Search results for: "The Five Precepts"
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- Over the Pass… This is why we have the precepts to hold us in—the principles of not just the five precepts but also the principles of restraint of the senses. Then we come to meditation. Here again you have your ancestral territory, where you should stay while you meditate, and then there are the areas outside where you shouldn’t go. Like that image of the …
- Choices… After all, if everything you experience is based on past actions, then you could be a killer of living beings, you could be a thief, you could engage in breaking any of the five precepts, and you couldn’t do anything about it. The same if a creator god had created your experience, or if things were totally random. You tried to do something …
- The Triple Training… In terms of your virtue, start with the basic principles of the five precepts: no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no taking intoxicants. The Buddha said to practice these in a way that’s untorn and unsplattered. In other words, you really stick with them in all circumstances. But there’s more than that. He also said that you follow these …
- Anchored by Skillful Roots… But if you decide that under no circumstances are you going to break the five precepts, the Buddha says that you’re giving unlimited safety to unlimited numbers of beings. In return you get a share in that unlimited safety as well. So again your survival is not just a selfish thing. It’s not based on the kind of roots that are going …
- Approaching the four noble truths… So your adherence to the five precepts from now on is going to be solid. And finally, of course, there’s no doubt about the Buddha and his awakening. You see inside yourself that what he said is true. There is a dimension where there is no suffering. And you gained it through your own efforts. This has a huge impact on the mind …
- Lessons for New Monks… For lay people, this means being strict in the five precepts. You hold to them. And as the Buddha says of the monks, they hold to their precepts and are willing to die rather than break them. Think about that. For the Buddha, virtue is that important. You see this theme again, and again in the teachings: that if you really want to know …
- The Seven Treasures… We’ve got the five precepts, we’ve got the eight, the ten, the 227 and then all the minor rules. They’re there for a purpose, to develop qualities of the mind. At the same time, they create a good environment around you: a sense that if you don’t do harm, harm doesn’t come to you. It’s a lot easier …
- You Are Not a Textbook… In some areas, the Buddha gives you some lessons and tips to begin with about the five precepts: no killing, no stealing, no illicit sex, no lying, no taking of intoxicants. Period. Those are things he says you don’t have to test. You don’t have to reinvent the Dhamma wheel there. But you do have to get more sensitive to how you …
- The Buddha’s Buffet… Make sure you don’t break the five precepts. He says, “When a husband and wife living together both observe the precepts, it’s as if they both are living with a deva.” As I mentioned this afternoon, there was a case of a couple who came to the Buddha and said that they’d been faithful to each other ever since they first …
- Maybe the Buddha Knew Something… This applies to laypeople observing the five precepts and to monks observing their many, many precepts. The common principle here is that we’re not just here for our leisure, for our entertainment, or to do what we feel like doing. We’re here to be trained, and training often means doing things you don’t like. The image the Buddha gives is of …
- A Meditative Life… In the case of lay people, it refers to the five precepts and, on occasion, the eight. When you’re holding to the precepts, you’re holding to firm principles in your life. The Buddha described observing the precepts as a gift, both to yourself and to the people around you. You give protection to other people’s lives, their property, their knowledge of …
- Fears… At the very least, though, in the gross sense of the five precepts, you wouldn’t intentionally do anything unskillful. So this is how the meditation deals with fear. It breaks the fear down into other emotions, looking for the underlying causes in terms of the greed, passion, anger, and delusion that give rise to the fear and keep it going. At the same …
- Not Crushed by the World… Years back, when Ajaan Suwat was teaching in Massachusetts, at the end of the retreat the question came up, “How do you carry the practice in your daily life?” He talked about the five precepts. A number of the people got upset. They thought he way implying that laypeople couldn’t handle the reall practice in their daily life, so they had to content …
- Clinging-Aggregates in Context… You have the habits of the five precepts, or the 227 precepts; the practices of concentration. Then there’s the self: the you who’s doing this and is going to benefit from this and is also watching over things. That’s a third function of this sense of self: It reflects on the other two. Is the self as the producer really producing …
- The Triple Training… When Ajaan Suwat was asked once about how to carry meditation into daily life, he focused entirely on the five precepts, because the precepts do develop qualities you need to meditate. Like the precept on speech: If you’re careful about what you say, making sure that it’s true and beneficial and timely, then when the time comes to sit down and meditate …
- The Path of Mistakes… Their virtues in terms of the basics of a virtuous life — the five precepts — are unshakeable. They don’t make those mistakes any more, but simple mistakes in saying the wrong thing to the wrong person: That’s human. It has nothing to do with defilements of the mind. It’s simply the fact that we’re human beings with limitations. What’s different …
- Feeding your Attack Dogs… Ordinarily when we think about precepts, we think primarily about the five precepts. And that is one level of restraint, which is important for reining in some of these attack dogs. But sila has other levels as well. Restraint of the senses is a kind of sila, as is purity of livelihood. Reflection on how you use the requisites is a kind of sila …
- Life in the Context of the Practice… This is why it might be good at the end of each morning meditation session to remind yourself of the five precepts. This is also why we have the contemplation of the four brahmaviharas. It opens our minds to all beings. You want to have goodwill for all beings, and that means if you see someone who’s suffering, no matter who they are …
- Conviction & Confidence… In other words, you’re firmly established in the five precepts. So even though your practice may not have reached the point where your conviction is verified, that you’ve really seen that these things are true, it’s good to cultivate that conviction as much as you can. You cultivate your precepts. You cultivate your conviction in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the …
- Faith in the Practice… Now, for most laypeople the five precepts are plenty, but you may realize that you need more than just the five. This is why we have the eight precepts. They add the principle of sense-restraint on top. And there’s no use in asking yourself, “Oh, why does this have to be?”—in other words, why you need to be stricter with yourself …
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