As we listen to the teachings given by the Buddha in many instances we can recognise that to really follow these teachings means we will change something in our lives. We have to change either our attitude, or our behaviour, or both. It means we need to follow the map the Buddha has given us, instead of our old habits which are familiar territory to us. Recognising the need to change and being willing to change support our ability to follow our Happiness Map to reach our goal of being happier and free from suffering.

As we go on to the next part of this course which is about the Five Precepts component of our Happiness Map when you see something you want to change about yourself, we advise you to manage the change to your new behaviour so it really sticks. Having found something that can help us become happier we don't want to waste that new learning like it is just another thing of minor consequence.

You need to support the new behaviour so it doesn't falter before it gets established in your behaviour. You have to nourish it and tend it like it was a small beautiful plant starting to grow in the garden of your mind. Don't support the old weed which is causing the problem!

The Buddhist Path is described as having three major components. These are morality, concentration and wisdom. These three go together supporting each other as a path of training. This Buddhist training enables a person to recognise the causes of suffering in their own lives and then 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 or concentration or wisdom! They don't say "I'm practicing generosity to reduce my stinginess" or "I decided to refrain from slandering others", they say something like "we're planning to move into our new house next year" or "we're going to Disneyland for our holidays", 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 focusing on how I can keep the five precepts better" or "I'm learning how being kind to others makes many causes for health and long life". They don't say that. What they generally say is something like "I'm planning to loose 3 kilograms on my new diet" or "I'm going to take up golf as I think that would reduce my stress levels".

As we saw a few weeks ago the strategies of dieting or taking up golf come from seeing the situation only in conventional reality terms, everyday tables and chairs understanding. However such a viewpoint does not take into account the way things work from the ultimate understanding, the way the Buddha taught that the world really works.

Buddha taught about cause and effect, the Law of Kamma. From this viewpoint our true well-being and our path to becoming happy comes about from the development of wholesome minds and actions. This is the basis of all Buddhist morality.

Buddhists see keeping precepts as Occupational Health and Safety for our life. These precepts are just like that - they are the minimum standards of safe action of our body, speech and mind so we do not come to danger in this life or future lives. Precepts are our most powerful form of personal protection as from the kammic or ultimate reality viewpoint they keep us safe and healthy.

Further the practice of morality reduces and weakens our negative states of mind or defilements as they are sometimes known, and promotes and strengthens our wholesome states.

"Morality 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..." (Nyanaponika Thera 1986) 1.

From Buddhist understanding and experience when morality has been strongly practiced and developed it becomes a very clear and powerful level of mind.

In Buddhism there are no religious commandments or similar authoritarian type rules of behaviour. This is because at the very heart of Buddhism is the principle that the individual is solely responsible for his or her own welfare, happiness or unhappiness, which arise just as a result of the persons own actions.

Buddhism emphasises that we should study, learn and realise directly about things, rather than follow them as a simple directive of the religion. If we understand something in our own minds through our own wisdom then our commitment to practicing that thing becomes unshakable.

The Buddha advises us to train our minds and actions so that we keep five precepts with understanding.

The five precepts are:

To not kill living beings
To not steal
To not commit sexual misconduct
To not lie
To not take intoxicants which cloud the mind

The reason why the five particular negative actions that the precepts stop us from committing are highlighted, is that the Buddha recognised that some negative actions are more powerful than others. They are more powerful in the sense that they produce more powerful kammic results.

He identified that the five negative actions of killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct and taking intoxicants produce the most potent negative kamma or most concentrated negative kamma for ourselves to inherit in our future.

Most people naturally tend to be able keep some precepts better than others. That's pretty normal for persons when they start practicing Buddhism. Some of the precepts make sense straight away so the person can easily commit to keeping those precepts. However keeping each of the five precepts creates it's own powerful kammic effects, not just the ones that seem on the surface to make sense.

Remember what we said a few weeks ago. We do not become paranoid about the precepts. We have all broken precepts time and time again in our past, but we decide from now on we have the intention to keep them. We learn how to keep them well and we train ourselves to guard them whatever we are doing.

If we do break a precept we don't react to that with guilt or regret. We just note "I have more training to do!" We re-affirm that we intend to keep that precept from now on.

We will examine the precept of no lying as an example. First before we begin the explanation please decide that you wish to find out something new which makes sense to you.

Something you can use everyday of your life to protect your wellbeing and happiness from now on. You think like that. You involve yourself and commit to your own improvement. You don't be too passive.

Buddhist practice is all about coming to the truth about ourselves and the processes of our life. Seeing within our own mind how we create our own happiness and unhappiness and then being able to correct our errors and negative mind states. Progress on the Buddhist Path is to do with us waking up to the truth of the way we really are.

The act of lying however is an act of distorting truth or distorting the reality in a way which suits the person lying. The lying itself creates kammic causes for difficulties or obstacles to recognising or receiving the truth in the future.

Either people lie to them, or they get poor information about things they wish to know, or if they are told the correct information they will tend to not believe it, discount it or mistake what they heard. Even in a worldly sense it is important to find out the truth about things.

It is a common occurrence to find that a person has believed you said something; but it wasn’t what you actually said. Quite frequently we find out we have acted on some incorrect information about something and so we have wasted a lot of time, or bought something we didn’t need, or went somewhere to meet someone and got the time or place wrong. And so on. It happens to us regularly. These types of examples of mis-information we get are caused by us having given out mis-information or lies to others in the past.

For a person who is trying to understand the truth and intending to create good causes towards that for learning and becoming happier it is a necessity to keep the precept to not lie. Not lying creates the kamma for us to understand ourselves, others and the world we live in better.

By being truthful we are creating causes to come to a clearer view. At the ultimate level of reality truthfulness is an antidote to ignorance.

Now, having heard that information you may decide you really do wish to practice that precept, to refrain from lying. You may think it is important enough that you want to change your speech so you no longer lie at all, for any reason. Practically if you don't take a position like that which is uncompromising you generally won't succeed.

We already know it can be difficult to give up an old bad behaviour because of its habitual nature so it's not much use applying the new behaviour half-heartedly. This would be planning to fail because you are not using enough mental will power or energy to overcome the energy of the old behaviour.

It is like saying I'll give up smoking - but then saying "Oh maybe I'll just have an occasional cigarette". That will never work. Therefore if you are "fair dinkum" you decide to give up lying completely, with happiness!

Another way to examine the precepts is to consider the positive outcomes that come to a person who observes a particular precept. We will use the precept to refrain from taking intoxicants that cloud the mind as an example so we can appreciate the type of powerful good kammic causes that are produced when we keep that precept.

"The person who vigilantly and steadfastly observes this Surameraya Precept reaches the world of devas on his (or her) death. When he (or she) expires in the world of Devas, and is reborn in the world of human beings, he (or she) is endowed with the following qualities:

1.being mindful of anything that is to be done at a given time;
2.being endowed with intelligence and intellectual power;
3.being always alert at all times;
4.having initiative and enterprise to meet all contingencies;
5.being industrious;
6.being free from deafness and dumbness;
7.being free from madness;
8.being free from shocks and alarms;
9.being free from oppression or restriction;
10.being free from a hateful attitude toward others;
11.being free from grudge and envy;
12.having always truthful speech;
13.being free from rough and futile speech and from back-biting;
14.being aware of the gratitude owed to others;
15.being able to make return for the favours of others;
16.being generous and charitable;
17.having Moral Practice;
18.being fair and just;
19.not being given to anger;
20.having a sense of decency and a dread of evil;
21.having true belief;
22.being in a noble or worthy state of life;
23.being wise;
24.having discretion and judgement as to advantages of any situation or question.

You can see from this list something of how kamma works. Particular actions we do at one time create our future dispositions, abilities, and characteristics. Many actions we do are not quite as powerful or influential in shaping our future as the five precepts but nevertheless, as we train ourselves to be consistent in doing good actions we are using our natural power within ourselves to create good and happy futures for ourself to inherit.

"Life is dear to all, and all tremble at punishment, all fear death and value life. Hence, we should abstain from taking a life which we ourselves cannot give". (Venerable Piyadassi, 1991) 3

Going back to first principles of Buddhism - kamma, we believe that whatever we do to others we will make the kamma or sow the seeds to experience this same thing at some later date. We no longer want to experience pain or suffering so we decide to stop killing.

It is a very simple change with profound results. First, change your attitude by having the intention to not kill. If you walk in your garden often you will kill beings such as ants as you walk, 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 which creates kamma.

We see other beings as doing what we are doing - surviving. They also have families. They do not know that they are causing us discomfort or harm. For example, in the case of a mosquito - it is their nature (or kamma) that they need to drink blood to survive. So instead of becoming angry or annoyed by them we look out for them. We do things to stop them annoying us such as we wear anti-insect sprays instead, we make sure our fly-screens are secure or we get a mosquito net.

When we see a spider or mouse in our house, we catch them and release them out side. You can get mousetraps that do not kill. There are electronic devices that generate a signal to keep mice etc away from an area. We sweep ants up and take them outside. We use talcum powder to prevent ants coming in. We attempt to keep our kitchen clean and free from food scraps and spillages. Even then, we have an ongoing job of watching where the ants are coming in and blocking the hole.

We live in a very fortunate place - we do not have to kill to eat meat. Meat is available to us in the supermarket. Many persons find this a difficult concept to accept - that Buddhists eat meat, yet they practice no killing.

Well, we see the two actions - eating meat and killing as two different things.

Many beings are killed to grow vegetables and grain, fruit that we buy in the supermarket. Insecticides are sprayed on the vegetables for example. We cannot avoid the fact, that for us to have this food, many 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 our process of living.

I understand this, yet I have no intention to kill these beings. When I clean my house, my intention is to maintain healthy living conditions for myself and my family or friends who live here.

So, if meat is available and we do not have to kill for it, we will eat it. If it was not available, we would not kill for it or ask someone else to kill for us. We would eat vegetables.

For some persons kammically they really need to eat meat to maintain their health and strength. Buddhism is not a religion on food. It is a way to end our suffering through calming the mind and seeing things as they really are.

Finally tonight we will briefly mention the other two precepts of no stealing and no sexual misconduct.

All the precepts have many levels of understanding. When we first hear them we can recognise the gross levels of meaning. However as we practice we find each precept has a more subtle level of meaning. As our mind becomes brighter we find we practice the precept at both the gross and subtle levels and this practice helps us refine and purify our mind even further.

The gross level of the precept to not steal includes not taking anything which is not freely given to us.

Although it may appear that this relates to taking material things from others we also consider it to include for example, not trying to overhear a persons private conversation with someone else, not illegally avoiding paying taxes which should be paid, or not attending to our personal or private matters during the time we are paid to be working.

At a more subtle level for example, sometimes we get ourselves churned up about things that are really none of our business. In some instances this could be viewed as stealing.

The precept of no sexual misconduct includes such things as no adultery for example and also not using your sexuality to manipulate another person.

Some of the kammic outcomes of keeping this precept are being able to maintain stable relationships, being able to associate with your loved ones, not being assailed by doubts and suspicions and being able to sleep well and peacefully.

Last week we saw how developing mindfulness gives us the possibility of not being so easily tossed around by life's ups and downs like a cork on the surface of the ocean. As we develop mindfulness of the present moment our mind can start to gain a foothold on the firm ground which is reality itself.

The Five Precepts component of our Happiness Map adds to this powerful causes for us to experience a safe and secure set of living conditions both now and in the future which are harmless to others and peaceful for ourselves. It is our Occupational Health and Safety Guidelines for living.

Practicing these precepts with mindfulness is also the first level of reducing our unwholesome minds and replacing them with wholesome minds and mental states. Therefore it is the right basis for our peaceful, content, and happy minds to develop which in turn is the correct foundation for us to understand ourselves and the world.

1. Nyanaponika Thera. 1986. The Vision of Dhamma. Published by Rider & Co. Ltd., 62 - 65 Chandon Place, Covent Garden, London, England, p xxi

2. Maha Upasaka U Nu. 1982. The Five Precepts - Panca Sila.. The Young Buddhists, the annual journal of the Singapore Buddha-Yana Organisation (SBYO)", and reproduced in the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Newsletters No. 11, May 1983, No. 12, September 1983, No. 13, December 1983, No.14, May 1984, Newsletter No. 16, February 1985.

3. Ven Piyadassi. 1991. The Spectrum of Buddhism., Published by The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, 11th Floor, 55, Hang Chow S. Rd., Sec 1, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. P 78