Buddhist Hour
Script No. 440
Broadcast live on 3MDR 97.1FM
9 PM to 10 PM
On Friday 11 August 2006 CE 2550 Buddhist Era

This script is entitled:

"Lifetimes of Learning "
Class 7 - Exploring the Perfection of Morality Part 2

Tonight we will continue with our study of morality, the second of the Ten Perfections.

Thank you for tuning in. These teachings are for you. Our wish is to tell you something about what the Buddha taught.

The Buddhist Path is described as having three major components. These are morality, concentration and wisdom. The three work together supporting each other as a path of training. The Buddhist training enables a person to recognise the causes of suffering in their own lives and then to overcome them as a means to becoming stable and happy, and ultimately to do what the Buddha did, to become fully enlightened.

When you read or hear about what people do in their life to improve their happiness they don't usually mention morality, concentration or wisdom! They don't say, "Hey Tim I'm learning how to remove obstacles to one pointed concentration," or "That's great Bob! I took extra precepts today!". Instead, they say something like, "We're planning to move into our new house next year," or, "We're going to Disneyland", or something like that.

When you read or hear about what people do in their life to improve their health or long life they don't say, "I'm planning how I can better keep the 5 precepts", or "I'm learning how to make stronger causes for health and long life". People don't often say such things. What they generally say is something like, "I'm planning to lose 3 kilos on my new diet", or, "I bought a car with airbags".

That’s fine of course, as we all need our kit of parts for living. But, as we saw a few weeks ago this is how things seem in terms of conventional reality, everyday tables and chairs understanding, but it's not the way things actually work from the ultimate understanding. It's not the way the Buddha taught to improve your life.

Lets take it a few steps further. How does you're kit of parts actually come together.In the Dhammapada, a book of verses that the Buddha spoke, the Buddha says:

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts, suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of an ox.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.

The Buddha taught about cause and effect, the Law of Kamma. From this viewpoint our true well being and our path to becoming truly happy comes about from the development of three things:

Morality, Concentration and Wisdom.

You could say morality is the most important of the three because the other two cannot develop without a platform of mental purity.

In our culture morality tends to be overlooked and its importance underestimated. It is in large part because morality is generally understood in terms of our inherited religious and cultural perspective or from the perspective of non-religious logic systems. Both of these popular perspectives do not deeply appreciate the underpinning role that morality plays for an individuals mental health and long term well being.

From Buddhist understanding, when morality has been strongly practiced and developed, it is a very high and powerful level of mind. So the question that arises in our mind now is: How does this platform of morality and virtue lead to happiness?

It goes like this:

First, practicing morality causes and provides peaceful worldly conditions for living. It provides kammic or good causes and worldly protection from danger.This is a platform or foundation of worldly safety and well being.

Next, the development of morality reduces and weakens the outflow of suffering-producing actions by the practice of restraint from unwholesome deeds of body, speech and mind.

Morality increases and strengthens the outflow of wholesome deeds such as generosity and metta or loving kindness towards others. Such actions are harmless and create good kamma for the doer to experience more happiness in the future and ease in their lives.

This is a platform or foundation of mental health in the present life and future wellbeing in the next life.

Third, the practice of morality reduces and weakens defilements of the mind and promotes and strengthens wholesome states of mind.

This is a platform or foundation of peaceful, content, happy minds and wholesome mental states. It is also a foundation of coming to see things as they really are. For example, the first wholesome mental state, called cetasika in Pali, is confidence.

The Buddha taught that "confidence leads to truth, truth leads to peace, and that leads to nibbana."

It looks like this, you cannot see into a glass of water that has particles of mud floating in it, whereas you can see into the same water once the mud is gone and the water is clear, you cannot see into a mind with defilements in it and yet, when the mind is clear and free of defilements, it can be seen and understood as it is.

The fourth part of the answer is that the practice of morality produces pure and peaceful minds that are a foundation for the practice of concentration. The practice of concentration then leads to wisdom.

It is wisdom that is the target of Buddhist learning because it is through wisdom we can see and understand about ourselves and the way things really are.

The question that arises next is How to Purify Mind, Speech and Actions?

The Buddha advises to keep precepts. The five precepts are :

To not kill.
To not steal.
To not commit sexual misconduct.
To not lie.
To not take intoxicants that cloud the mind.

These are the basic five precepts that are kept and practised by Buddhist lay persons. Buddhist Monks keep 227 precepts.

To begin on this path of personal training we advise persons to take the precepts and see how this effects them. Read and study them, get to understand their meaning and then apply that knowledge to your daily life. Change your behaviour with them.

As you progress check the difference in your mind for yourself.

Ask the people you may know who keep these five precepts how it effects their mind and what changes do they experience in their life in general.Practically speaking it’s very much about OH&S for Happiness.Buddhists see keeping precepts as Occupational Health and Safety for our lives.

You know, we have all these rules and regulations that we follow at work, when we're driving, and so forth. Well, the precepts are just like that, they are rules for our minds, our thoughts, our speech and our actions.

When we diligently keep to them we will be able to stay clear of trouble, we will not go off the rails. Just like driving a car, step outside the rules by exceeding the safe speed limit and we might find ourselves driving off the road and doing some damage, maybe injuring ourselves, maybe getting fined or injuring someone else's property or body, or worse bringing about another persons death or our own.

Precepts keep you safe and healthy. Our lives are complex, busy and full, so we need a mental watchdog to help us keep to our personal OH&S precept plan for good living.

Mindfulness is the only way to keep your precepts in tact.The goal is not to become paranoid about keeping the precepts. We simply have the intention to keep them and we plan how we are going to keep them.We can only do this by being mindful in all that we are doing.

You might for example, quietly ask of yourself through the day, What am doing? what am I doing?, as you go from one task to the next. Oh yes I'm holding precepts no matter what I am doing. They're my protection from harm. Good, now what’s my next task.

We come into the present. We stop thinking that we will keep the precepts at some future time. We look at our situation now. We bring our mind into our body. We bring the mind inside so we have awareness of our actual physical body, then we can look at what is happening around us. We can focus on what we are doing with our body. We can think before we speak and we can watch the thoughts that are arising in our minds. In this way we can guard ourselves and take control of our actions, our speech and thoughts to not kill, to not lie, etc.

If we are fantasizing, maybe thinking about the past or future we cannot be aware of what we are doing in the present. It is in the present time that kamma, the causes for our future wellbeing and happiness is being made. If you do not know what is happening, you cannot change anything.

By developing mindfulness, called sati in the Pali language, in your thoughts, speech and actions, you will start to be able to restrain or refrain from unwholesome actions and promote wholesome actions of body, speech and mind.

Lets now investigate the first of the five precepts, the Precept of No Killing - to protect and enhance the life of self and others.

"Life is dear to all", wrote Venerable Piyadassi Thera, "and all tremble at punishment, all fear death and value life. Hence, we should abstain from taking a life which we ourselves cannot give and we should not harm other sentient beings". (Ven Piyadassi, 1991).

No being wants to be killed. Going back to first principles of Buddhism, or Buddha Dhamma, that is the law of kamma, whatever we do to others makes the kamma or sows the seeds to experience this same thing ourselves at an indeterminate time in the future. Because we no longer want to experience pain or suffering we decide to stop killing.

It is a very simple change with such profound results.

First, change your attitude by having the intention to not kill. As you walk in your garden often you will unknowingly kill beings such as ants. It is frequently unavoidable as you cannot even see them. In this case you have no intention to kill the beings. It is the intention that creates kamma.

So now the question comes, how does one live without killing insects, and the things like ants and mice that invade your house?

Take the view from now on to see other beings, however large or small, as doing what we are doing, surviving. They also have families. They do not know that they are causing us discomfort or harm. They're just doing what they do. For example, in the case of a mosquito, it is their nature or kamma that they need to drink blood to survive. Instead of becoming angry or annoyed by them we look out for them. We do things to stop them annoying us.

We need to think like this - No living being likes to be killed.

So, we stop hitting mosquitoes or swatting flies. We see them as they are, just as another living being trying to survive. So we spray or roll on insect repellent, we make sure our fly-screens are secure, or we get a mosquito net and put it over our bed.

When we see a spider or mouse in our house, carefully catch them and release them outside. If you're scared just think how they might feel. You can get mouse traps from your local hardware store that are designed to capture but do not kill. There are electronic devices that generate a signal to keep mice and other rodents away from an area.

Gently sweep ants up and take them outside. Use talcum powder on surfaces where ants are coming in. Keep the kitchen clean and free from food scraps and spillages - remove the things that attract ants and other creatures into harms way in the first place.

Even then, we have an ongoing job of watching where the ants are coming in so we can block the holes. Ants are very clever. Within a few days they will find another way in. So it’s an ongoing OH&S plan for other beings as well.

We live in a very fortunate, rich and safe country where people do not have to kill to eat meat. Fresh meat is available to us in our local supermarket. Some persons find this a difficult concept to accept - that Buddhists eat meat, yet they practice no killing.

The Buddha taught that the two actions, eating meat and killing, are two different things. Our teacher John Hughes once said that many beings are killed to grow vegetables, grain and fruit that we buy in the supermarket. We cannot avoid the fact that for us to have this food, beings are killed. It is the nature of this world. Just like every time we walk, many microscopic beings die, every time we clean, many beings die. Every time we wash ourselves, many beings die on our body. It is the nature of our existence that beings die in the process of our living.

So now, knowing this we can say, "I understand this, yet, I have no intention to kill these beings. My intention in washing myself is to enhance my life and wellbeing. I take the precept of no killing. When I clean my house, this is to enhance my life and the life of the other persons who live here. I take the precept to not kill any living being."

Buddhism is not a religion on food. It is a way, a path that leads to an end to our suffering by stopping our craving. To stop our craving we live according to the Ten Perfections.

So what then is the correct view on eating?

We eat to enhance our life. We eat what our body needs. We see food as our medicine. We develop great gratitude for our food. We eat whatever food is available to us, within our budget and our locality. Buddhist Monks and Nuns eat whatever is offered to them by laypersons.

We see that the food we acquire is a result of our kamma, our actions from the past. Likewise the food that we like, that tastes good or otherwise is a result of our past kamma.

Basically, if we have made good kamma, we will receive good food that enhances our life. If we have insufficient good food kamma, we will receive food that is not so beneficial for us, that is poor in nutrition and not suited to what our body needs. Should this situation arise for us, we should practice offering the right food to others.

We take the trouble to find out what they like, prepare it carefully ourselves, with the thought, "May this food make them healthy, may they have long life and be well and happy." We actively, volitionally do things to make better food kamma for ourselves.

Generally it is considered healthier for us to eat more vegetables. When preparing meals for ourselves we can do this. However, we need to be aware that some persons need to eat more meat or they become sick. We must be guided by the nature of the person so as to enhance their life with the right food.

If we know that a person likes or needs meat, we make sure we offer it to them.

Depending on their nature or kammic disposition, some persons need to eat meat to maintain health in their bodies, so if meat is available, they can eat meat without having to kill for it. When we are keeping precepts, and if meat was not available, we would not kill for it or ask some else to kill for us. We would eat vegetables.

Make it your goal to enhance life. Do things that promote life for yourself and others. Regularly offer food to others. To practice Buddha Dhamma, to practice the precept of not killing, is to make sure we offer food. Offer food to your family and friends, people at work, Monks and Nuns and persons with high morality.

At our Centre we have signs in our toilets that say "Please close the lid after use to prevent insects from falling into the water and drowning."

When it rains, we walk carefully on the wet grass watching out for snails. In the garden we never use insecticide. Our fruit trees grow with the attitude that some of the fruit is for us and some is for the insects and birds.

We offer birdseed, water and left over food to the birds and animals that live in our garden.

We wash the dishes with the thought that this action is promoting life, with clean dishes people can eat without fear of catching disease from germs spread from old food scraps.

On a more subtle level we see killing as the end result of hate. To kill someone or some creature begins by us making the causes to not like them or their actions. To help us to never come to the action of killing, Buddhist practice is to work to remove hate from our minds.

From the Law of Causes and Effect, we see that disliking something or somebody is also a result of our past kamma or immoral actions.

We practice to stop disliking someone or something with the view that it is just the nature of that being that makes them behave in a particular manner. It is just our nature that we like or dislike something. We know that disliking can become a dangerous attitude to have, arising from a single thought, it can grow to become a cause that leads us to killing or destroying what we do not like at some future time.

Where do we begin to make such a change.

Tell yourself that you will stop using "what I like and what I do not like" as our reference point for our behaviour and instead check your actions against the five precepts.

Begin today, this very hour.

Use wisdom instead. Wisdom that directs each of our actions in making good causes for our future lives and the lives of others.

If we look at restraint first, the effort of a Buddhist practitioner is to restrain the unwholesome minds in all their myriad variations from arising.

"Morality," wrote Nyanaponika Thera, "restrains the defilements in their coarsest form, their outflow in unwholesome actions; concentration removes their more refined manifestations as distractive and restless thoughts; and wisdom eradicates their subtle latent tendencies."

The Buddha advises us to restrain ourselves from those actions that produce the worst types of negative kamma. These are prescribed in the form of the first three of the five precepts. The first of these is no killing.

"All beings fear death
and they all fear the pain of a club.
Think: How do they make you feel?
Then do not kill and do not club;
live peacefully with all beings and
do not add to the violence of this world.
Harm no one here
and you will pass your next life in peace."

- The Dhammapada

"Life is more precious than anything else in the world" wrote Venerable Master Hsing Yun. "Even insects want to live. Whenever we break any of the five precepts of Buddhism, we have violated some other sentient being. Whenever we kill anything, we violate that being at the deepest level possible. Killing, thus, is an action that must be avoided by all Buddhists." (Hsing Yun, 1998)

Consciously and consistently refraining from killing increases one's sensitivity to the needs and feelings of all sentient beings as it helps one to understand that all appearances of separation between beings are illusions. Compassion, sensitivity, and the Vow (or Precept), not to kill are very deep aspects of the understanding that all life is one. Venerable Master Hsing Yun writes that: "When one does not kill, one will obtain a good rebirth in circumstances that will lead quickly toward enlightenment." (Hsing Yun, 1998)

May you put the morality teachings of this Dhamma talk into practice and gain the blessings of immeasurable happiness.

May you not intentionally take the life of any living being.

May you be protected by your practice of morality in your every thought, speech and action.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.

This script was written and edited by Julian Bamford, Anita Carter, Frank Carter and Alec Sloman.

References

1. Carter, F., Carter, A., Sloman, A. 2006. Lifetimes of Learning, A Do-It-Yourself Approach to Happiness. Volume (class) 7. Published by the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd., 33 Brooking Street, Upwey, Victoria 3158.

2. Ven. Piyadassi. 1991. The Spectrum of Buddhism. The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, 11th Floor, 55, Hang Chow S. Rd., Sec 1, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.

3. Nyanaponika, Thera. 1986. The Vision of Dhamma. Rider & Co. Ltd., 62 - 65 Chandon Place, Covent Garden, London, England.

4. Patrul Rinpoche. 1998. The Words of My Perfect Teacher. Shambala Publications.

5. Master Hsing Yun. 1998. Being Good - Buddhist Ehtics for Everyday Life. Weatherhill Inc. New York USA.

Word count: 3,479

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