What is "wine"? As long as it contains alcohol, whether it's fruit wine or wine lees, as long as it has produced alcohol, we cannot sell it.
Why?
Because alcohol is a very important cause of sin.
In Vinaya, alcohol is called "the drug of ignorance." What does "the drug of ignorance" mean? It causes a person's mind to run wild. A normally normal person, after drinking, becomes bold in saying things they wouldn't dare to say and doing things they wouldn't dare to do.
In other words, our normal self-control is completely destroyed after drinking alcohol. Alcohol can make a person's mind run wild. Therefore, although drinking alcohol itself is not a sin like killing, stealing, adultery, or lying, it is not a sin in itself, but it can lead to other sins. Because it destroys your self-control, it is called the cause of sin - it is a cause for the generation of sinful karma. It's not a sin in itself, but it can lead to sinful karma.
This section describes the three situations that should be avoided. This is the second one, which talks about what Bodhisattvas should practice. They should practice "giving wisdom", the practice of giving wisdom. As a bodhisattva, he knows deeply that all sins come from ignorance, so the bodhisattva must try every possible way to enable all sentient beings to hear the Dharma and open the bright wisdom in their hearts. This is what should be done.
As a Bodhisattva, if you not only do not open up the wisdom of sentient beings, but also sell alcohol to them, causing sentient beings to develop confused minds and lose their rationality, this Bodhisattva will be obscured by the affliction of greed and love, lose the Bodhisattva's original "body of precepts", and will also lose the Bodhisattva's original merits.
This means that while we all have afflictions, most of the time these afflictions remain at the seed level, dormant. While they're dormant, don't stimulate them. In other words, if someone has the afflictions of greed, anger, and ignorance, a bodhisattva shouldn't stimulate the afflictions of sentient beings. You don't even have enough time to explain the Dharma to him and help him develop bright wisdom, yet you still sell him wine! Once they drink it, all their dormant afflictions are awakened, and all their crimes are linked to you.
Therefore, the reason why selling alcohol is a serious offense is that you use alcohol to stimulate the other person's troubles, so it is a serious offense.
