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How important are the 5 Precepts, Really?
Bodha8
Veteran
In Buddah's teaching are the precepts bendable? Were people able to follow just some of the precepts? Were some precepts more important than others? Can a person still be buddhist and continually break certain precepts?
How about penalties? Were people dealt with harshly during the Buddah's time? Were they executed or banished from the sangha?
Just curious how important the precepts really were and are today. As we know, in some countries people are still executed for drinking alcohol.
Namaste
How about penalties? Were people dealt with harshly during the Buddah's time? Were they executed or banished from the sangha?
Just curious how important the precepts really were and are today. As we know, in some countries people are still executed for drinking alcohol.
Namaste
0
Comments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommunication#Buddhism
The lay precepts aren't rules that you'll be punished for breaking. They are a helpful guide to aid in purifying our minds. An ethically troubled mind has a harder time developing concetration and gaining insight. One can only take one or a few of the vows if they want.
We've had discussions here before about the flexibility of the precepts. For example lieing to protect a Jewish family in nazi Germany. And here is one of the secondary bodhisattva vows:
11. not committing one of the seven negative actions of body, speech and mind when universal love and compassion deem it necessary in the particular instance
I don't know about the historical time of the Buddha.
but ethical conduct is a means to achieve wisdom. thus once wisdom is attained ethical conduct is no long grasped onto.
but ethical conduct ironically is how the natural way functions.
Namaste
Sila or virtue is taught by the Buddha as the foundation of the practice, especially in regard to meditation. Virtue helps to provide the meditator with a mind that's free from remorse, and a mind that's free from remorse is better able to develop deep states of concentration, which are difficult to develop when the mind is consistently worried or agitated (AN 11.2). The training of virtue is best known by the five precepts: The five precepts are the basic training rules all Buddhists are encouraged to observe to the best of their ability, and are based on the principle of harmlessness (ahimsa) and renouncing unskillful behaviours that cause other beings harm and provoke retaliation. They constitute the basic level of virtue the Buddha advises is necessary for the peace of mind conducive to a successful meditation practice, and they are seen as gifts "that are not open to suspicion, will never be open to suspicion, and are unfaulted by knowledgeable contemplatives & priests" (AN 8.39).
In the context of the eightfold path, this also includes right speech, right action and right livelihood, which are the factors classified under the division of virtue. Without this solid base of virtue, it's extremely difficult to achieve a sufficient state of mental calm and absorption. (Believe me, it's hard to meditate when you've done a lot of things you regret; they're the first things that pop up when the mind starts to get quiet.)
That said, it should be made clear that the precepts aren't equivalent to commandments in that they're training rules that are voluntarily undertaken rather than edicts or commands dictated by a higher power and/or authority, and there's no sort of Buddhist excommunication for breaking them. In essence, these precepts are undertaken to protect oneself, as well as others, from the results of unskillful actions (which in and of itself is important), and to help make our practice as fruitful as possible.
good luck to you on your spiritual journey.
With metta.
Since @Newtech used the school analogy I will follow suit. In gaining an education do you strive for good grades and understanding? Or passing grades for having merely tried? We are all pupils in the school of Buddhism, and the school of life. Some of will be brilliant, and others mediocre. We all have a choice.
benevolence and righteousness came into vogue.”
(Lao Tzu)
The precepts are a substitute for what we really should have: an open heart, a simple life and a natural inclination not to do harm.
2. Do not steal
3. Do not indulge in sexual misconduct
4. Do not make false speech
5. Do not take intoxicants
Those are the rules...
But of course, there will always be those inclined to regard rules as merely "guidelines:"
are important to you?
and try to keep them....
'One who kills & harms goes either to hell or will be short-lived elsewhere.
Posts declaring what the Buddha said, have to be backed up with a link.
Thanks.
(Not that I am casting doubt on the veracity of your post. It's just the done thing to quote sources.)
What many forget is that the 5 precepts are not Buddhist.
There is nothing within them that declares them to be Buddhist privilege or property.
(The same could indeed be said for the 4NT and the 8Fold Path.... The Buddha wasn't Buddhist, remember....)
So, in that light, if you merely decide that they seem to be a relatively sound list of caveats regarding general ethics - how important would you consider them to be for you to adhere to, going about your general daily life, from day to day, amongst your fellow men.....?
"A rose by any other name..." All semantics!!
all work we put into following what the Buddha taught is done so because we find it logical, inarguable, flawless and commendable.
The more deeply you investigate the Buddha's teachings and the Dhamma, the more concrete and rooted your practice becomes.
The Buddha was originally a high-caste individual, who also had to come to these conclusions, and explored them years before he finally became enlightened.
his followers only followed him after that, not before....
So too, we must seek truth in the wisdom of the words handed to us, and realise that they apply to all, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike.