you will act from moment to moment. And by choosing conduct in line
with the “21 precepts of conduct” you will be always engaged in integration practice
and therefore in creating karmic freedom for yourself. Each choice that is made to
act along the lines of the precepts will decrease your karmic burden. And once your
life has become an expression of the 21 precepts of conduct you will be on your way
to total karmic freedom.

The precepts are not hard rules and they are not commandments from a supreme
being. They are guidelines aimed at developing discrimination and enlightened
conduct that must be interpreted in each new moment. Your understanding and
appreciation of the precepts will deepen as the years go by. In each new phase of
your journey they will take on new meaning and utility.

The precepts are actually virtues. Virtues are what we will radiate as our expression
in the world after our unconscious self-image formation machine is replaced by the
unbroken experience of natural presence. All human beings share the virtues, the
rays of enlightenment. By exploring, contemplating and applying the 21 precepts of
conduct followed by the Trika community you are directly engaging in enlightened
activity.

It is helpful to develop the habit of a nightly review of how well you conducted your
day in the light of the precepts. Acknowledge those precepts that you kept that day
and those that you did not uphold very well and re-commit to keeping a stronger
awareness of the precepts of conduct the next day.

The following are the foundation precepts of the path…


1. PRECEPT OF DHARMIC VIEW: Keep the Dharmic View as your friend. Take
refuge in your understanding of, and implementation of the View teachings of the
school. Just as you can sense a friend’s company, sense your immersion in the View
teachings as a constant companion.

2. PRECEPT OF HEALTH CULTIVATION: Cultivate your health. The foundation of
all basic sanity is your daily health routine (dinacarya). Its rhythmicity and
appropriateness to time and environment produce harmony between yourself and
Nature.

Trika Method © 2005 1

3. PRECEPT OF ENERGY AWARENESS: Be intimate with your energy state. Develop
sensitivity to the inherent wisdom of your energy. Listen for your true appetites.

4. PRECEPT OF APPROPRIATE SPEECH:
a) “Guard your speech.” Speak less. Assess the real need for speech.
b) Speak beneficially, sweetly, kindly, and truthfully whenever possible.
c) Do not discuss people who are not present unless praising them. Do not think
or speculate about others.
d) Speak soberly. Do not exaggerate, or lie. Try to avoid speech with strong
emotion, and exclamatory speech. Guard against enthusiastic, inspired
speech as it often leads to:
a. energy depletion
b. loss of rationality
c. over-commitment (breaking one’s word until it is meaningless)
d. loss of awareness, loss of your second attention, and fantasy
e) Do not discuss spiritual experiences or your sādhana (spiritual practice) with
anyone except the teacher (or community – but only in the context of a
learning environment, i.e. study group, etc.). Do not conceptualize spiritual
experiences.
f) Refrain from speculative speech.
g) Do not commit verbally without honest assessment of your ability to follow
through.
h) Never speak negatively about the teacher (any teacher), the path, others,
yourself, or the community.
i) Do not search for faults or broken precepts of others
j) Ask for teachings and sādhana guidance in a responsible, sincere, and
committed manner. Follow the “Seven Steps of Responsible Asking;”
a. Decide precisely what you want.
b. Be sure you are able to receive the response/teaching/practice/etc.
c. Discern who has what you want (and whether they can give it to you.)
d. Determine whether you are ready to give in return for the teaching,
that which is unknown to you at the time of asking.
e. Ask specifically for what you want. Offer the giver what it is they
want/expect from you. Do what is asked of you.
f. Receive the requested boon.
g. If you do not receive what you’ve asked for, note on which step you’ve
faltered, correct, and ask again.

5. PRECEPT OF NATURAL EFFORT: Use minimal strength, will, and concentration
needed in each situation to accomplish what is needed.

6. PRECEPT OF DISCRETION: Know the difference between that which you share
and is thereby benefiting, enhancing, and radiating - and that which is enhanced
through privacy. Discretion accumulates energy. It is possible to err on the side of
being too open in some matters. Do not attract attention to your spiritual life. There
were many great masters who did not reveal that they were practitioners until the

Trika Method © 2005 2

time of their death. Be discreet in meritorious as well as non-meritorious actions
(no public confessions or self-flagellation is necessary to purge guilt and shame.)
You do not need to be an open book to be cultivating Dharma. Do not discuss your
intimate relationships with others. Cultivate a spiritual practice/life that is discreet.

7. PRECEPT OF ESSENTIAL DIGNITY OR VAJRA PRIDE: Your essential nature is
dignified and relaxed in the power of Its own self-knowing. When a being recognizes
their true nature they tend to display a certain deportment of confidence and
assuredness that lacks egoic self-referenting. This is called Vajra Pride in Tantra. It
is the antithesis of self-obsessed self-neglect and self-hatred that are based on
ignorance of your true nature. Immersion in the indestructible nature of our essence
expresses as a relaxed yet dignified poise and authentic presence.

8. PRECEPT OF AVOIDING HARMING BEINGS: Non-violence is rooted in the
feeling of non-separation. Cultivate such a deep sense of connection to all beings
that it disallows the arising of any harmful intent. To kill is not to harm. To murder
is to kill with harmful intent.

9. PRECEPT OF HONESTY: Be honest. Do not exaggerate or fabricate (life events,
spiritual accomplishments, knowledge, etc.). Do not steal. Have no ulterior motives.
Do not coerce or manipulate to serve your cause or any cause. Avoid duplicity. Don’t
be a hypocrite.

10. PRECEPT OF SIMPLICITY: Avoid elaboration and complexity (which brings
confused suffering). Be simple and straightforward.

11. PRECEPT OF HUMILITY. Guard against arrogance (insecurity), pride (minor
accomplishment) and false humility (manipulation/seduction). Humility and
modesty are the expression of “surrender.” Do not cling to visions of the self – this is
pride. Do not identify with the performance of duty, nor its fruit.

12. PRECEPT OF EQUANIMITY: Cultivate an expectation of the unevenness of life.
Be neither too tight nor too slack. Stillness in action, action in stillness. Look upon a
clod of earth, lump of gold, beautiful person, and a rotting corpse with the same
vision. Love (advaitabhāvanā) is not to favor – this is equanimity.

13. PRECEPT OF NON-ATTACHMENT: experience satiation of desire without
producing a pattern of compulsive repetition. Be with what is - instead of what
could, would, or should happen. Move on and let go. Don’t cling to histrionic stories
or emotions about self, others, or situations, apparitional hopes or expectations.
Don’t want what you don’t have.

14. PRECEPT OF SOBRIETY: Do not follow fantasy. Cultivate Basic Sanity by
remaining in the totality of your actual situation from moment to moment. Do not
participate in intoxication.

Trika Method © 2005 3

15. PRECEPT OF KINDNESS AND GENEROSITY: You never know the cruelty that
has been experienced by someone – act with kindness. Generosity is to be in
resonance with nature. She is ever supportive, kind, nourishing, and she is You.
Kindness and generosity do not depend on circumstance.

16. PRECEPT OF REMEMBERANCE OF DEATH: Nothing is static. All people,
objects, and situations are always dissolving though they may appear to be stable or
growing/evolving. Our own death may be surprising if we forget that we die.
Remembering death helps you to live each moment in the fullness of Love and
Wisdom.

17. PRECEPT OF OPENNESS: Be adaptable & flexible. Drop defensiveness and
posturing. Let go of boundaries as ways of making yourself safe from others wants,
needs and criticisms and re-invoke your boundaries as places to meet and share
generosity in all its forms. Have a soft and hosting heart-mind.

18. PRECEPT OF CONTENTMENT: Recognize essential fullness and completeness.
If you know you are missing nothing, the virtue of contentment arises. Essence is
always full – situations are up and down. Contentment rests in your realization of
your essence.

19. PRECEPT OF GRATITUDE: Take nothing for granted. See and experience the
freshness in each moment. Gratitude for what is received is demonstrated by
impeccable action. Cultivate a sense of wonder and amazement when considering
the world of appearance. Cultivate gratitude for the opportunity that life represents.

20. PRECEPT OF FREEDOM: Discover inherent freedom by using discipline and
view to dissolve compulsion arising from false view. After practicing repetitive
restraint, the freedom of spontaneity will arise naturally. Release false and infantile
views of a freedom without discipline. The Freedom of your essential nature is both
free to do – and free not to do. When compulsion, preference, and any form of
conditioning no longer arise as filters of your actual situation – you are Free.

21. PRECEPT OF LOYALTY: Loyalty is complete dedication without judgment of the
worthiness of the ideal or person that you are dedicated to. Loyalty is not modified
with varying circumstances. Non-preferential loyalty is an aspect of enlightened
living.

Trika Method © 2005 4