Three defects of the vessel

Three defects of the vessel or pot (Tib. སྣོད་ཀྱི་སྐྱོན་གསུམ་, 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..

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།།

Further Reading

• Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher (Boston: Shambhala, Revised edition, 1998), 'The Three Defects of the Pot', pages 10-12.
• Khenpo Ngawang Palzang, A Guide to the Words of My Perfect Teacher, 'The Three Defects of the Pot', page 35.
• Khenpo Kunpal, The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech, translated by Padmakara Translation Group. Published by Shambhala. ISBN 978-1-59030-439-6, page 24.

Source

RigpaWiki:Three defects of the vessel