we take time to consider and reflect on this it is obvious many of the problems that afflict people individually and in society at large arise from individuals not keeping these five precepts.
Buddhists see keeping precepts as Occupational Health and Safety for our life. These precepts are just like that - they are the minimum standards of safe action of our body, speech and mind so we do not come to danger in this life or future lives. Precepts are our most powerful forms of personal protection since from the ultimate reality viewpoint they keep us safe and healthy.
This is a part of a platform or foundation of peaceful, content, happy minds and wholesome mental states. The practice of morality produces powerful good kamma as it is the opposite of the five actions which produce the most powerful negative kamma.
This type of good kamma is experienced by the doer as pure, peaceful virtuous minds and peaceful living conditions which are both needed by us to develop on the Buddhist path. There is no such thing as a truly virtuous person who kills other beings, or steals from others.
It is also a foundation of coming to see things as they really are. The peace and purity that comes as a result of keeping precepts enables our mind to develop right concentration in meditation which is a prerequisite to developing wisdom.
We do not become paranoid about the precepts. We have all broken precepts time and time again in our past, but we decide from now on we have the intention to keep them. We learn how to keep them well and we train ourselves to guard them whatever we are doing.
If we do break a precept we don't react to that with guilt or regret. We just note "I have more training to do!" We re-affirm that we intend to keep that precept from now on.
Mindfulness is the only way to keep precepts.
We can only keep precepts really well by being mindful of what we are doing in the present. We come into the present- we stop thinking that we will keep the precepts at some future time. We look at our situation now. We focus on what we are doing with our body, we consider for a moment before we speak or act and we watch the thoughts that are arising.
In this way we can guard ourselves and take control of our actions, our speech and thoughts to not kill, to not lie, not steal, not commit sexual misconduct and not take intoxicants. It is in the present time that the kamma is being made. If we do not recognise what is happening in the present, we cannot change anything.
In Buddhism we talk about deep levels of happiness which can become our normal experience of living. These forms of happiness can more easily withstand the ups and downs of life which have in the past usually caused us to experience difficulty.
This happiness too can be surpassed by the nourishment of deep contentment and serenity and finally the sublime state of nibbana where the mind becomes unshakeable and never strays from perfect peace.
Chapter 3 – Generosity
Buddhist teachings place generosity at the very beginning. Learning how to give things is essential.
Why would we bother to learn how to give? Giving appears to be simple enough. We have been giving all sorts of things to others many times a day for most of our adult life. If we are a parent, that is all about giving, as our children are dependent on us to use our skills and resources to support them. It seems like simple stuff.
There is a Buddhist book about giving called "Dana" which is the Pali word for generosity. The book is 778 pages long. That means there is a lot about giving we have not learned yet!
This is not just information about what we could refer to as conventional giving, this about the Buddhist practice of giving. The practice of giving called "dana" in the Pali language, is placed first in the order of things, as a foundation for the process of us becoming free from suffering.
Let us imagine ourselves to be a farmer for a moment. Suppose we have a large field in which we wish to sow our crop. What would happen if the soil in our field is of poor quality? It may lack nutrients, it may be dry, it may be too acidic, the good top soil may have blown away in the wind. If we were to sow our grain in that field, if we spent a lot of time ploughing and preparing the ground, removing the rocks and then planting our crop we will be very disappointed.
Due to the poor soil quality not all the seeds we have planted will be able to grow. The plants that do grow will struggle to establish themselves and some will die before they can be harvested. The poor soil cannot support the seeds that are sown to flourish into healthy plants, they will be stunted and not develop to their full potential.
Our minds can be likened to the soil in this situation. Lack of generosity shows itself as a dry mind, harsh, mean, closed narrow, stingy, jealous and unforgiving. Soil not able to support growth of any good seeds planted there. Anything we sow, any good actions we do with a non-generous mind will not develop fully, will be stunted and the resultant fruit will be small.
Generosity is nutrient for the mind, the rich, lush, fertile energy which supports and nourishes the growth of further goodness. It is the temperament of giving and forgiving, openness, cheerfulness, supporting, accepting, easing the way for the other person, joyfully lending a helping hand and nourishing.
Sooner or later for any practice to be effective in reducing our suffering we have to address the active ingredients in our mind that produce our suffering. We have seen that the negative or unwholesome minds are the roots of all unhappiness. Now we have to introduce some powerful antidotes into our lives to reduce these unhappiness drivers and their resultants.
Whilst Buddhist texts explain our unwholesome minds as being fourteen in number, the fourteen can be distilled down to three root causes of all our unhappiness. These three are greed, hate and ignorance, with ignorance meaning not seeing the type of reality we call absolute reality or the way things really are.
"Viewed as the quality of generosity, giving has a particularly intimate connection to the entire movement of the Buddha's Path. For the goal of the Path is the destruction of greed, hate and delusion, and the cultivation of generosity directly debilitates greed and hate, while facilitating that pliancy of mind that allows for the eradication of delusion." 3.
The Buddhist Path of reducing our craving and selfishness is how we can discover nibbana, the highest and only absolutely secure happiness available. We therefore practice generosity with the purpose of removing greed, selfishness and craving.
At this stage we may not recognise very clearly how greed or craving is at the root of our unhappiness. One student at the Buddhist Discussion Centre Australia wrote about this in the following way:
“I remember when I was first told over twenty years ago that craving was the cause of my suffering I couldn't believe it! I remember walking along in disbelief thinking "no way could craving be causing suffering! I didn't think I had much craving for a start so how could it be such a big deal? "
We can see the craving operating quite clearly when we watch the "monkey mind" in mindfulness of breathing meditation. The "monkey mind" is our normal untrained mind. It can't sit still for a moment. It chases after one sensation after another. After a few moments of watching the breath the mind gets caught up again thinking, daydreaming, worrying, being disturbed by noises, itches, restlessness and so on.
This is the craving. The mind is thirsty to experience all these things. It is not content to look at the breath. It grabs at one sensation after another because it is in a state of being unsatisfied. The nature of craving is that the craving mind can't find anything that will satisfy
