Three defects of the vessel

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Three defects of the vessel or pot (Tib. སྣོད་ཀྱི་སྐྱོན་གསུམ་, nö kyi kyön sum, Wyl. snod kyi skyon gsum) — three incorrect ways of listening to the Dharma. They are to listen like:

  1. a vessel turned upside down,
  2. a vessel with a hole in it, and
  3. a vessel containing poison.

Alternative version:

As regards the three defects of the container, it is said:

Not paying attention is to be like a container turned upside down.
Not remembering is to be like a container with a hole in it.
Mixing what you hear with mental afflictions is to be like a container with poison inside.

These three should be avoided.

As the sutra says:

Listen well with full attention and remember what you hear.[1].

Tibetan

༼༡༽རྣ་བ་མི་གཏད་ཁ་སྦུབས་ལྟ་བུའི་སྐྱོན།

༼༢༽ཡིད་ལ་མི་འཛིན་ཞབས་རྡོལ་ལྟ་བུའི་སྐྱོན།

༼༣༽།ཉོན་མོངས་དང་འདྲེས་དུག་ཅན་ལྟ་བུའི་སྐྱོན།།

References

  1. *Patrul Rinpoche, Preliminary Points to be Explained When Teaching the Buddha’s Word or the Treatises, translated by Adam Pearcey

Further Reading