THE BUDDHA'S FIVE MORAL PRECEPTS AS RULES OF PREVENTION FOR A NEW SOCIETY

Thich Nu Tinh Quang

“Morality is of highest importance, but for us, not for God.”  (Albert Einstein)

In Buddhism, there are many ethical principles, but the basis of Buddhist morality is The Five Precepts. The Buddha's Five Precepts are set for every lay person to know what is right and is wrong. Five Precepts is also an important morality that make lay Buddhists shape the special personality for themselves, causing trust to others, and making peace and compassion to the family, community, society and all living beings.

The Five Precepts:

1. Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

I undertake the precept to refrain from destroying living creatures.

2. Adinnadana veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

 I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given.

3. Kamesu micchacara veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct.

4. Musavada veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

 I undertake the precept to refrain from incorrect speech.

5. Suramerayamajja pamadatthana veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami

 I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicating drinks and drugs which lead to carelessness.

  The most famous scheme of the ethical behavior in Buddhism is ‘five percepts’. Since Buddhism is divided into many sects, and not a whole religion as is common in the Western world, so many things in it are also different. For example, this "precepts" the Buddha gave to people, the five precepts, which are often found in the extended version of the eight or the ten precepts. So what is the difference between them and which one of them shall we trust? According to ‘Abhisanda Sutta’, the Buddha gave the five precepts to the beginners. The five precepts are the basic ones, from which should start everyone. This precept is not just a set of rules, though, when you read about them in literature related to Buddhism, you could think about such explanation: Too often, people depict the Buddha telling what people should not to do, and therefore it gives the impression that Buddhism is the same unpractical thing in modern society as the other religions. However, in reality, precepts are just a moral behavior patterns. They are a natural expression of some skillful mental states. Since this is so, we are able to determine to what level we have developed in these same conditions, simply checking our own behavior with the precepts.

 For example, in western ethic there are elements, which are dating to the classic Greco-Romanian tradition and elements from Judeo-Christian tradition that is prevalent, of course. In this Christian ethics morality is traditionally understood as a kind of law. Moral obligations and rules is something placed by God. This is clearly illustrated in the Biblical story of the origin of the Ten Commandments. Moses went up on Mount Sinai, and there amid thunder and lightning received the Ten Commandments from God. This illustrating the idea of ethics like something was forced upon man, maybe even against his will by some external force or authority. Nowadays, most people of the western countries are not Christians in any reasonable sense. Nevertheless, they continue to represent the ethics and morality in the same spirit that is, as imposed on them from outside obligation, a commandment, which they are, and obliged to obey. Perhaps, we can describe the position of traditional morality as she instructs not to do what you want, and to do what you do not want, for reasons that are unknown for us.  

On the other hand, we have eastern tradition which is quite different. According to the teachings of the Buddha, and according to all Buddhist traditions or sects, actions are right or wrong, or perfect or imperfect depending on the state of consciousness in which they were committed. In other words, the moral criterion here is not theological, and psychological. It is true that in the West we do not entirely alien to that idea even within Christianity. However, if we talk about Buddhist ethics, this is the only criterion. This criterion has universal applicability and strictly applied in a consistent manner in Buddhist communities.

 In this regard, people studying Buddhism may ask: how can these images of modern society fit ‘five precepts’? Do not they represent a set of moral rules laid down by the Buddha himself, which we should follow? The answer is this really ‘set of instructions’ that was explained and recommended by the Buddha, but it is not imposed on the authority by force, as the ten commandments of God. To understand this system, we need to understand firstly, that this is not a set of rules, and imposed on us by the Buddha. It is rather the criteria that we should apply ourselves to; because according to the Buddha’s point of view, we cannot be perfect humanity if we act in contradiction to these five precepts. To be a human, that is not enough just to be born; to be a human is already a criterion. Five moral precepts is some kind of guide which accomplishment is the way to become human.

Let us illustrate this with the next example to the rejection of theft. In such case we could divide people who do not practice theft into three groups - three levels of ethical practice. Practice of this principle for most people based on the fear of the law. In every country without exception, there is a law which forbids stealing, so stealing is a crime punishable by the applicable law in every country. Many people do not steal because of the fear of the law. However, if they know that the act of theft will never be disclosed, the temptation to steal seems to be very strong.

 If we talk about the second level of ethical practice, there is a person should follow some religious teachings. In every great religion in the world believers are asked not to steal (to abstain from stealing). This second category of persons, of course, one is better than the first one. Because of their faith, they would not steal even if he steal act will never be disclosed. In fact, when we talk about the five principles, in order to be a real human, we must strive to third level of practice, namely, to seek to the complete freedom from the whole desire of stealing something.

 When talking about the third level of ethical practice exercises, we want to mention the person who doesn’t desire to steal whatever though in any whatsoever conditions. That is what we mean about reaching a standard that was established by the Buddha in these five principles. The same applies to the remaining four precepts. We have to understand firstly that the rejection of stealing is not a goal; this is means of achieving of human being. Oftenly, someone claim that, before they met Buddhism teachings, they felt that they were free to do almost everything; subsequently, they became feeling some kind of bounded with five precepts inter alia. They think that the purpose of the study and practice of Buddhism is to destroy suffering and achieve happiness, but what they feel is happening to them is seems to be something opposite. After they came into the contact with Buddhism, they began to feel that because of ‘restrictions’. The reason for such feelings being they frequently take the means for the goal as the goal. When we follow the moral principles by our own free will, we understand that one day our behavior naturally comes to terms with the five moral principles (we will be able to behave naturally in accordance with the five precepts). Let us use as the example of learning of any foreign language in such way it would be easier to understand what I meant. To learn the language, first of all, we have to invest a lot of effort into the study of grammar. However, the study of grammar is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is the ability to speak well and to write in this language as well as. When you are well trained in grammar, you will not violate the rules of grammar when you speak or write. You will have no grammatical mistakes.  

 So, the one who is enlightened, who reached the Buddhahood, who implanted the fullness of wisdom on himself, and who was filled with compassion will do all the things in some certain way, because that is the nature of enlightenment – to do so. Moreover, the more you are enlightened, more you want to do so, according to the Buddha’s teachings. In case if you are not enlightened, or enlightened not that much, compliance of five precepts will help you to get through - the way that enlightened people are usually expressed in the personal experience of the state of mind. We will say this: the enlightened one who becomes a Buddha is free from the passionate desire or selfish desire, and at the same time most of us are full of such things; however, it would be harder for us to understand. For example, we entail for some sort of food, and we have some kind of special attachment to one or another kind of food. Suppose for the sake of the experiment, we stopped eating our favorite foods. Desire will gradually decrease, and at the end we will find that happy state in which there will be no craving for it, and then we will forget even to think about such things. Our failures no longer seem to be disciplinary punishment, but successfully becomes a true expression of the lack of desire as what we were sought to at the beginning.

  Typically, five precepts are formulated negatively, so they just forbid some. However, for every instruction, there are also positive matches. Characteristic is that in the modern Buddhist teachings being negative instructions are much more popular than the positive ones. Many people have heard about five precepts, but hardly faced positive matches. In such context five positive matches could be called “five ethical principles.”

Let us briefly examine the five precepts and their positive matching one after another - first the negative formulations and then positive ones. This will give us an adequate picture of the specific scheme of the Buddhist ethics.