The Six Paramitas: Shila or Ethical Conduct
The second paramita is shila. Shila means ethics, it means moral conduct. In the Buddhadharma, moral conduct is based on the tenet of harmlessness. It is based on the principle of not doing any hurt to oneself and to others. Seen in that way, the precepts laid down by the Buddha are very logical. These are not, so to speak, commandments. He didn’t say, “Thou shall not do this, thou shall not do that.” The actual wording says, “I undertake the rule of training to abstain from the taking of life.” It’s a rule of training which is based on the spontaneous and natural conduct of an enlightened being, an arhat. A liberated arhat will naturally be incapable of intentionally taking life and so on. And so, therefore, we are trying to model our conduct on the natural conduct of a liberated being, because if we want to build our house, if we want to build our spiritual temple, it’s no good just concentrating on the golden roof and the frescoed walls. We have to start by digging deep, strong foundations. Any building with weak foundations is going to crack and fall very soon; it doesn’t matter how splendid that golden roof may be. Do you understand?
If we want to build a good house, we have to deal with foundations and the plumbing and all those very unromantic essentials. If we have very good solid foundations, then the house will quite quickly get itself built. The foundations are these qualities of our basic ethical conduct which means our way of living in this world — whether we live causing harm to ourselves and others or not. These precepts were laid down 2,500 years ago but they are eternal. They are not something that was relevant 2 millennia ago in Northern India but are no longer appropriate in Melbourne. They are relevant any time, any place for any race. They are not something for the East but not for the West; they are for everybody everywhere. These basic ethics are: the precept not to take life; the precept not to take that which is not given; the precept not to lie; the precept not to engage in sexual misconduct; and the precept not to indulge in alcohol or any drugs which intoxicate the mind.
The first precept, and the most fundamental one for living in this world harmlessly, is the precept not to take life. Now that means all lives, not just human lives. It means the lives of animals and insects, including those in the air, on the ground, under the ground and in the oceans and rivers. Why? Because for all beings, to each one its own life is most precious. No being wants to be killed. If there was a little ant on this table and I tapped with my fingers, it would rear up and run the other direction. Why? Because in its own way, it’s thinking “There is danger! Something might harm me, I must go away from that.” So when we take the vow not to harm others, all others, we are saying to the world and to all the beings in the world, ‘You have nothing to fear from me– in my presence, you are safe.’ It’s that basic appreciation for the lives of all other beings on this planet which is so fundamental to living a life so that, even if we don’t actually benefit anyone else, at least we don’t harm them. Of course, we try to benefit also, but here we are dealing with the question of not harming, not hurting anything. So all beings are safe with us. Imagine, we human beings are really a problem for this planet. Towards other beings, we are so selfish and unthinking. Some insect comes by and we don’t like it so we just squish it with no thought that this being has its own life with its joys and sorrows. We don’t know what kind of world it is experiencing to itself. What rights have we to just terminate its life?
This is a very fundamental precept. In this imperfect world, we may not always keep it perfectly because as the Buddha himself said, this world is covered with much dust. It is a very dusty world and dust is falling continually. There are always compromises which people have to make but we must be very careful with our compromises and not justify them easily. As much as we possibly can, we should really try to have integrity in our conduct, to become whole. Most of the time, we can do that. If we make effort, we can learn not to see situations solely from the angle of our own convenience. We can think a little bit beyond our obsession with being human, that we put ourselves right at the centre of the universe; that we see things only from our own point of view. We don’t consider that these other creatures also have a point of view; that they also have rights. I am not going into the whole field of animal rights, but animals do have rights. Insects have rights. We all have rights and we should think about that. We should think about living in this world so as not to keep tramping our big feet on everything all the time. Tread a little more gently in the metaphorical sense. So this first precept is a very important one. When I was first with my lama, he said, “I want you to just take one precept. Consider you have all the others but take just one first.” So I chose this first one and he said that was the right thing to do. Because this one is fundamental to all the others in a way.
The second precept is about not taking that which is not given. It’s a little bit more specific than not stealing which is what it means of course. In the monastic Sangha, they take this very seriously about not being given. For example one time, there was a Catholic nun who brought me several tins of processed cheese from Delhi. This was in the mid-60s and in those days processed cheese was very rare in India. So I decided to offer it to my lama, Khamtrul Rinpoche but he didn’t happen to be there, so I put it on his desk right in front of where he sat, so he could see that these tins were for him. He came back and the days went by, and the cheese was still sitting there, stacked up like the Tower of Pisa. Eventually I said to him, “Rinpoche, why don’t you take that cheese? Don’t you like it?” He replied, “Well, I thought they were for me because they’re sitting there but you haven’t offered them yet.” So then I picked them up and handed them to him and said, “They are yours.” But that’s the point. To have that integrity, to not take that which is not given, because it’s again dealing with this question of harmlessness – that people know that their property is safe with us.
Books… who has ever lent a book and waved it goodbye?! Probably, nowadays it’s videos! I see people with videos bearing big announcements saying, ‘This video belongs to so and so’. So clearly it’s a problem. Having that kind of integrity — that when we borrow something, we should return it in as good a condition as when we got it. Why? Because at our level of realisation, we still identify ourselves with what we own, and we don’t like it when people simply take what is ours. It is the lack of consideration for other’s rights and property, that kind of selfish mind which is only thinking of ourselves and of our own benefits and not taking others into account.
During the hippie period it was very much ‘everybody’s property is my property’. You know, there wasn’t such a thing as private ownership but what happened? Maybe in the early days there really was a sense of free flowing ownership, although in fact this sometimes meant taking property which hadn’t been freely given to them. But what happened in the end was the attitude of ‘what you own is mine and what I own is mine too’, and it wasn’t that this attitude made them especially open-hearted. They would stay on somebody else’s property and then this became their property and when people wanted to evict them, they didn’t say, “Well, that’s fair enough because everything belongs to everybody.” They said, “No, now it’s mine.” So, we have to be careful of this grasping quality of mind. This precept of not taking what is not given respects these boundaries. Therefore as I said, it deals with this whole question of not harming — so that people know that they and their property are safe in our hands. Obviously not killing and not stealing are so fundamental to a well-ordered society.
Then, there is sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct basically means any kind of sexual activity which could bring harm to oneself or to another, whichever other. Nowadays especially, this is a relevant question because people are often extremely irresponsible sexually so that for many years now, sex has very often been used merely as a means for self-gratification with no thought of either the physical or the emotional consequences. But sex is not like having an ice-cream when we are feeling greedy. It is a dialogue. It is a relationship, even if it is only a one-night stand or less. It involves others. Yet we deal with such fundamental energy in such irresponsible ways. It is a serious thing for society.
We are often very immature when it comes to sexual relationships. We act like a bunch of 15 year-olds even if we are 50, or even if we are 70. We have all seen it. Look at the politicians or the big celebrities. They have so much to lose, they have so much at stake here but yet they act like school kids. It’s pathetic and it reflects the real state of inner immaturity and their lack of sense of responsibility to themselves, to their families, to the society. So this is what we are dealing with. We are dealing with something which is very powerful and where we really have to be in control. Otherwise this urge will take over us and it’s really a very sad picture when it does so. What we have to ask ourselves is, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Why? Is it just because right now I want this gratification? What about possible repercussions this action could have on ourselves and on others: one’s partner or society. Could it cause unwanted pregnancies? How many abortions are caused by irresponsible sexuality? It’s not like this isn’t a problem anymore. It’s not as though we have solved this through contraception, because so many abortions are still performed; and what about the rampancy of sexually transmitted diseases? It’s a big problem.
It is not just the physical side, but there is the emotional aspect to be considered. Sex is intended for procreation within a responsible relationship. Any kind of sexual activity which causes damage in any way to anyone is not wholesome. Sexual activity should be an expression of caring, of loving and not just an outlet for lust and greed and exploitation. Recently I went to visit a woman’s prison and I was told that at least 80% of the women who come into this prison had suffered sexual abuse as children, most of it incestuous. So this is not an irrelevant issue. Our irresponsibility in sexual areas destroys life. These women were inwardly mutilated and they later indulged in a lot of very harmful and self-destructive behaviour on account of their hatred of themselves due to the abuse in childhood. So many women that I meet out in the world, and not just in prison, have exactly the same problems. It’s a rampant problem. So we must be very careful that our sexual expression is not abusive in any way. Not merely utilising the other person for our pleasure and gratification but using love-making as an expression of genuine care.
Next, there is lying. The precept against lying doesn’t just mean telling untruths. It actually includes all unwholesome speech. Wholesome skilful speech should be truthful, should be kind, and it should be helpful. There are many people who pride themselves on their honest speech and they say what’s on their mind. But it’s surprising how often what’s on their mind is something very negative and this honest and truthful approach is just a channel or vent for their negativities: the anger, the ill-will and the jealousy in their minds. This is not what we meant by not telling lies. We must be very careful because our speech really influences others. We have a saying that ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never harm me.’ But that is very idealistic. The Tibetans say something about, “swords can only harm my flesh but harsh words can tear a man’s heart to pieces.’ That is so true,.
I was born in the war in 1943. So I was brought up in London during the post-war years. England at that time was in a state of disaster; it was extremely poor and everything was rationed. It’s hard for young people nowadays to imagine it. Food was rationed, everything was rationed. If we wanted to buy a chocolate bar, we had to save up our sweet ration for a while in order to be able to buy one. Not just food was rationed, but clothes were rationed. So if we wanted to buy a new piece of clothing, a new sweater, or skirt or underwear or anything, we had to save up our clothing coupons until we had enough coupons to cover that article. So we darned, we patched. We were very careful with our clothes and we didn’t have many. At this time, I was a little girl and when my mother bought herself a new coat, this was an event. Wow! she saved up enough coupons and she actually bought herself a coat because she would have been more likely to buy me a coat. She was always giving more to her children as a mother does. For once, she indulged herself and she bought herself a coat and she put it on and she showed me and said, “What do you think?” I said, “It makes you look fat,” which it did. It was the truth. But her face, which had been so happy and delighted just went down. She took the coat off, she put it in the wardrobe. She never wore it again. And so I learnt a lesson. Speech should not just be truthful, it should also be kind and helpful. I could have said, “Oh, that’s nice cloth, or that’s a nice colour, or that’s a nice design.” That would also have been true. Do you understand?
We should be very careful with our speech. We affect people tremendously by what we say. People remember – oh I know– people quote back to me things I said years ago! People are affected by our speech. Therefore, we should be very careful. We really are very mindless when we talk – chatter, chatter, chatter. Our speech gets into patterns especially among people with whom we are in some kind of relationship, such as our partners or children and so on. Have you ever listened to a husband and wife talk to each other, especially when they get locked into a negative pattern? He says this, she says that and then he answers this and she retaliates that and it escalates. Every time it’s the same. It’s just a variation of the same theme. They don’t even hear it anymore. For these kinds of couples, perhaps we should have a tape-recorder or a video camera and play it back to them so that they can see for themselves. This might help so that they can break out of that negative speech pattern. We could try putting things in a different way. We know if we say that, we are going to press his buttons, so why say it that way? We really have to be very careful, very conscious. We as human beings have this very rare gift of communication through speech, but we use it too casually and we should really be very conscious and aware how what we do affect others. We do affect others so deeply by our speech. Often we say certain things in a moment of irritation; we don’t really mean it, but it just comes out. However people hold it in their hearts and they remember. They don’t forget and so we have to be very responsible.
It’s not only a question of not harming, but also of growing up. The Buddha called unliberated people like us ‘the children’. In English that is sometimes translated as fools. The actual word means ‘childish’ or immature, and that’s what we are regardless of what age we may be. Some children are much wiser than their parents, though not always. But our level of childishness is also a mark of irresponsibility and we have to grow up and take responsibility for our lives. A mature person is someone who is centred and integrated and who does what s/he does knowing what s/he is doing; who says what s/he says knowing what s/he is saying; whose thoughts are centred not on themselves but on others.
The fifth precept is the one you all are going to love and immediately want to observe, which is the precept about alcohol! Why was that included in the list? Presumably any thinking person knows the answer to that. Under the influence of alcohol, our best impulses do not arise. Our negative impulses arise. When someone gets drunk, they don’t go out and join Mother Teresa. They are more likely to go home and beat up their wives and children or they get in their cars and drive extremely irresponsibly and crash or run someone over. The fact of the matter is that most of our social ills are caused by minds which are not in control of the situation either through alcohol or through drugs. We have to accept that. It’s true. Alcohol not only destroys our minds, it destroys our bodies. I know it is difficult in society for many of you to completely say that you are going to give up all alcohol and so one cannot ask that. One has to make compromises and say, ‘At least try to reduce your intake of drinks, and never get to the point where your mind is seriously affected.’ At least, that much would benefit yourself, it would benefit those around you and it would benefit society. It would benefit all beings.
Nothing is more boring than someone who is drunk. They are not even interesting. They may think they are brilliant but a person who is sober just thinks, ‘Get me out of here,’ because drunks are just so tedious. Being inebriated is pathetic. It’s not clever and it’s not sophisticated no matter what our media advertising tries to tell us. Of course, alcohol companies want us to think that alcohol is very stylish and classy, but that’s just their marketing because they want us to buy their product. People who are addicted to alcohol, to smoking or drugs are slaves. We can be enslaved through terror or we can be enslaved through pleasure, but it’s still enslavement. We are not in control.
Often actions, which in our ordinary sober mind we would never do, become feasible and desirable when we are in this other state of consciousness brought on by alcohol or drugs. People do things which they would never dream of doing if they were sober. Inebriation brings out all the negative qualities, that’s the problem. If it brought out really good positive qualities, it might be okay, but it doesn’t. So much of the violence and the abuse in society is because people are drunk or they are stoned on drugs. Then they are substance dependents– they must have it. There is the sense of how awful it would feel if they don’t have it. It’s a big problem all over world. The World Health Organisation said that some terrific amount — like 60% to 70% — of diseases in the world have their basis in alcoholism. So this is not a minor precept which is not important and which we can forget. All I can say is that please, if you are trying to live a life which is spiritually based, then take this seriously. The Buddhist path is the way of increasing clarity of mind and increasing inward control so that we are not enslaved by our thoughts and our feelings, but are masters of our interior world. Now, alcohol goes in the opposite direction. It’s totally counterproductive. Therefore anyone who is genuinely interested in the spiritual path should really take this into consideration. People who are drunk look stupid. They are not admirable. If one cannot abstain completely, at least one should try to cut it down to acceptable levels. A glass of wine at dinner, okay. Maybe one glass of beer with someone you meet at the pub. But 3 or 4 or 5 glasses, is not all right.
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May All Beings Benefit
Sarva Mangalam