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Have You Ever Mindfully Broken a Precept To Serve a Greater Good?
no precept is broken because no bad karma is being made from it.
This isn't the way the precepts are generally understood. If it were, there would be no need for the "higher good" principle to be articulated. There wouldn't be Secondary Bodhisattva Vows that explain the Vcircumstances under which it's ok to break the precepts. It's an interesting position, though. I wonder why this hasn't come up before, on our many threads on the nature of the precepts.
It's the way they're understood by me. I don't need someone to tell me that lying to a Nazi, to save someones life, isn't breaking any precepts. And if some "master" came and told me that it was, I would tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about. Of course the Nazi example is a very extreme one, but that's just to illustrate the point. But I would agree that once someone personally knows what is good or not good to do, then yes, they don't need that to be articulated to them, because they already know right and wrong via their own intuition.
@seeker242 In the past you have said that you believe that taking the life of sentient beings is wrong. Often you have said that to break the precept will be karma that will have negative results, and you have quoted sutra to make your point.
I have had trouble with that position because it does not use personal experience as example and does not relate to my own life experience.
In your post above (if I understand your meaning),you have said that through your life experience you are able to interpret the precepts correctly when applying them to your own life. Your intuition will guide you. I accept this completely. Thank you.
If you say that you cannot kill and eat sentient beings because you know that it will be too painful for you because of the compassion that you feel for them, and that you are unwilling to risk losing the compassion and/or realization that you have struggled to develop, through killing, I understand you. It is a position that cannot be debated, at least not by me.
To me that is the meaning of the precepts. To guide us out of suffering by direct experience. Not through fear of unknown consequences.
Okay, I thought presepts where guidelines not laws...so how can guidelines be broken?
Actually, this is an interesting question. I think for monks, they're solid vows. And I think for laypeople, they're guidelines in the sense in which we're discussing them now--there are circumstances in which you may break them. As for how seriously they're taken as lay vows, well, that seems to vary a lot by the lay practitioner. But Buddhist teachers generally say it's better to just take one vow, and keep it, than to take the 5 lay vows, and not keep them. This is a point that can be, and has been, debated for pages on a forum like this.
To me that is the meaning of the precepts. To guide us out of suffering by direct experience. Not through fear of unknown consequences.
Yes, I would also add to that "voluntary observance because the consequence of suffering is known to arise from such actions". Or something like that. So if you already know that this action will cause suffering, The consequences are not unknown but known. Therefore you abstain from doing that because you already know what the consequences will be beforehand. So it's not necessarily fear of unknown consequences but skillful avoidance of known consequences. I know that if I stole something from my neighbor I would regret that later because that is just plain wrong to do. He would also suffer because when he goes to look for his stuff and it's not there, he would be upset. He paid good money for his stuff and to have it stolen would just suck for him. Therefore I don't steal stuff from my neighbor. Something like that. I don't claim to be able to follow all the precepts perfectly all the time in every situation. But when it comes to stuff like killing other living beings or stealing stuff from my neighbor, those things are completely out of the question. The precepts are meant to guide us out of suffering yes. They are also meant to help us prevent getting into suffering to begin with too I think.
Comments
In the past you have said that you believe that taking the life of sentient beings is wrong.
Often you have said that to break the precept will be karma that will have negative results, and you have quoted sutra to make your point.
I have had trouble with that position because it does not use personal experience as example and does not relate to my own life experience.
In your post above (if I understand your meaning),you have said that through your life experience you are able to interpret the precepts correctly when applying them to your own life. Your intuition will guide you. I accept this completely. Thank you.
If you say that you cannot kill and eat sentient beings because you know that it will be too painful for you because of the compassion that you feel for them, and that you are unwilling to risk losing the compassion and/or realization that you have struggled to develop, through killing, I understand you. It is a position that cannot be debated, at least not by me.
To me that is the meaning of the precepts. To guide us out of suffering by direct experience. Not through fear of unknown consequences.