Follow the precepts

The ethic of purity does not stop with the monastic regulations, however. Exactly the same attitudes can be applied to the observation of the Five Precepts. In the FWBO there are also Ten Root Precepts taken by Order members which are just a slightly more detailed version of the Five, taking more account of mental states and different types of speech. Whether the Five or the Ten Precepts are used, they are sometimes treated just as a shorter, easier Vinaya.

Here are the Five Precepts in their more traditional negative form:

1. I undertake the training principle to refrain from striking living beings.

2. I undertake the training principle to refrain from taking the not-given.

3. I undertake the training principle to refrain from sexual misconduct.

4. I undertake the training principle to refrain from lying.

5. I undertake the training principle to refrain from intoxicants.

This list provides an excellent, though broad, summary of ways of behaving that are most likely to lead to bad consequences and create collisions with conditions around one. In this sense, provided their broad-brush nature is recognised, the precepts are a good application of the Middle Way. Other lists could be created, but this one does well in encouraging one to start to get to grips with conditions rather than living in a set of delusions[1].

Each of the precepts also contains the term “training principle” (a translation of the Pali sikkhapadam), which also suggests the provisionality of the principle, that you take it as part of a process of training. Unfortunately, though, this point is often ignored in practice. The recitation of this list in Pali also often means that many Buddhists recite in ignorance of exactly what they are reciting – they probably know the list of five things they should be avoiding in their own language, but are not conscious of the sense of “training principle”.

Whether you think of these as generally ways of addressing conditions, or whether you think of them as a list of rules given by the Buddha, makes a big difference when it comes to interpreting what they actually mean in practice. In considering this one immediately enters a moral minefield of direct and indirect actions, definitions of the five things to be avoided, and exculpatory good intentions. Eating a bacon sandwich does not involve directly striking a living being, but some Buddhists would regard it as a gross breach of the first precept. Is viewing pornography on the internet a matter of sexual misconduct? This is a matter of definition. And what about lying for a benevolent reason, for example telling someone that you liked their present to make them (and you) feel better, even though it is untrue?

If you think of the precepts as basically rules, then you will presumably think that their interpretation is straightforward, and that there is no other possible interpretation than the one you take. However, there are a great many possible interpretations of the precepts – probably as many as there are people trying to follow the precepts. In my experience, this point often seems to be missed by Buddhist speakers who urge their audience to “Just follow the precepts!” The only possible outcome of treating the precepts legalistically is a false confidence in the unique rightness of one’s own interpretation, which must also simultaneously condemn everyone else’s interpretation to falsity.

If, on the other hand, you recognise that the precepts are not a set of rules, but rather a set of broad principles, and that their value comes not from an authoritative source, but rather in the extent to which they help people address conditions, you’ll be in a much better position to make good use of the precepts. Recognising that they are only broad principles, though, simultaneously means recognising that they are not much use as guides to action. The precepts just do not give you any specific information on the rightness or wrongness of most of the things you might wonder about in the average day. Should I let my child play when she wants to and get on with her own thing, or am I neglecting her? Should I drive or cycle to the supermarket, given that I can carry more and save a lot of time if I drive? Should I have another cup of coffee? These three questions might conceivably be seen as related to precepts (the first, second and fifth respectively), but the precepts certainly don’t tell me how to judge them in any sense.

To resolve issues like these, it is not the precepts but the Middle Way that can make the best way of judging clearer. The Middle Way provides a reminder to avoid fixed views and address neglected conditions. For example, I might recognise the anxiety about neglecting my child as just about social expectations, and conclude that there’s nothing wrong in leaving her to play. That I really need to drive to the supermarket might also well be about a fixed view of how much time I can “afford” to spend on the operation, when cycling would address so many other conditions better such as the environment, fitness, setting the example to others and so on. Finally, I really shouldn’t yield to the fixed idea that I need endless caffeine stimulation to operate effectively, but instead look at the long-term effects on mind and body – so no more coffee, thanks.

In the light of this I have often wondered at endless Buddhist emphasis on the precepts as the source of Buddhist ethics. They are useful in some ways, but in rather limited ways, and the much more useful Middle Way hardly gets a look-in where most discussions of Buddhist ethics are concerned. Most people most of the time are not contemplating murder, theft, rape, or fraud of a kind where the application of the precepts is very obvious, and 99% of the time we are in the much larger grey area where the precepts are ambiguous, and we need to work it out using the Middle Way as a guide.

If, as most Western Buddhists seem to claim, they do not treat the precepts as legalistic rules, then I think they need to start giving greater acknowledgement to their limitations as anything else, and certainly much more acknowledgement to the core Buddhist principle which does in fact offer moral differentiation of a more precise kind.