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| Siddhartha taught that moral responsibility was an important tool for the prevention of dukkha or suffering. But, says Zachary Bremmer, clinging to the five precepts as law can cause more suffering than it prevents. Instead, we should approach the five precepts as training wheels to guide our practice. | ||
The brilliance of the precepts is that they also work on a much more subtle level. The not so obvious benefit is that through our practice we are not only transforming externally by avoiding unskillful ways of acting but simultaneously transforming the internal structure of how we think about and react to certain situations. If I habitually give in to my cravings I will certainly suffer as a result because, as Mick Jagger pointed out, I can’t always get what I want. If I do not allow myself to be pulled around by these insatiable desires, though, I will become awakened to a new way of dealing with these feelings. I will begin to realize that I do not need to act on my lust for food or drink or objects. I will no longer be ruled by an endless cycle of grasping but rather simply take notice that I have certain desires and let them be. The precepts help to accomplish this.
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| I’m not sure I remember anymore what I was looking for when I first came to Buddhism — some kind of meditative lens, I suppose. But, what did I think that would really be? Whatever it was, I didn’t get it. I do remember, though, that I was not looking for some new set of moral guidelines. I was a fairly uptight kid already, and I think I saw in Buddhism a path toward loosening up a little, trying on a different me. So when I got handed the precepts, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. I’m sure I didn’t always interpret them according to their original spirit; honestly, I’ve always held them clumsily, with far more questions than answers. But I’ve never put them down since. The basic five go like this:
At the same time, the precepts are ambiguous enough that we can, if we’re so inclined, weave some convincing stories about how the thing we most want to do is actually the exception to the rule. Eventually, they can become mere background noise. But they can also — if we remain open to what they mean in each new circumstance — provide a framework of questioning that turns the lens of this practice away from ourselves and toward how we can serve others. They can give us, at least in this moment, a place to stand. |
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.
