… a ‘WebLog’ for opening the Dharma [“Dharma” is a very ancient word often translated as truth, teaching, way; even as broad as ‘reality as it is.’] If you’ve thoughtfully read the essay on the Home page (“What Kind of Conversation Do You Live In?”) and are curious about the implications and practices, the following ‘Blogs point the direction.
A Prayer for Opening to the Dharma
“May I openly and receptively engage in a life-conversation for wisdom and compassion, and may my learning resound through every encounter, for the liberation of all beings.”
Table of Contents
If Buddhism is not a religion, then what is it?
If Buddhism is not a religion, then what is it?
When most Americans newly come across the term “Buddhism,”—if they’re interested—there’s a natural curiosity about what kind of a religion it is. You’ll notice that such a question actually brings an assumption along with it: that Buddhism is apparently a religion in a similar way that Judaism, Christianity, Islam (and many others) are religions.
Another way such a curiosity will often present itself is in the question, “What do Buddhists believe?”, since adherents of all religions surely have their distinct sets of beliefs. In the case of Buddhism, however, that would be mistaken. True, many scholars and academics tend to include Buddhism in a “religion” category. Others attempt to distinguish it by putting it in a “philosophy” category, which might be okay, except that it is unlike schools of speculative philosophy.
After stating that Buddhism isn’t religion, and isn’t philosophy, let me offer a quick clarification about that before going on to say what Buddhism is. The problem with classifying Buddhism is that there is not just a single, orthodox Buddhism. Wherever Buddhism has been practiced in the world, it historically goes through a syncretistic process, an amalgamation with local religions, cultures, and schools of thought, but often still goes by the name “Buddhism.” So what starts out as a unique kind of practice, usually get rolled up together into local and cultural religions which do have their beliefs, dogmas, creeds, etc.
As a way of stating what Buddhism essentially is, we could say that it is the original teaching of the Buddha, which is a practice for ending the mind’s suffering (unease, dissatisfaction, upset, inner conflict, etc.). In this regard, we could say that it is more like a practical, hygienic psychology, than a religion or philosophy. And because it is a learned and practiced way of being with one’s own mind, it is also often described as spirituality, concerned with our inner life experience. But just like ‘religion’ and ‘philosophy,’ “spirituality” means different things to different groups, and so can also be misunderstood.
In practicing Buddhist meditation since 2005, I have personally seen how much of my own suffering with life has been enabled and maintained by elements within our Western culture. In other words, Western culture has trained us to use our minds in ways that are more prone to conflict, and subject to moods and restlessness, rather than to be at peace with life as it happens, right here and now. In this context, Buddhist practice serves as a therapeutic complement to such a Western ‘mind-style.’ One’s mental life becomes more consistent with its own true nature, and therefore less prone to suffering, and much more naturally happy. As suffering ends, peace and happiness are the natural result.
What Did The Buddha Teach?
If the Buddha’s teaching is not about beliefs, then what is it?
During a long period of meditation, the Buddha carefully observed how there were times when his mind was very peaceful, and other times when it was suffering. Beyond feeling the differences, he was able to see both how the mind moved from one experience to the other—and back to the one—and the ‘mechanics’ involved in both experiences. When he finally got a clear view of how it was occurring, it was like a veil of delusion, or ignorance, was suddenly removed, and he had what he called an experience of being awake.
In realizing he had seen some profound things about how our minds relate to reality, he knew there would be at least a few others who would be able to see it, too, if it were pointed out to them. When asked what he taught, his reply was simple: “I teach only suffering, and the end of suffering.” As he examined how to present his insights, he saw that they could be presented as four truths, and his core teaching came to be called “the Four Noble Truths.” Essentially, they go like this:
1. There is a lot of suffering in life; causes for it are everywhere, but most people won’t acknowledge it, or can’t see it. But some do, and want to be free from it.
2. Our minds, when confronted with pain and difficulty, react to what happens, and that dysfunctional mental reaction causes suffering. Suffering is not our mind’s true, original nature.
3 If that dysfunctional reaction that happens in our minds changes to something more beneficial, suffering will end. Then the natural experiences of peace and happiness naturally arise.
4. There is an Eightfold Path—eight skillful ways of understanding, thinking, speaking, acting, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration—which causes suffering to end.
Unlike many aspects of religions, this Path is not about doctrines or dogmas or creeds for anyone to believe in. Rather, this Path is grounded in common sense and a careful observation of one’s own experience. The Buddha’s approach was that we simply look honestly and carefully at our experience of life. Do we find aspects of life distressing, or are we peaceful and happy? One of the things we will notice is that our choices and our actions will result in either more ease with life, or more suffering.
We Live In Conversations
We all have ‘mental conversations’ about life going on in our minds, which give us our current experience of life, pleasant or not … and we don’t know it.
We’re not talking, here, about the everyday meaning of “conversation,” like two people chatting. We’re talking about a conversation always running in our minds. Since our whole life has been lived inside that conversation, its views and perceptions seem to us like the truth of how life is. It is habitual, and is made up of content dating back to early childhood impressions, experiences, and decisions.
What’s important about this is that our felt-experience of life–stressful, anxious, fearful, sometimes easy, excited, or inspired–derives from these mental conversations about life. Some of those past impressions and views comprising these conversations, when examined, are causing us considerable stress and taking a toll. But the good news is that they can change. Altering that conversation is what spiritual practice is actually about.
Our mind-conversations about life contain elements we are unaware of, just like a fish is unaware of the water it lives in. This conversation is made up of attitudes, assessments, beliefs, feelings, opinions, and points of view, all of which are normal mind activities. The concern, here, is that these mind activities eventually yield an experience of life–the one we now have. These conversations, with their values, assumptions, judgments, and ways-of-being perpetuate themselves within our minds, as the mind practices them, like rehearsals; that’s how we get our experience of life, pleasant or not.
Even when we think we have chosen and understand the conversations we are living in, we may be confounded as to why our experience of life can sometimes be so distressing and unsatisfying. The conversations we live in are larger and more influential than our minds are able to see. The fish has no way of knowing about the quality or scope of the water it lives in.
These inner conversations give us our experience of life. So if we change our conversation about ourselves (or about work, or relationships, or success, etc.), we will naturally change our experience of reality. If one day we realize we’re dissatisfied and uncomfortable with some aspect of life, with skillful examination we can awaken to the way the conversation is impacting us, and through that insight, opportunity arises for altering the life conversation, and thereby altering our experience of life.
We often act or speak as if our experience of life is determined by our circumstances, and therefore unchangeable unless we can control our circumstances. We believe this because it was portrayed that way to us when we were young. As children we were given ‘conversations’ about ourselves, about life, about existence, about food, about people, about pain, about love, etc., and led to believe they were an unchangeable truth. Those conversations became the paradigms through which we mentally organize and emotionally relate to life. From these constructions and relationships we have experiences of what seems like reality to us. And who, besides Deity, could possible change reality?
However our pleasant and unpleasant experiences may be for us, they are our creations, and if we don’t like how our experiences feel, new conversations can be created–they are created all the time by people who have become dissatisfied with the old ones, and have determined to create new ones. It is not even necessary to understand anything about how our old conversations came into being, nor what composes them. We don’t have to be smarter than the conversation, nor have a degree in psychology. If you feel the need for a different experience of life, but feel overwhelmed at the prospect of making it happen, that overwhelm is the inner conversation speaking to you again. Our own experience–just as it is, right here and now–the one we already carry around within ourselves is the gateway to a new conversation. The exciting thing to see, here, is this:
As we awaken to the inner conversation and its impact upon us, that awakening begins to alter the inner conversation; when we alter that conversation, we also alter our experience of life.
Most of us are not satisfied with some of our current experience of life. But there are some who have found some basic, core insights which help us to recognize how we have been perpetuating our suffering, and some life-changing practices for having a different experience of life. These insights and practices may not be for everyone–perhaps just for those for whom traditional faith-practices have not been very effective. It is a path of awakening fully to our unsatisfactory experience of life, in order to have something that works, without the suffering. There are no beliefs to subscribe to, just the acceptance of one’s own experience.
We are ConversationSangha, composed of a community of persons who are dissatisfied with our suffering, and we are altering the conversations we live in, and altering our experience as well. Everyone is welcome; no one is excluded. For information about how to participate, click on Upcoming Events.
Recognizing the Conversation
What is this Conversation About Life? Where did it come from? How did I get it? When did it start? Why do I have it? How can I fix it?
Those are useful questions to ask, but not the most important questions. The standard questions our minds go to are the questions the Conversation itself has trained us to ask, implying that if we can “process” or “think things through” long and well enough, we can somehow get a handle on the Conversations we live inside of, and even manage them better. But here’s the rub:
Although we try to use our minds to manage our lives inside such a Conversation, that same Conversation has already pre-conditioned the mind to avoid anything that might otherwise alter the Conversation. In other words, the Conversation–inside of which our conditioned minds reside– is highly resistant to change.
Feel free to re-read that statement as many times as needed. The mind, conditioned as it is by the Conversation, has an almost impossible time considering anything outside its own parameters, but that statement unmasks the complexity of it. Fortunately, freedom (traditionally called “liberation”) from this dilemma is not so convoluted.
Another way of saying this: Our minds not only do things which cause us suffering (through our inherited Conversations), they also react in ways which compound our suffering. The Conversations we live in are self-perpetuating, and further reinforced by the culture we live in. As long as we continue living within such a Conversation, the forecast will be bleak at worst, and unsatisfactory at best. But good news: the Conversation can be changed.
After those first few paragraphs, here’s the first step: Notice how your mind is responding right now. It could be reacting in any number of ways, for example: That’s too deep for me. I’m no psychologist… Or, I am a psychologist and this doesn’t sound familiar. Borrr-ing. Social media are more interesting. Hmmm, I wonder if this gets any clearer. I’m not that dissatisfied with my life–and I can always come back here if I ever want to read more. Doesn’t sound like what I believe in. Hmmm, if I could learn this, I might finally be someone with importance. Where does this notion come from, anyway? … and variations on these themes.
If you’re wondering what all this is leading up to, wondering if this is intended to convince you of some new beliefs to believe in, or a new philosophy of life, or sell you on joining some kind of religion, your wondering would certainly be natural, since that’s how so many essays like this tend to go. Clearly, various beliefs or doctrines haven’t worked for most of us, because we’re still looking for an effective way to be happier, ways that don’t require us to sacrifice what makes sense to us.
What I’m inviting you to consider is not a new idea. It actually comes from a wise man who lived about 2600 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama, who came to known as Buddha (from the ancient Pali language, meaning “I’m awake”). But keep in mind that the preface to his teaching was always, ‘Don’t believe in anything because many do, or because it is written in religious books, or it is proclaimed by teachers and elders, or because it has a sacred tradition. Believe it if, only after careful observation and analysis, you find it to be reasonable and to produce good results for all; then accept it and live up to it.’
This is an invitation simply to look and see the results you have from living inside a Conversation which pretends to be reality. If you’re satisfied with how your life feels, this inquiring Conversation may seem irrelevant for you. This new Conversation is for those whose dissatisfaction with aspects of life is no longer acceptable. If you want to participate, we invite you to look at the “Upcoming Events” page, and feel free to “Contact Us.” You get to decide what’s true for you, and what you want to do with what you see. A good place to start would be:
Simply wonder about your experience of life; to what degree is it acceptable to you? Where does it not feel so good, or complete?
Spiritual Path As Metaphor
Sometimes the spiritual life—by which is meant our inner, mental, ‘felt’ experience of life—is illustrated in spiritual teaching using the metaphor of cultivating a garden. Essentially, we find ourselves with a “life-garden” with produce (like nutrition and beauty) based upon what we have cultivated.
Our dilemma is that we’ve been born into a culture that has been giving us disinformation about how to have a garden that produces what we most deeply need and want. Many of us come to meditation because we’ve realized we’re dissatisfied with some of the suffering growing in our gardens—dissatisfaction itself being part of the undesirable ‘produce.’
Some find that, through meditation, they get an occasional lift, a momentary freedom from unhappiness. There can also be times we meditate, but we’re not sure what it’s doing for us—but hoping it will eventually be worth it. Regardless of how these may describe you from time to time, I applaud you for attempting to cultivate a garden that grows what is more fulfilling for you.
I invite you to take a moment to realize what a profound thing it is, that you’re doing this. Literally millions of people have given up doing anything to make their ‘garden’ flourish. They’ve either given up but hope to have a rewarding afterlife; or they’ve given up and have resigned themselves to: “I’m better off than a lot of folks; I’ll just try to be happy with that.” But that’s not true happiness or peace; that’s resignation. On the other hand, just your act of reading and contemplating this, and waking up to your actual experience of your life, is a rare and precious thing. Who knows why some do, and so many don’t?
We’re going to change from the ‘garden’ metaphor now… The new metaphor is that our inner, spiritual life is a path. But if we’re going to do justice with this new metaphor, there are some things to be aware of. Namely, the sense in which the spiritual life is like a path, and at the same time unlike many common notions of a ‘path.’
So first, don’t picture yourself or your mind as if it were a solid, embodied hiker on this path. The mind is more like a series of activities, than like a striding hiker. The mind is always changing, always moving. But there are only two ways it can move: either reactively, or creatively. At every moment the mind is confronted with a choice of repeating old patterns and going around in familiar circles, causing more of the same of what you already have… Or rearranging the pattern and creating more positive conditions for movement toward ending unease and struggle.
So we could say that at every moment there is the creative possibility of moving forward on the path, and also the reactive possibility of just moving around, and not really moving at all. We are free to develop our awareness of the spiritual path, to look for solutions to our suffering; and we are also free to sink back into unconscious rote, and be resigned with how things are. At any given time we are either encouraging health-giving mental states, or reinforcing death-dealing ones.
The path, then, is a symbol representing the fact that we can change, we can choose a path leading to where we want to go. If we know what we have now, and if we have even a hint of what we truly want, we can take steps to create that.
Another interesting thing about “the path” is that in the Pali, the earliest language used for recording the Buddha’s teaching, the idiom for path translates better as “developing our path.” Or better yet: We are the path.
If we think of it as something out there, like a road or trail, or information to be learned, we’re likely to be confused with an inaccurate notion of the path. The idea that we are like sheep that are herded along a path toward knowledge and good behavior, and we need to stay on the path to get to some destination like obedience or righteousness — these are traditional, religious perspectives, but not very powerful or accurate ones. The path itself is not something you have to keep yourself on. It’s not a matter of forcing yourself to follow a particular track prescribed by some “thou shalts” or “thou shalt nots.”
The path simply represents your own responses to your own particular suffering-predicament. And yours won’t be exactly the same as mine. Seeing this path can be a tremendous challenge, because it’s not like the forms of education and thinking we in Western cultures have been trained to do.
Don’t be surprised if this mentally feels, at first, like a conversation in a foreign language. Fortunately our minds are actually pre-wired for this spiritual conversation, even if it doesn’t feel familiar at first. So allow me to distinguish between the conversations we’ve been living in, and a conversation that supports the spiritual path.
We have been led to believe that the “true” language for understanding life is our culture’s language, and it is comprised of the following. See if some of these don’t sound familiar to you… “Be attractive.” “Be successful.” “Be smart and right about your views.” “Things really can make us happy.” “Have the right people in your life.” “Ignore stress and unease.” And in too many of our subcultures: “Keep you head down.” “Be mean enough that no one will bother you.”
Our new “path-conversation” actually has a simplicity about it, even though our minds want to approach the path via the inept, familiar categories just mentioned. Very often, the more educated we are, and the more sure we are of how life is, the harder it is to see this path. This path is not something for us to understand or believe in, so that we can get ourselves on it, and keep ourselves on it. The path is here, now; with whatever is going on with you, right now.
I recently heard an insightful song lyric: “If you wonder where the path is, look beneath your feet.” In other words, it is right where you’re standing, with whatever is going on around you. I also came across a poem called Wanderer, by Antonio Machado, which can deepen our perspective on this path:
Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more;
Wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
One sees the path that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road–
Only wakes upon the sea.
The “road,” as Machado indicates, is made up of our stepping(s), our choices and consequent experiences of our lives. It includes even the things about our lives that we don’t like—that we may have thought alien to the path—those are the path. Becoming aware of how our life now ‘seems’ to us puts us in a position to grow and develop in ways characterized by creative freedom, rather than by rote and habit. The path is: You becoming aware of, and responding to, your inner experience of life such that the path moves you out of suffering, and into ease with life.
“Nirvana” is a term we use for a state of life in which suffering has ended—we are no longer making ourselves suffer—and the mind is free, and is characterized by ease, peace, and happiness. Nirvana is an ancient name for the goal of the spiritual life. It’s not about “heaven-someday.” It’s about a quality of life here and now. You may recall reading/hearing that Jesus also said, “ The kingdom of heaven is within you;” he wasn’t talking about an afterlife. He was talking about the ‘right-now’ fruit of a spiritual path.
The thing that motivates us to pursue a spiritual path is that there are some aspects of our lives we don’t like, and the spiritual path leads to the resolution, or healing, for those. If you take a moment to consider all the problem-circumstances (like distasteful situations and people) in your life, those circumstances are not the real problem. The real problem is with our mental reaction mechanisms;—our minds have been conditioned to be cocked and ready to fire—and when the mind fires, it causes suffering.
What we desire, ultimately, is the end of suffering, which requires healing the ‘mental reaction mechanism’ causing the suffering. The problem is that there is a fundamental thinking-error about how to get there. Nirvana is what we need and desire, but we get confused and substitute what we think of as “happiness” to be the goal. Happiness is nice, for sure, and that’s how it becomes everyone’s mistaken goal—but it’s a goal which can never be realized. Happiness, by its nature, is fleeting. Even if we have moments of happiness here and there, we still have the general problem of unhappiness, maybe lots of it. Generally people want to get away from unhappiness and get to happiness. So it would seem that the spiritual path would be a path from unhappiness to happiness, right?
That’s how the mind mistakenly conceptualizes it. Here’s where we get to the error: Happiness, by its nature, is fleeting. Consider some other words that contain part of the word “happy” in them. Words like haphazard; happenstance; happening; hapless all contain a fleeting quality: It’s there, and then it’s not there. The pursuit of happiness gets the same results: It’s there, and then it’s not. The bottom line about “happiness” is that, if our ‘spiritual’ effort is our reach for happiness, it won’t be fulfilled because happiness, as a state of mind, cannot be realized by pursuing it.
If you already have moments of fleeting happiness, reaching for more may add a few more moments to that. But why pursue a few momentary flashes of happiness, which will continue to be interrupted by the unhappiness still there?
Let’s go back to what I said about there being a fundamental thinking-error about how to get what we really want: Nirvana, the end of suffering. The truer alternative to a path of seeking for fleeting happiness is a path for becoming aware. It’s so easy to misunderstand the spiritual path as a way to get away from unhappiness, and to get to happiness, but that leads nowhere. Trying to get away from present-moment experience (like unhappiness) always yields more unhappiness. Pushing away present-moment experience (of any kind) causes more suffering. The cultivation of awareness, on the other hand, embraces every current-moment experience, and disconnects that “reaction-mechanism” in us that is cocked and ready to fire, adding to our suffering.
The spiritual path of awareness, as challenging as it is, is a path that ends suffering, … and, incidentally, brings abiding peace and ease! If we are meditating to become happier (as many of us do, for a time), we might temporarily increase our happiness a whit. But by meditating to become aware, the mind becomes truly at ease. Or put differently: Chase after happiness, and you’ll rarely get it. Seek awareness, and happiness shows up. Simple and clear, right?
The difficulty is that our minds have years of practice with an ineffective way of avoiding unhappiness, and pursuing happiness; which means we never get there. The way to nirvana—the end of suffering—is to train the mind in mindful awareness. By meditating, we become aware of how our minds resist being aware. The mind doesn’t typically want to be aware of anything that’s unpleasant. The Conversation we live in has convinced us to avoid being aware of anything unpleasant, and instead to try to supplant unpleasantness with pleasure. The Conversation has conditioned our minds to lie to us for a long time—saying “Just a little more pleasure will do it; I need just one more ‘next’ thing, and then I’ll be happy.”
Isn’t it odd how the mind has not recognized that chasing happiness hasn’t worked in all our years? Why would we keep doing the same thing that hasn’t worked? The problem is that if you are (hypothetically) 50 years old right now, you have probably spent 49½ years practicing chasing happiness in a particular way, … one that likely has not worked. Does it really seem reasonable to believe that a few moments of reading or thinking could easily retrain the mind, that the mind could realize it has been deluded all this time, and would allow you, now, to suddenly be completely aware? Without a new Conversation, even when a little awareness does arise, it will not be sustained. Our minds habitually revert to pursuing happiness by means of pushing away feelings of unhappiness, and the mind is once again being its familiar reactive self, going around in circles, with a few moments of happiness interrupted by periods of unhappiness.
Anyone can become aware; but not many are willing to be aware. With practice, teaching, and a community supporting a new Conversation, those 49½ years of delusion do break down, and we awaken to the light of our true nature, things get simple, and happy. Thank you for your search for Dharma.
Ethics As Cultivation
There are things we do—with varying frequency—which cause ourselves unhappiness, and there are also things we do which cause meaningful happiness. It would be helpful to understand how that works, right?
The teaching about this is called “Karma.” Admittedly there are some odd ideas about Karma out there—that it’s like ‘mojo,’ or some kind of good/bad luck, or cosmic pay-back. A better understanding, though, is that Karma is a universal law of cause-and-effect.
Regarding the spiritual life, the metaphor of a garden is sometimes used: Whatever the conditions of a garden are (like soil, sun, water), whatever the seeds we plant, and whatever our cultivation of the ground (preparation, tilling, feeding)—all of these are “causes,”— …these will determine the results, or “effects” we get.
Each of us is living, right now, with the effects of causes we have previously put in motion—perhaps recently, or maybe many years ago. The older we get, there has been more time during which we have accrued various effects. And some of them are good effects.
For example, it is obvious, by your reading this, that you care about your own life, about how it may not have been as complete or satisfying as you want it to be. That is an “effect” of something that you planted and nurtured from some place in your past; and it is showing up here and now. If you participate in a spiritual community of some kind, your doing so also supports others’ ability to care for themselves in similar ways.
And all of us have some effects from our past that we’d prefer not to have—we’re not proud of them, and our suffering from them may be what motivates our search, even the reading of Dharma presentations, like this one.
With either effect—positive or not—we’ve been doing this cultivation-‘thing’ for some time, and many people are not aware that every decision—something they do with their minds—is cultivating something.
What many don’t know, yet, is that they can cultivate more skillfully today, to have a direct impact upon the future. So how can that be done? If we go back to our starting proposition—there are things we do which cause us suffering, and there are things we do which cause peace—it would seem apparent that making more wise decisions would eliminate sources of suffering, and would increase our experience of happiness. Then what would those be?
There are a number of spiritual traditions which offer such guidelines, or rules, or commandments, but not all of them offer a lot of rationale or encouragement to experiment and find out for ourselves what works, and what doesn’t work. One of the best, most straightforward, “test-it-for-yourself” approaches was articulated about 2600 years ago by a teacher known as the Buddha. From reflections on his own life successes and failures, he identified some basic categories of behaviors which cause suffering, and supplant the prospect of peace…sort of like the cultivation of a garden. Like a garden, a life that is thoughtfully tended will flourish and thrive. On the other hand, if the garden has become a place for throwing our trash and parking our cars, those actions make it impossible for a garden (i.e., a life) to be healthy and productive.
From the Buddha’s reflections, there are five “precepts” which, if observed, will cultivate life in such a way that happiness and peace are the effects. These are often referred to as “training precepts,” since they serve to re-train the mind in the direction of health and wellbeing.
1. The first Training Precept says “I undertake the precept to refrain from harming or destroying living creatures.”
I have a personal story I’d like to share with you. Shortly after I had been introduced to these precepts, I went on a 3-day retreat at a retreat center back in the woods. In the large zendo about 25 of us were sitting in a large circle listening to the teacher, when a big, slow-moving bug crept its way toward the middle of the concrete floor. Most of us were watching it, while dividing our attention with the teacher. I inconspicuously reached over for my notebook, because if that creepy-looking bug came my direction, I was going to save us all from it. And it started moving in my direction.
But before it quite got to me, the teacher got up, still teaching, went over to a table to get a clear plastic cup, and went over and carefully placed the cup over the bug. He then got a piece of paper, and gently slid it under the cup and the bug. Without missing a beat, he lovingly carried the paper with the cup on it (and the bug inside), out the door, and released the bug, coming back with only the upright cup and paper, placing them where they could be accessed again later, if needed.
Seeing that, I was relieved that the bug had not gotten to me, where everyone would have heard a WHAM! and been horrified by my violence. I thought about that for several hours. In fact, during one of my sittings, I had an amazing insight. I saw the bug that had disgusted me as a metaphor for some of my feelings and thoughts, towards which I had been aversive, like trying to kill them off, for years. I had tried to figuratively squash them like a bug, as if that would actually cause such feelings and thoughts to disappear.
What I saw in that experience was that my hate (or disgust, if you prefer) for that little bug was not unlike my aversion for some of the annoyances in my mind. Hating them was not supporting the mindfulness I was intending, and it certainly wasn’t freeing me from suffering. That hate, small though it seemed, was not serving me well. There are many benefits that accrue to us when we choose kindness and compassion, and refrain from harming or destroying living creatures. Something fundamental changes in us with the practice of kindness and respect for all forms of life, whether toward bugs, mean individuals, painful memories, or thoughts that disgust us.
2. The second Training Precept says “I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given.”
Have you ever had someone steal something from you? Can you recall how it felt? When we are ‘brought down’ emotionally by someone stealing from us, it hurts. It causes confusion for what the theft means about others, about their feelings toward us, and about us, ourselves. In reaction, we may become cautious and suspicious around others. We want to bitch and moan to friends about the despicable human race. When we’re going through that kind of emotional muck, our friends and loved ones don’t get our best. It’s as if the whole world has been brought down a notch because it is missing the contribution that we normally are.
Now consider this: If we take something from someone else that has not been given to us, we are putting that person through all that stuff, too. Most of us probably don’t shoplift, or steal in an obvious way from a neighbor. But sometimes there are subtleties to sort out.
Last January I was raking leaves in my front yard, and came across a $5 bill. Whose was this? I stood there for a couple of minutes considering what would be a skillful response to this moment. If it had been on my neighbor’s driveway, which is just 20 feet from my own driveway, I could reasonably believe it was his. But it was slightly closer to my driveway, and I had no way of knowing how far the wind may have carried it. When I realized there was no way to determine who had lost it, I put it in my pocket, took a moment to be consciously grateful for it, and created the intention that I would be generous the next time I saw someone in need.
Perhaps a more psychological perspective on this precept would be that when we take something that was not given to us, we may be practicing or indulging some old mental belief that “there’s not enough” for me to have what I need. The mind remembers (and believes!) our actions taken to suppress such a fear of not having enough, and the harm we have done to another by taking what was theirs.
3. The third Training Precept says “I undertake the precept to refrain from causing harm through sexual misconduct.”
Abstaining from sexual misconduct includes contact with any ‘illicit’ partner, meaning: minors, and persons who are married or in a committed relationship with another. Any case of forced, violent, or coercive sexual contact constitutes a transgression for the offender, meaning that it can be expected to create suffering.
While seduction by one adult of another consenting adult may seem innocent enough, seduction is often a tactic that appeals to another’s powerful sexual desires while evading or skirting values which would otherwise prevent such an engagement, thus creating mental conflict and suffering. For the seducer, it trains the mind to perceive others as objects for one’s own gratification, thereby decreasing the possibility for a mature and equal relationship. For the target of seduction, it can train the mind to disregard its instinctual boundaries, to be increasingly impulsive, to overlook the risks of vulnerability and danger, and to come to identify oneself as a victim.
The guiding purposes of this precept are: to honor personal boundaries, to protect marital relations from outside disruption, and to promote interpersonal trust and fidelity. This precept is to prevent sexual contacts which can be hurtful to others. Such abstention protects us not only from hurting others, but also from planting seeds of suffering in ourselves. When we make a mental commitment to abstain from actions causing harm, we are also skillfully supporting the good and the wellbeing of all.
4. The fourth Training Precept says “I undertake the precept to refrain from incorrect speech, including false speech, harmful speech, gossip, and slander.”
Speech can break lives, create enemies, and start wars; or it can give wisdom, heal divisions, and create peace. And though it may seem, at first, that this precept is ‘interpersonal,’ i.e., pertaining to two or more people, it is also intra-personal. As we examine various aspects of Skillful Speech, you might listen for which ones seem more relevant than others to your experience.
Skillful speech is, first, abstaining from false speech, and is therefore truthful. Truthful speech provides interpersonal communication, trust, and mutual understanding. Truthful speech is a commitment to what is real, to the nature of things as they are. Truthful speech establishes a mental harmonious correspondence between our own inner experience and what is actually arising in life—no delusions. Another way of saying that is that devotion to truthful speech is a matter of taking our stand on reality rather than illusion, on the truth of experience rather than the hollow fantasies of desire. We abstain from false speech because it causes suffering.
Skillful speech is also abstaining from “malicious” speech, which by definition intends to do harm. There are several ways malicious speech and communication show up. For example, slander is making a false or damaging statement about another person; libel is publishing/writing a false statement damaging to another; defamation is communicating in a way that is damaging to another’s reputation; and alienation which causes estrangement or isolation of someone.
When we examine what is behind these types of malicious communication, we see that they are fueled by hate. Recall that hate is a form of aversion, a reaction that has been conditioned into the unawakened mind. When hate resides in our minds, it gets expressed not only toward others, but is experienced also within and toward ourselves, too. Many people practice and harbor self-hate; they may not know it, but they are suffering from it. Skillful speech, on the other hand, promotes friendship and harmony. It originates from a mind of lovingkindness and compassion.
Skillful speech also means abstaining from harsh speech, such as abuse, insults, and mean sarcasm. It is abstaining from useless speech, including idle chatter, which is pointless talk, speech that lacks purpose or depth, and reveals to us a restless, unmindful mind. A good practice is to be alert to an array of common devices—e.g., television, radio, newspapers, cinema, and social media—which turn out (not exclusively) a continuous stream of needless information and distracting entertainment. While it is commonly thought that these provide relaxation, the net effects are to leave the mind passive and spaced out. Regular exposure to them blunts mindfulness and spiritual sensitivities.
Skillful speech does not just pretend to be nice, but is spoken from a commitment to others’ wellbeing and peace. So we commit ourselves to be mindful of our speech, and speak from our commitment to freedom, and a peaceful life. Learning to speak skillfully, like other skillful path factors, can take time and practice.
5. The fifth Training Precept says “I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxication by drink and drugs, which cloud the mind and lead to carelessness.”
Let me first acknowledge that, for many—especially if we have a religious background—our tendency is to hear this as one of those “thou-shalt-not” commandments; something like “Thou shalt not drink alcohol or use other recreational drugs.” But that’s not the Buddha’s approach. His teaching was this: “What results do you want? If you can do alcohol or drugs and not suffer, great.” There are degrees of intoxication, and it can be difficult to discern where abuse begins, since it is the discerning faculty that intoxicants impair. Each of us must know for oneself, and each will get the effects based upon that.
People use all sorts of rationales to justify the use of mind-altering substances. See if any of these sound familiar: “That’s just what we do in our culture; it’s a social thing.” “I just feel more at ease with others.” “It helps reduce my stress.” “It’s relaxing.” These are examples of how the mind talks to itself, but with a little close scrutiny, such ‘beliefs’ are not complete expressions of truth. One drink may have little impact, but what happens is that our capacity for connecting meaningfully with others, for compassion and mindfulness, begin to be dulled. When we use intoxicants, we are less than fully present for the moments in our lives. We become less present to our real experience, and to recognizing suffering when it arises. As always, we keep in mind that the Buddha’s approach was always, ‘only you can say what is skillful for yourself, depending upon the effects you want for your life.’
These are the Training Precepts, like guardrails, to help us discern skillful ways of living. May these Precepts be a refuge for living mindfully—cultivating Karma—in ways that bring peace and happiness for us, and for all beings.
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