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Good morning everyone. Today I'd like to talk about the second of the six paramitas: shila paramita. I've seen a couple of different translations for the pali word “shila” but the one that I find most useful is “no deviation.” Ethical conduct means not deviating from the path of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and it means not deviating from our own true nature.
A few weeks ago I talked about the Bodhisattva Precepts. The Bodhisattva Precepts are at the core of ethical conduct, but as I said before, they are not commandments or rigid rules that must be followed to the letter “or else.” Aitken roshi calls them lamposts to guide us on the path and Norman Fischer reminds us that our moral compass should not be some set of rules but the simple fact of kindness.
There is a wonderful sutra where the Buddha advises his own son Rahula on how to determine what kind of behaviour is good and what isn't. According to the commentaries, Rahula was about 7 years old, and had been a monk for a very short time when the Buddha gave him this advice.
The Buddha tells his son that acts of body, speech and mind should be done with reflection. It's fairly easy to understand what is meant by acts of body and of speech, but maybe it's not so clear to you what is meant by mental acts. Here is where we would put destructive emotions such as greed and anger as well as the self aggrandizement and other thoughts and attitudes that come from them. Buddhism talks about these attitudes as actions in the same way that saying something or doing something is an action. You might think about what that means.
The Buddha says that when contemplating an action one should reflect on whether that action will lead to affliction or suffering for oneself or for others. When acting, one should be attentive and reflect whether or not one's action is causing affliction or suffering for oneself or for others. And after having acted, one should reflect whether that action led to affliction or suffering for oneself or for others. So the basic rule of good conduct is to refrain from actions that would cause suffering. All of the precepts are merely examples of how we can do that: don't take life, don't steal, don't abuse sexuality, etc.
The sutra says that we should reflect on what we do before, during and after we do something. This covers motivation, activity and results. In fact, the strength or weight of their karmic consequences comes from a combination of all three of these. Imagine the act of stepping on someone's toe. First, did you decide to do it on purpose or was it unintentional? Next, when you did it, did you feel right about it or not? And third, after you did it, were you glad that you did it or not? I think you will agree that deciding to stomp on someone's toe, but then changing your mind and not doing it has less of an impact than following through with the action and then being glad you did it. Sometimes we might decide to do something, go ahead and do it, and then have regrets. That too would have a different weight. I think you can see that.
Some people see karma as some kind of cosmic justice, that if you do “bad” things in one life you will be “punished” in a future life. But this is not the way I see it. First, I really have no opinion as to the matter of reincarnation. I have no personal experience of it and I see no need to believe in it in order to have an appreciation for cause and result, the so called law of karma. I do have personal experience that my actions in the past have results in the present. That unskillful actions have led to more suffering, and that skillful actions have led to less suffering.
But I don't feel comfortable calling this “justice.” We don't call it “justice” when water flows downstream or when we see the full moon at night. This isn't justice it's just the fundamental nature of the way things are. So it is with karma. That certain actions lead to more suffering and other actions lead to less suffering is not justice. It is simply the way things work. Ideas like “justice” and “good” and “bad” are extra concepts that we add.
To go back to the sutra, the Buddha doesn't seem to expect Rahula to always be successful in refraining from bad action because in the sutra he tells him:
If, on reflection, you know that it led to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it was an unskillful action with painful consequences, painful results, then you should feel distressed, ashamed, & disgusted with it. Feeling distressed, ashamed, & disgusted with it, you should exercise restraint in the future.It might surprise you to hear the Buddha saying that one should feel distressed, ashamed and disgusted with unskillful action. In "Taking Our Places" Norman Fischer says,
We need to care deeply about our mistakes and to have sincerely terrible feelings about them...If the powerful negativity of a really bad mistake doesn't come home to you, if it never sears your soul, then that mistake has been useless to you; it will not serve to temper and tenderize your heart.This is the path to truly understanding ethical conduct. Of course we must not let our mistakes drag us down. Once we acknowledge them, we need to forgive ourselves and then go forward doing the best we can with what we have learned. Forgive, but don't forget. In the Talmud, the Jewish book that discusses law and ethics, it actually says that it is better to sin and then acknowledge and repent your error than it is not to sin at all. In other words, it is through our mistakes that we learn and grow.
Of course we don't try to make mistakes. We don't have to. Making mistakes is an inevitable part of being human. We try to learn from our mistakes and use them to make us happier and better people.
I studied psychology in university some years ago. At that time, one widely accepted theory in social psychology was that there was actually no such thing as altruism. Respected social psychologists argued that behaviours that we often label as altruistic were actually self-centered behaviours since they could show that there was always some benefit to the person who did the behaviour. One way or another, all selfless activity was shown to be selfish because in some way or another the actor or their family benefited. At the time, I tried to argue a different interpretation. I tried to argue this only showed the interconnection of all beings. It showed that whatever we do to or for another being always has an effect that comes back to us. I felt is was too narrow to call this egotistical.
I believe that today many social psychologists think the old theory is too simple. Today it seems that many of them argue that altruism comes as the result of empathy or identification with others. They say that people who behave altruistically have a wider sense of self that embraces other beings as well. It's a start.
Ethical conduct, shila paramita, tells us that we should restrain ourselves from doing harmful things just as the Buddha told Rahula. But it also tells us that we should not restrain ourselves from doing beneficial things. This is also part of the Buddha's advice to Rahula. When we reflect on motivations, activity and results, not only do we notice what actions are unskillful and lead to more suffering, we also can notice what actions are skillful and relieve suffering. On seeing this, the Buddha said we will feel “mentally refreshed and joyful.” He advised Rahula that he should continue to train in such skillful activity.
Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo, who was a theravadin teacher, said that the two keys to maintaining shila are perseverance and the practice of the Brahma Viharas, the four immeasurable sublime attitudes. These are among the practices that we have been taking up in our Tuesday guided meditations. Practicing the Brahma Viharas means practicing lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. Not just practicing them as meditations, but as the activity of our daily life. At work, at home, with friends, at the store, even visiting the dentist or getting a haircut. If we stay on this path (this is the perseverance part), we will be practicing virtue. We will be practicing shila without even thinking about it.
Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo also described 2 kinds of virtue. Here is a quotation:
Thus there are two kinds of virtue: pure virtue, i.e., spotlessness in thought, word, and deed; and blemished virtue, i.e., virtue torn into pieces or cut into holes. For example, to observe two precepts but to break three that come in succession, is virtue torn into pieces. If the precepts that are broken don't come in succession, this is called stained virtue or virtue cut into holes.You may already know how the practice of shila becomes shila paramita, which is to say how we get to ethical conduct beyond any concept of ethical conduct. We have to start somewhere. We start by studying the teachings of ethical conduct and taking them into our hearts and lives. We practice with them with mindful attention. If it seems too hard and stressful, we can cut ourselves a little slack, but we don't give up, we just start where we are and keep moving at our own pace in the direction of ethical conduct. We try not to stray, and when we do stray we just notice that and come back. And eventually we might start to notice that we don't even have to think about it any more, we just stay on track more and more of the time. When we are at one with our Bodhisattva nature, we don't think about it at all. It would take someone else to notice that we are practicing ethical conduct, because we aren't even concerned about that any more.
This is how to develop a bad character. People of bad character do have virtue, but they don't take care of it. They don't make the effort to maintain the precepts and so let evil come flowing in through their words and deeds. Stained virtue, torn virtue, and virtue cut into holes: Even though these are classed as evil, they're still better than having no virtue at all. To have torn virtue is better than having no virtue to tear, just as wearing torn clothes is better than wearing no clothes at all. Everyone born has virtue built into them; the only exceptions are those who have died.
In the same way that Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo said that everyone has virtue, I think we can say that everyone has this experience of being a Bodhisattva. Not just the potential, but the actual fact. Sometimes you are none other than Samantabhadra acting skillfully without thinking about it, Avalokiteshvara relieving suffering like reaching back for a pillow in the night, or Manjushri cutting through delusions because there's nothing else to do.
Maybe this only lasts for the length of a finger-snap, but for that time it is still shila paramita. It is still ethical conduct beyond the concept of ethical conduct. And as we train with it, this finger snap can become a line from a song, and then a verse, and then a whole song. You can take it from there.
Thanks for listening.
© 2007, Burai Rick Spencer