Final precepts, daily conduct · Verse 31 of 37
Verse 31: Examine your own confusion
Verse 31 of The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, the fourteenth-century Tibetan poem by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo (1295–1369). It belongs to the section on final precepts, daily conduct.
Unless you examine your own confusion, you might look like a practitioner but not act like one. Therefore, always examine yourself and abandon confusion. This is the way of a bodhisattva.
The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to scrutinize oneself
Continually and to rid oneself of faults whenever they appear.
For unless one checks carefully to find one's own confusion,
One might appear to be practising Dharma, but act against it.
If you don't go into your own confusion,
You may just be a materialist in practitioner's clothing.
Constantly go into your own confusion
And put an end to it — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
A facilitator's reading across the commentaries
The spiritual-materialism verse. KTGR's Rechungpa story is its perfect illustration — even "defending the Dharma" can be the fault the verse warns about. For a group leader (you), this is the verse the whole launch plan already knew: check the seat.
GR Garchen Rinpoche · HHDL H.H. the Dalai Lama · AB Dr. Alexander Berzin · KTGR Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche · KS Khenpo Sodargye · TC Ven. Thubten Chodron · KM Ken McLeod
What the teachers say
Garchen Rinpoche Drikung Kagyu
(Brief.) Purely reflexive: "all you need to do is to watch your mind and you will know its appearance" — bad thoughts and arising anger recognized immediately in their appearance. Constant review is the practice.
Full commentary: 37practices.info (37practices.info serves this as one long page; find the verse by number.)
H.H. the Dalai Lama Gelug
No commentary on the 1974 source (its theme is absorbed into his v32 teaching).
Full commentary: 37practices.info (37practices.info serves this as one long page; find the verse by number.)
Dr. Alexander Berzin Gelug
Only we witness our real motivation — "only we are the best judges of... what is really going on in our minds." The danger is cosmetic spirituality: outward prostrations driven inwardly by guilt, approval-craving, or conformity. The Dharma mirror must face inward, not out at others' failings.
Full commentary: studybuddhism.com
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche Karma Kagyu
Signature story: during the scholar Dalo's attack on Milarepa, the disciple Rechungpa grabbed a stick to defend the Dharma — and Milarepa sang him a song on patience, lest the defender violate the very thing defended. Delusion masquerades as virtue in scholar and yogi alike.
Full commentary: dharmaebooks.org (Free ebook, trans. Suzanne Schefczyk.)
Khenpo Sodargye Nyingma, Larung Gar
Practice without self-examination becomes "a facade, a mask." Turn the outward-judging mind inward, especially onto motivation — is ego secretly driving even bodhisattva-like activity? Cites the Sutra Requested by Sagaramati (examining one's own faults + protecting beings = the whole Mahayana) and Gampopa's "hidden faults of practitioners." Quote — H.H. Jigme Phuntsok, near his death: "We should always examine our own mind and be stable and not hurt living beings."
Full commentary: khenposodargye.org (Free ebook PDF.)
Ven. Thubten Chodron Sravasti Abbey, Gelug
Winter Retreat vv29–37 talk.
Full commentary: thubtenchodron.org
Ken McLeod Shambhala / independent
His translation is the sharpest rendering: "a materialist in practitioner's clothing." Talk 11: engage confusion directly rather than analyze it intellectually. Tricycle v31 (video/subscriber).
Full commentary: unfetteredmind.org (Tricycle's per-verse written commentary is behind a subscriber paywall.)
Further reading: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Heart of Compassion (Shambhala). A purchased book — no text is reproduced here.