BTB: Living by Vow of Ethical conduct

[Janet Gilmore]

Dear sangha,

This was a hard essay to write and it doesn't feel well-edited or finished but I'm offering it anyway with all its imperfections with the idea that it is still a place to start.

Looking forward to the discussion later this morning.

Love,

Janet

Padmasambhava reminds us "Though the view should be as vast as the sky, keep your conduct as fine as barley flour."  MIndfulness in body, speech and mind is how we accomplish this.  This basic teaching of cultivating wholesome action and speech  permeates all of the teachings of the Dharma.

The topic this week is ethical conduct. There are many ways to approach this vitally important and often overlooked component of the path to awakening.  Like almost every single one of these so-called "basic" subjects, ethical conduct or right conduct (in sanskrit, sila) is deserving of a much longer and more thorough exploration. But we might make a beginning with its appearance in the eightfold path, the path from suffering to freedom from suffering.

The Buddha's origin story says he hesitated after his awakening and almost decided not to become a teacher at all because he thought this awakening might be too subtle and people would miss the point. Then both Indra and Brahma appeared to assure him that  his teachings could be of benefit to others "with a little dust in their eyes."

When it comes to the fourth noble truth and based on my own experience of struggling to write this essay about ethical conduct, I imagine his hesitation was due to a fear of being too prescriptive or didactic since everyone's path to awakening is so different.    So I like to think of the teaching of the eightfold path as a roadmap, not as a step by step guide, but a map that includes all the possible roads and routes. Whatever road we choose will include all of it but presented in a different order as the dust and blinders are removed from our eyes in accord with different needs and tendencies.  One lojong slogan keeps it pithy -- Bring everything to the path. To counter our mind's tendency towards blindspots, unawareness or trying to skip the hard part, the Buddha decided some details were in order. Out of kindness, the Buddha provided a easy-to-remember framework of three categories and eight subcategories, that might help us find our own way from suffering to liberation:

Wisdom:

enlightened view

enlightened  intention

Conduct:

         enlightened speech

  enlightened action

  enlightened livelihood

Meditation:

enlightened effort

enlightened mindfulness

enlightened concentration

This isn't a Buddha's-way-is-the-one-and-only-way but rather an all-roads-lead-to-Rome path to awakening. 

It doesn't get any more basic than this: the teaching on virtuous conduct, cultivating wholesomeness and refraining from unwholesome, harmful speech or action.  In the Pali canon teachings,  cultivating virtuous conduct is promoted in three steps of the noble eightfold path: speech, action and livelihood.  In Mahayana teachings, ethical conduct is cultivated as the second paramita.   The Vajrayana roadmap frames the entirety of the teachings as view, meditation and conduct. These three are likened to the legs of a three-legged stool. Without one, the stool is not even a functional stool.

The practice of ethical conduct is a cornerstone of all Buddhist practice, as essential to awakening as meditation and wisdom practice.  It is not to be considered a preliminary practice.  It is not something that gets checked off our list as "DONE" so we can proceed to advanced practice like achieving the higher states of consciousness or enlightenment.   I think there is a tendency in most of us to either assume we are good people and don't need to think too much about this one OR to assume that we are so hopeless that we need to achieve enlightenment first and then virtuous and beneficial conduct will follow.

Let's first acknowledge that we all have dust in our eyes or maybe even blinders that obscure the view of our own conduct.  Let's look at a few of these potential veils and ask ourselves if they apply to us:

• We want everyone else to see us as perfect.
• We want to be perfect.
• We perform mental gyrations(denial, blindspots, projection) to continue to see ourselves as without blame.
• We are fundamentally flawed and are incapable of overcoming negative or harmful habits.
• It doesn't matter what we do or say.
• Other _______

Check all that apply.

When I saw the email announcement from Riane about Sunday's in person practice, mentioning that I would be giving a talk on ethical conduct. I thought immediately, "Damn, I should have called it something else.  No one will want to come hear this boring talk.  No one wants to be preached to.  The vast majority of people, not just rebels like me, don't want rules imposed from the outside.  In the early days of our sangha, we had a list of "shrine room etiquette" rules sent out by the Dharmata organization to help satellite sanghas promote an atmosphere of harmony. They were posted in the kitchen by the tip jar on Sundays and emailed out to the gorup.  The list  had seven or eight "reminders," things like, be respectful and don't put your practice materials directly on the floor, don't lay down on the floor, don't talk loudly in the shrine room.  Pretty basic but also maybe a little but grounded in a traditional or "old school" approach.  Some members of the sangha bristled at the preachiness and a couple of others decided it was their job to be the enforcer. Disharmony ensued.  Someone asked me to arbitrate and I refused to intervene at all. Finally, someone wrote to Anam Thubten about the issue.   Anam Thubten wrote a letter back to the sangha, saying simply,  "just put those rules aside.  We don't need any rules.  Let's just get together and practice." 

The essence of the teaching on ethical conduct is not the rules, but our practice. The point is cultivating mindfulness of our conduct and how it affects others.

Pay attention

"Everything changes, Everything is connected, Pay Attention" - Jane Hirschfield

In writing this essay, the mantra that keeps occurring to me is "pay attention" to all that we can discover about ourselves when we make a commitment to ethical conduct.   What is more important than the precepts themselves is the inspiration and purpose for paying attention to our conduct, our speech and action.  Norman Fischer succinctly clarifies it this way:

Meditation practice sensitizes you to others. The more you are familiar with your own mind, its various twists and turns, the more you realize that others are just like you. The human mind is a swirl of activity mostly centered around self. It’s full of self-protection and all sorts of scheming to get its own way, and to excuse, punish, or deceive itself. When this chaos clears enough so you can see this activity of your mind, you initially feel dismay. You knew things were bad, but now you see they are worse than you had reckoned! Then you realize it’s not just you: it’s normal. Although we have all become adept at presenting ourselves to the world as if we were upstanding citizens in good shape, in fact none of us is what we have become adept at seeming to be. Everyone is more tentative, more vulnerable, and rougher than they appear. Accepting this, you are kinder to yourself and everyone else. This kindness, based on a grounded understanding of human nature, is the root of ethical conduct. -Fischer, Norman. The World Could Be Otherwise

Karma

“A human being is a spatially and temporally limited piece of the whole, what we call the Universe. He experiences himself and his feelings as separate from the rest, an optical illusion of his consciousness....” Albert Einstein

Our refuge vows include a vow of non-harming. Our bodhisattva vows are a vow to benefit others.   Really all these vows are in service of the same thing:  liberation from suffering.  When we are awakened to our true nature of unconditional compassion and  boundless love and wisdom, our speech and actions will reflect this. Otherwise and in the meantime, it is suggested we vow not to harm, to focus our speech and actions on being of benefit (letting go of fixation on self) and to follow a few simple guidelines to keep from digging our hole of suffering deeper. 

On the path to awakening, we are discovering that ethical conduct is not a stand alone set of rules imposed from the outside but rather a truth that emerges from the discovery that we are not separate but radically interconnected to all. So harming others causes harm for ourselves too. And cultivating kindness, compassion and love towards others creates a peaceful and positive energy for ourselves.

The vow of non-harming can be deconstructed into 5 precepts: not killing, not stealing, not lying, restraining from sexual misconduct and intoxication.  That approach can be helpful, especially if we take the time to flesh out the rationale and intention behind these precepts, instead of taking them as rules that are imposed from the outside, leading to fundamentalism, rigidity and judgmentalism. Instead, see these precepts as like putting bumpers on the bowling alley to keep the ball from going into the gutter.  It is helpful while learning but after mindfulness practice, study and inquiry into our own mental obscurations and veils, we can let the bumpers go because we have learned to keep our arm straight enough so the ball tends to stay in the middle most of the time.

Buddhist monks in the time of the Buddha had over 200 precepts, some of which were so prescriptive and culturally specific that they are now archaic:

91 Your spittle and your toothbrushes, When thrown away, should be concealed. And it is wrong to foul with urine Public thoroughfares and water springs.

92 When eating do not gobble noisily, Nor stuff and cram your gaping mouth. And do not sit with legs outstretched, Nor rudely rub your hands together.

93 Do not sit upon a horse, on beds or seats With women of another house, alone. All that you have seen, or have been told, To be offensive – this you should avoid.

94 Not rudely pointing with your finger, But rather with a reverent gesture showing, With the whole right hand outstretched – This is how to indicate the road.

95 Do not wave your arms with uncouth gestures. With gentle sounds and finger snaps Express yourself with modesty – For acting otherwise is impolite excess.

If we have to make up rules at this level of detail, I'm frankly surprised there weren't 20,000 of them instead of 200.  And I'm sure there were quite a few monks at the time snickering and making fun of them behind the rule-maker's back.

Don't be a jerk

“Even if the whole universe is nothing but a bunch of jerks doing all kinds of jerk-type things, there is still liberation in simply not being a jerk.” - Brad Warner, Don't Be a Jerk

So let's just get to the point, shall we.  The pithy essence of the teachings on right conduct can be summed up in Brad Warner's book title itself, "Don't be a Jerk."  That's the whole point. The point is this because causing harm to others is very harmful to oneself.  Simple, yet Mr. Warner went on to write a whole book on the subject. Because, indeed, the devil is in the details.

So beyond non-harming, beyond not being a jerk, to get into a few details, we could look at the zen approach to the precepts, cultivating virtuous actions and avoiding non-virtuous. Because it is two signs of the same coin.  It  helps to see all of our speech and action as an ongoing choice between the two:

I vow to protect life, not to kill.

I vow to receive gifts, not to steal.

I vow to respect others, not to misuse sexuality.

I vow to be truthful, not to lie.

I vow to remain clear, not to intoxicate self or others.

I vow to speak kindly, not to speak ill of others.

I vow to practice modesty, not to praise self at the expense of others.

I vow to practice generosity, not to be possessive of anything.

I vow to practice loving-kindness, not to harbor ill-will.

I vow to cherish and polish the three jewels, the buddha, dharma and sangha.

Blinders and Blind Spots

Deciding to refrain from every harmful act Is said to be transcendent discipline. Harmful beings are everywhere like space itself. Impossible it is that all should be suppressed. But let this angry mind alone be overthrown, And it’s as though all foes had been subdued. To cover all the earth with sheets of leather— Where could such amounts of skin be found? But with the leather soles of just my shoes It is as though I cover all the earth! --Shantideva. The Way of the Bodhisattva

Discipline is another word for the second paramita of ethical conduct. So there is some sort of mental vigilance involved. Even noticing our knee jerk reaction against holding our own speech and action to account is a good practice. Be willing to see where the hand is pointing when we want to point the finger of blame to someone else.  See what painful feelings arise when we ponder others, blame or  gossip.   See how an expression of anger has many facets, including fear or maybe projection of our own mistakes onto others. See when we lie or even lie by omission that there are ulterior motives that need to be seen, that the lie is a way of lying to ourselves  As Pema Chodron says, "start where you are." 

If we live by the rules we don't have to look at our own confusion so we can avoid looking at our jealousy, hatred, anger, stinginess, confusion etc.  Or we might also avoid looking at our own blindspots by throwing the whole consideration of ehtical conduct out and focusing solely on the meditation or view. 

You know there's a teaching in twelve-step programs (like Alcoholics Anonymous) to look at your hand when you point a finger of blame at another person and notice there are three fingers pointing back at yourself.  At my advancing age and with all this spiritual practice under my belt, sometimes I feel like I've earned some kind of achievement and then the very next day I feel like a total fraud.  But one of the truths I've learned is that we all have blindspots. And that, by definition, we are blind to our blind spots.  Let that sink in completely.  This is why ethical conduct is the third leg of our practice -- equally important to view and meditation.

And it's really just another way of saying,  "Pay Attention." We may think the point of all this practice, the goal, is to see the true nature of our mind, discover rigpa, no self. We may imagine that achieving a state of no thought where our sense of self disappears is the holy grail.  I'm beginning to think our achievement-of-enlightenment idea is a very big distraction.  A fantasy of sorts.  For now, for me at least, the mantra of paying attention is where I find awakening:  paying attention to my own mind is the practice of mindfulness. Paying attention to my speech and action is the practice of ethical conduct. These practices are practices of awareness, Seeing my mind's tendencies, awakening to blindspots, is awakening itself.

Lojong, training the mind, has 59 slogans that help us ferret out the blind spots and many of them are geared towards how we act and talk, such as: Don't be a phony (a preachy hypocrite), Don't talk about other's faults (gossip), Don't ponder others (fixate on others), Don't malign others (put down), Don't wait in ambush (seek revenge), Don't make everything so painful (stand back, take a deep breath, instead of one-upmanship), Don't unload on everyone (no explanation needed), Don't go so fast (don't try to be the perfect one), Don't be tricky (don't try to appear perfect while trying to control and manipulate), Don't rejoice at others pain (psychic revenge).

These slogans are all worthy of their own separate essay and discussion.  In essence, they are all saying the same thing:  "Pay attention to your own speech and action. Be kind and honest and try to think of other's well-being.  Treat others with respect. Practice loving kindness.  Don't be a jerk."

Find your own recipe

As beginners we start with the eightfold path and the teachings on right action, right speech, right livelihood.  Eventually, we have to find our own recipe for this practice of right action and speech.

Many people were inspired by the monks who walked from Fort Worth to Washington DC to promote peace.  Their suggested recipe was very simple.  When you wake up each day: 1) don't look at your lover  (aka your iphone) first thing, 2) make your bed, 3) write on a piece of paper  "Today will be my peaceful day." , 3) read it aloud, 4) focus on your breath or meditate for a little while.

My current recipe starts with an intention.  Every day when I wake up, I try to remember to call to mind the four immeasurables and to commit my day to practicing them.  Then at the end of the day, just before going to sleep,  I ask myself how I did and invite an honest assessment of the day's missteps. And make a vow to try again tomorrow. maybe even to refrain from any habits that might have been harmful to myself or others. A confession: I often fall asleep before I get through the review.

Just like cooking with the ingredients you already have in your kitchen, your own recipe is always the best one and it is always changing.

Living by Vow

“I see myself as a reflection, like moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself.” - Dalai Lama

"At first it involves some intentional restraint, but as bodhisattvas continue on the path, they easily and spontaneously practice it without particularly noticing. At this point, the perfection of ethical conduct isn’t uptight or restrictive; it’s a joyful path of doing what comes naturally out of the fullness of the heart." - Norman Fischer

"Actions produce results that rhyme with them" - Norman FIscher

If we want to be happy and lead a peaceful life or if we want to awaken in this lifetime or even the next one, all of our speech and action must be in service of that intention.  We renew our vow over and over again and aspire to understand for ourselves what cultivating virtuous action means, what non-harming means, what our vows mean and to let each moment of our lives be an expression of this.

This is a gentle practice  that cannot be forced or rushed.  It starts with a sincere intention and then a willingness to keep digging and keep looking at our own part of the situation, where more will be revealed.

We all see the mess our society, our country, our world is in right now. What about that? Don't we need to fix it? Yep it's a big old mess and most of my friends and I all know who we want to blame. Has that approach helped thus far?  What if we try looking at our part of the mess?

Since we are blind to our own blindspots, we could train ourselves to use all our projections as clues. We might have a tendency to blame others for their faults and mistakes.  Let's use that to our advantage.  Whatever we see as the fault of another, let that be a springboard towards an inquiry within ourselves, towards understanding our minds and our own unwholesome, unhelpful thoughts, speech and activity.  In this way, we see everything as the path and use everything as a method to awakening.

Good actions produce good results. Bad actions produce bad results. That's the law of karma. We know this intuitively based on how we feel when we blow up at someone or lie to someone. Or how we feel when we act or speak unselfishly or do something helpful without needing to "get credit." This whole long essay seems to come back again and again to the same point.

Ethical conduct is not a set of rules but a discovery that comes from a willingness to commit again and again to a path of non-harming, cultivating beneficial speech and action, and benefitting all beings. Holding that commitment front and center and noticing how our speech and actions align (or don't) will proceed to remove all the dust and blindspots that stand our way until we begin to awaken to our true nature.

The Buddha's final advice to his followers had nothing to do with any rules or dogmatic precepts. It was simple and direct,  "Seek your own salvation with diligence."