Last week I was speaking about acceptance as a spiritual quality. Acceptance
can be misunderstood if it's taken as an absolute social philosophy; it might
then imply a state of apathy or complacency with no urge to act for the good
of our society. When I was speaking about acceptance I was speaking about a
quality of the heart. This quality of the heart exists in the social contexts
of a society, a community and a family. The social context defines what is socially
acceptable and unacceptable.
I like to compare the social commitment of being a Buddhist to that of being
a member of a guild. If you have a guild of master builders - if you belong
to the craftspeople in that guild- then you have certain obligations, certain
skills that you have to develop before you are accepted and accredited by that
guild. Your work has to be maintained at the standards that all the members
agree upon; you have to have a certain ability to do your craft, and you have
certain obligations to fulfil, standards to uphold. And if you do not meet those
standards then the guild will strike you off its books. But also the guild will
protect your interests and it will encourage you to sustain good standards or
use better designs or whatever might be the case. And I think monasticism, or
any kind of Buddhist culture, is something like that. It is an association of
people who undertake to live according to certain values, who undertake a lifestyle
commitment. They undertake the responsibility of being a Buddhist. This kind
of responsibility or commitment gives form to our participation in community
and supports all of us in our spiritual work.
Our monastic community has just finished what is known as the 'rains retreat'.
It has indeed been raining. On Thursday, full moon day, we had our 'pavarana
day', which is the last day of the Rains Retreat. On that day we came together,
and performed a ceremony handed down to us from the time of the Buddha. All
the monks and novices came together in a kind of sharing circle and each of
us individually repeated a phrase in Pali which roughly translates as, "For
anything that I have done which is against my obligations as a Buddhist monk,
which is contrary to the training I am undertaking, please admonish me or please
offer me some reflection or feedback". This creates an opening, an invitation
to hear how we are seen by our peers. It's a reflection for each of us. We have
lived together for these three months, practising meditation and sharing in
the goodness of this sanctuary, all of which has been made possible through
the generosity of our lay community. It has been a good time and I feel grateful
for these three months. We also use reflections such as, 'Have I used my time
wisely? Have I honoured the alms food of the lay people and have I honoured
my monastic rule? Have I been sensitive to my fellow monastics?' - healthy reflections
which help us to remember our heart commitment to the path of peace and our
commitment to helping each other on this journey.
Our life in community is thus a training in body, speech and mind which encourages
us to let go of selfishness and yet encourages to do our own spiritual work.
The Buddha and his disciples were unable to design as detailed a code of life
for the laity as they did for the monastics because the lifestyles of the lay
community were too diverse. Thus the teaching on ethics and social commitment
was given in the context of social structures that already existed in the societies
of those times. In those cultures if, for example, a couple got married, it
was not only a relationship with another person, but also it was a marriage
that brought the couple within the community of married people. They weren't
just an isolated couple, but rather a couple who had joined a 'guild of married
people'. And that implied an obligation. It implied a moral obligation, a familial
obligation, and a communal obligation.
The whole community understood that obligation. And so the whole community could
support marriage, through encouragement, through admonishment, through helping
in times of sickness, and so on and so forth. So it wasn't just something that
happened in isolation. These kinds of supportive structures are harder to find
in modern urban society. For instance we might ask what is a partnership? Is
there a 'guild of partners'? What are the obligations in a partnership? How
is that defined and are there like-minded people who support such obligations?
I think this is a very real difficulty in our culture. A place like this monastery
and a group like this where many people come on a Sunday and meditate and reflect
on Dhamma, is a vehicle for creating a supportive social environment for our
Dhamma work. We as a community, as a group of human beings, can uphold certain
traditional values. We can honour these values, and we can give each other feedback
when traditional values are not honoured, when things become unacceptable. If
we see someone who comes to the monastery and they are abusive, if we see a
monastic who is not living by agreed monastic standards, then that is unacceptable.
We need to express our disagreement in an appropriate manner.
When we speak of acceptance, we usually mean at the heart level. Acceptance
is an inner strategy that allows us to be with life and respond to life with
clarity. But acceptance is not an absolute social philosophy. At the social
level some kinds of behaviour are unacceptable and our duty as members of this
spiritual community is to go to the person who we feel is not living according
to our agreed upon standards, to the lay person or to the monk, and to say that
we have to talk about this. Inner acceptance allows for clarity of action. But
if we are not aware of our inner world and attack from positions of righteous
indignation and anger then the results will be messy and confused. So we always
need to awaken to and honestly accept our own passions and defilements of mind.
This is a kind of inner obligation and commitment. Self righteous indignation
is a very destructive energy, an energy which can be used to justify anger,
hatred and jealousy. We need the courage to speak out when necessary but we
also need honesty to know our own feelings and intentions. In a Buddhist community
the accepted ethical framework is the five precepts. The third precept encourages
moderation as regards sensuality. This is a very broad precept which asks us
to reflect on the way we conduct ourselves with regard to sensual experience.
Specifically, it encourages the observance of sexual fidelity.
Adulterous relationships are thus against this precept. It is a precept which
draws very clear boundaries so that anyone in a marriage or in a permanent relationship
or anyone who is engaged or anyone who is underage or anyone who is a monastic
or anyone who is living under the eight precepts, all of these people are out
of bounds as regards sexual relationships. In observing this precept our responsibility,
our obligation is to promote the harmony of existing social contracts and to
care for those who are not of age or living under renunciant precepts.
Those who are committed to a religious life based on Buddhist principles have
these kinds of obligations to each other. If anyone in our community, be it
a monastic person or a lay person, is not fulfilling this principle of impeccability
in relationship or if someone is being in any way promiscuous or abusive, it
is our duty as a community to talk about that, to reflect on that. Not in a
gossping manner but in a way which honours the precepts. And that requires courage
and compassion.
This is a kind of social activism. It means speaking about things which are
important. This kind of honesty can be very helpful if it is done correctly,
not from self-righteousness, not from anger, but from the fact that we have
an obligation to the well being of our community and its individuals.
The one quality the Buddha could never go against in his spiritual journey was
the quality of truthfulness. Truthfulness is the heart of the religious life
because enlightenment is about truth. Freedom is about truth and suffering is
about ignorance, about not understanding. If there is someone in our community,
be it in the monastic community or in the lay community, whose mind is justifying
immoral behaviour it's very dangerous for that person. Unfortunately we humans
have the ability to rationalise our delusions. We can be very clever with knowledge
and ideas. Perhaps we have all seen occasions when a person is trying to admonish
another and the other person is more clever with language and twists it all
around. So cleverness ends up winning the day rather than truthfulness. There
is the manipulation of words and language to suit the desires and fears of the
ego. It is a cleverness which has the potential to do great harm to a person's
spiritual life.
Precepts and moral guidelines are a common body of knowledge - a common agreement
of obligations. When someone is acting in a way which is breaking apart existing
relationships and they are using some kind of clever language, we can say, "Perhaps,
but what about the third precept..." It is important that we have a common
body of knowledge so that there are references beyond personal preferences.
For instance, our monastic rules are a body of knowledge which is available
not only to the monks and nuns but also to the laity. In a non-Buddhist culture
most lay people don't understand the monastic rules but in Buddhist Asia people
tend to understand the rules and then everyone knows the monastic and lay boundaries.
When the boundaries are transgressed then there is a skilful reference point
- a body of common agreements. This helps both those who are in positions of
authority as well as those who seek guidance and leadership.
Sometimes teachers travel outside the boundaries of their own culture, outside
of the constraints and obligations that help them reflect on their responsibilities.
This can lead to situations where a teacher gets lost in selfish delusions and
gets burnt-out or oversteps the boundaries of propriety.
If, however, there is a cultural knowledge of boundaries, roles and expectations
then it is much more difficult for the teacher to follow self-deceptions. Teachers
and leaders will sometimes lose the plot and blunder into areas of confusion.
They get lost in their own over-estimations. They need protection too, don't
they? So, we all need protection, we all need help because delusion is there,
it deludes us into doing unskilful things.
Contemplating the first precept, the precept on not harming living beings, we
see how difficult that is in New Zealand. To create Karori and Kapiti bird sanctuaries
many possums, rats, cats and stoats were killed. Without the killing the native
birds die off. What to do? One thing we can do is to make sure we don't throw
out the first precept. If someone feels they have to transgress the precept
they must think long and hard by reflecting on the necessity and value of taking
life. Then they must be responsible for the decisions they make. If, however,
the precept is completely thrown out it is easy for attitudes to arise that
dismiss certain forms of life. The animal and plant realms are then considered
purely in terms of human desires and human economies rather than in terms of
compassion and care.
Have you ever perceived a spider as a pet? Children do this easily. Have you
ever changed your perceptions from 'this is a useless thing' to actually looking
at an animal with empathy, seeing it is a sentient creature that is trying to
be happy in its own interesting way? This creates an entirely different relationship.
It is quite beautiful. This can sound very utopian and impractical but the Buddha's
teaching encourages us to cultivate a heart of love and turn away from the heart
of alienation. Yes, we need to protect the environment from noxious weeds and
so forth but let's not brutalise the mind with insensitive and violent attitudes.
The second precept is about non-corruption: I undertake the training rule to
refrain from taking that which is not given. In our monastic rule we have various
refinements around this basic principle of not stealing. For instance, if someone
gave a monk a valuable object here in New Zealand worth $1,000 and then the
monk went to Canada, by Canadian law that article would have to be declared
and customs duties paid on it. But if he were to take that object, put it in
his carrier bag and walk through without declaring it at customs, fully knowing
that he was trying to evade taxes, the monk would have committed an offence
of 'defeat'. This is known as a parajika offence. We have four parajika offences.
When a monk has committed a parajika offence he has to disrobe - very serious.
That kind of cheating would be an impediment to his spiritual life so the rule
helps him to be very careful. Being careful in this way leads to a mind which
is free from remorse, from from self hatred and free of the fear of blame.
These precepts point to a sense of impeccability as the standard of the spiritual
life. The ethical teachings encourage us to understand the laws of the land
and to determine to support those laws, because if we don't who will? This is
our commitment to community. It is not just taking the easy way out or just
going with the popular mood of the day, 'well, everyone else is taking things
off the back of the lorry, why not? The office has lots of stationery.' That
kind of mind is not an impeccable mind. A mind which follows dishonesty becomes
a mind which is afflicted by guilt, fear or arrogance. It is not a mind that
is going to experience the beauty of a peaceful heart.
The precept on speech is a very useful mirror to help us notice the motivations
and intentions that lie behind our words. Wrong speech is: lying, swearing,
destructive gossip, and stupid talk. Right speech is: speech which is truthful,
speech which is beautiful, speech which is harmonious rather than divisive.
Speech which accords with Dhamma. Speech can be very uplifting. For example
when the Dalai Lama came to New Zealand his words were tremendously inspiring
for so many people. On the other hand, when we hear someone speaking with a
heart of hate and cruelty it can be very disturbing. So speech is very powerful
either for the good of our society or for its detriment.
Now, with the precepts themselves, we can't always get it right, but we can
reflect: speech which is truthful, speech which is beautiful, speech which is
harmonious, speech which is according to Dhamma - Right Speech. We can take
that into our hearts and minds. By reading over and contemplating a precept
every day for some extended period of time that precept begins to echo in our
minds. And then if we are talking with someone and discover ourselves distorting
the truth, exaggerating or covering up the truth, the precept awakens us with
the question "Why am I doing that? Why am I lying? Why do I need to distort
the truth?" It awakens us to the truth of our motivations. If, however,
we have no clear ethical boundaries or moral standards we can slide into unwholesome
and unskilful behaviour that is harmful to both ourselves and others. The precepts
thus become a way to protect us from the inner urges of insensitivity and selfishness,
urges which we all experience but which only become harmful when we believe
in their voices.
Using the precepts in this way we are able to ask ourselves, "What are
my intentions" If I am being manipulative with someone or I am trying to
cover up something that I've been doing or I am just exaggerating to make myself
look better, where is that coming from? Is it coming from fear, from greed,
or from some other unskilful place? And what's the result of that? Is the result
good? Is the result peaceful? Is the result happy? When I speak in this way,
is my mind confused?
On the other hand, when we encourage people, when we are sensitive to them,
when we tell the truth, when we are able to own up to our mistakes, what is
the result of that? Is that a good result or a bad result? Right speech thus
becomes a part of the path to freedom. This is not easy. Most people find it
difficult. We can easily believe deluded projections and dismiss someone with
insensitivity and unkindness. Or we can can believe in some petty complaint
and then poke someone in a heartless manner. Or we might feel jealous of someone's
success and tear them down behind their backs - so many ways to close the heart
and get lost in wrong speech. The empathy and love in the heart gets smothered
and we end up feeling more and more alienated.
The precept on drugs is obviously very important, because a truly religious
and spiritual life requires intelligence and focus both of which are harmed
by alcohol and various recreational drugs. We are not asked to adopt a puritanical
attitude, 'thou shalt not have a glass of wine with granny on her birthday',
it is not that. Rather it helps us reflect on why we turn to these things and
what effects they have on our lives. Do these things make us better people and
more responsible members of our communities? And what about our poor old bodies?
Is it a kindness to fill the body with various chemicals for the sake of pleasure
or for the need to escape?
So the framework for a Buddhist guild, a religious guild, is the five precepts.
Each one of us is slowly refining and deepening our use and understanding of
the precepts.
For example the precept on harmlessness not only encourages us to live a life
of non-violence but also a life of compassion. We work towards a deepening of
that possibility. Much of Buddhist social philosophy is based on empathy. Empathy
is a marvellous attitude which helps lift us out of selfishness and self-obsession.
When we have a chance to give to someone and we feel the joy of helping someone
and caring for someone, then they are actually giving us a lot. It's an irony
isn't it? I have sometimes said to couples who have adopted a baby that the
baby is very fortunate. They invariably answer, "no, no, we are the lucky
ones". We only have about 100 years to live on this planet, 80-100 maximum.
What is the purpose of life? If we can do something good for our society, for
our planet and the beings on it then that gives life meaning. If that is the
basis of our social philosophy then we can see more clearly our own manipulativeness
or the rationalising of our actions to justify selfish ends. When harmful impulses
arise we learn to be patient and not follow these energies but also we cultivate
wholesome states of mind, encouraging compassion and kindness to blossom in
our hearts. This is a lovely process in the spiritual life.
The advances in science as regards medical and agricultural technologies have
created a complicated array of moral dilemmas that didn't exist at the time
of the Buddha. For instance what is the Buddhist position on genetic engineering?
Where is that covered in the five precepts? Perhaps there need not be a fixed
position. What is important, however, is that our hearts and minds be freed
from personal agendas based on greed and arrogance. Part of right speech might
then be the ability to debate the issues that arise, to participate in the process
of education that our whole society is undertaking. This would imply a personal
commitment to become informed about the issues and then to think very carefully
how one feels about these issues in the light of one's own ethical standards.
This would give us the requisite qualities of heart and intelligence to enter
into discussion and make a meaningful contribution to the moral direction our
society.
In a guild of craftspeople there are responsibilities to the standards that
are encouraged by the guild but also there are the joys of creating something
of beauty that is an expression of one's craft. In the same way our Buddhist
community has standards that we should live by and encourage in each other but
also there is the expressive part of our being which is a part of the craft
or art of living. To give something of oneself for the benefit of other beings
is truly marvellous. At times our Buddhist emphasis on the practice of awareness
can sound as though we are constantly thinking about ourselves; a very uninspiring
way to live this life. If I've got nothing to give to, nothing to serve, no
one to love, no one to care for, it's not balanced. The other extreme, of course,
is to be so out there, so caring, so loving that I end up in hospital with a
nervous breakdown. We need the balance of love for ourselves as well as the
love of others. Perhaps then, the deepest standard that our Buddhist community
can encourage is quite simply love for one another. Our sense of acceptance
and our commitment to good ethics is always underpinned by the heart of loving
kindness.