When staying alone, watch your mind, it is taught.
In all actions, again and again
Check your body, speech, and mind. That is my heart advice.
This verse teaches the importance of conscientiousness, mindfulness, and alertness during all activities. In general, what we call Dharma should be understood as transforming our body, speech, and mind, especially our mind. If Dharma becomes nothing more than a country custom or monastic tradition, because it is just the culture of a country, it will not bring much benefit to the mind. Buddha himself said,
Commit not the slightest non-virtue.
Persevere in perfect virtue.
Fully control your own mind.
This is the Teaching of Buddha.
The last two lines of this verse are particularly relevant here. Since that is the case, we must take good care of our physical, vocal, and mental actions by checking them conscientiously with mindfulness and alertness. This is of utmost importance. When speech is used for giving advice, teaching Dharma, recitations, mantras, and so on, it automatically creates a storehouse of virtue, but when it is misused to speak to others harshly, dishonestly, meaninglessly, etc, it becomes a storehouse of non-virtue; the worst non-virtues come through speech! Although we need to always be mindful and introspective of all of our three doors of action, we must be especially careful what we say when we are among people. Before speaking, check whether what you are about to say will help others or hurt them. If it will help, say it, but if it will hurt, don’t.
