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Dharmette: The Precepts (1 of 5): Keeping Us Safely on the Path

So good morning again. How wonderful to start the day in stillness with this community, this Sangha. As it's my first time here with you, I'd like to introduce myself briefly. Gil very kindly introduced me at the end of the week, to let you know I would be here. Kodo Conlin is my name, and I'm a teacher trainee in the IMC teacher training program, along with a cohort of just lovely people. In addition, I live, work, and serve as a priest at San Francisco Zen Center. So the Dharma is all around.

The theme for this week is inspired by a custom of this group, going back, I understand, to the time of the Palo Alto sitting group, that Gil would teach the Introduction to Meditation class once or twice a year. And immediately before that, he would teach the precepts, the ethical foundation of our practice. So the plan for these next two weeks will be, this week, to discuss the five precepts, and then next week, May Elliott will teach the introduction to mindfulness meditation. Of course, in about 12 minutes, we won't be able to cover all of the subtleties of the precepts. I hope we can say enough to encourage a reflection, to touch something in you, to consider how it is that the ethical practice of the precepts encourages your sitting practice and your growth in the Dharma.

The Precepts and Their Purpose

First, to locate the five precepts within the tradition. The closest analog we can really find to the five precepts, which are the precepts of training for lay followers, for lay practitioners, in the early teachings is the 10 skillful actions, discussed a lot in the Anguttara Nikaya^[1]. And then also there are some sprinklings—I say sprinklings, but it's really everywhere—this distinction between wholesome and unwholesome action, skillful and unskillful action.

I'd like to talk about the precepts over these next five days in terms of a slogan, and that is: keeping us safely on the path. Keeping us safely on the path. As we might sometimes hear if we go to a retreat at IRC, at Insight Retreat Center, within the context of the Dharma there's no "us" and "them," there's just "us." So keeping us safely on the path means there's no one and nothing outside of our circle of care. No one and nothing outside of our circle of care.

And keeping us safely on the path. When the Buddha was teaching about precepts, it was often teaching to monastics, but still, I take some inspiration about how it was done. One important teaching that inspires my own reflection is that there's a list of reasons in the Vinaya^[2] that the Buddha lays down a training rule, why the Buddha puts forth a precept for practice. Three of them I'd like to select and talk about are the fact that he lays down a training rule: one, for the comfort and ease—I love this—of well-behaved monastics. The comfort and ease of well-behaved monastics. The second is that behaving in line with this training rule inspires faith. It inspires faith in those who don't have faith in the Dharma, the Buddha, the Sangha, and it inspires faith in those who already have faith in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And then the third reason that I want to highlight is that they support the ending of greed, hatred, and delusion. They support liberation, letting go. And in our colloquial terms, they support happiness. So ease and comfort, faith, and liberation as reasons that the Buddha may put forth a precept for a training, put forth a standard of conduct by which we walk the path and keep ourselves safely on the path.

Committing to the Precepts

In this Insight tradition, one of the places we most commonly encounter the precepts is at the beginning of a retreat. There could actually be a long while that someone's been meditating before they ever hear anything about the precepts. But if they make their way to a retreat, of course, on the opening night, as we settle in and have the first formal session in this opening space where the stillness is beginning to fall, the tone has begun to shift, and the concerns of our everyday are starting to subside some little bit, we undergo a short ceremony where we take refuge in the Buddha and then we commit ourselves to these five precepts.

And more or less they're said in this way: For the sake of our training together, I undertake the precept to refrain from harming living beings. Second, for the sake of our training together, I undertake the precept not to take what is not given. Third, for the sake of our training together, I undertake the precept to abstain from sexual misconduct—and in the context of a retreat that means celibacy. Fourth, for the sake of our training together, I undertake the precept to abstain from false speech. And fifth, for the sake of our training together, I undertake the precept to abstain from intoxicants that are a cause for heedlessness.

Five seemingly simple, in some ways maybe obvious, but powerful ways to keep ourselves safely on the path, and keep others safely on the path. You know, something I've noticed whenever I make these commitments or renew these commitments, I actually feel a palpable settling in the body. It's like touching in, or being reoriented to these parameters of the path. Reminders saying, "Oh yes, this is how safety is manifest in my conduct. This is such a simple way that I can benefit myself, and a simple way that I can benefit other beings. A simple way I can keep us safely on the path."

And there's a principle behind the precepts, and one of the most common and basic that I mentioned already is: is this action wholesome, is it unwholesome? Is it skillful, is it unskillful? I appreciate the word wholesomeness because it points for me, first internally, to how we're nourished. We're nourished by our conduct when it's in line with the precepts, when it's ethical, and how we may be depleted when our conduct is not in line with the precepts. So wholesome to me points inward. And then the word skillfulness points to the interpersonal aspect of the precepts. Is my conduct skillful in such a way that it's supporting me and it's supporting someone else? Is it skillful for our liberation, for our comfort, and for the faith of others?

Repeated Reflection

One of my very favorite teachings associated with all this is from the Majjhima Nikaya 61^[3]. I have a special fondness for those sets of teachings when the Buddha is teaching his son, Venerable Rahula, after he ordained as a monastic. In this scenario, Venerable Rahula has already committed to the Patimokkha^[4], he's already committed to the monastic precepts, which are many more than these five. So he has that as a background of restraint for this conversation.

The Buddha gives this beautiful teaching. He holds up a mirror and he says, "What is a mirror for?"

"Reflection, Bhante^[5]. Reflection, sir."

"Just so," says the Buddha to his son, "we should act with our body, with our speech, and with our mind only with repeated reflection."

He goes on to explain that he means before we do an action, think, reflect: is this action going to cause harm, going to cause affliction—and I might say all the discomforts of agitation that come along with harm—is it going to cause this? If so, don't do it. But if you reflect and you discern this action that I'm about to do, it won't cause affliction, but it will cause well-being, support calm, goodness, non-affliction, non-harming, then go ahead. While you're doing the action, reflect again: is this action causing harm, affliction, disease, discomfort? If not, continue. And then after the action, reflect again: did this action cause harm? Was it unskillful, was it unwholesome? Or did this action cause skillful results, pleasant results, supports for the path?

It's a comprehensive, high standard for the examination of conduct. I think one that inspires me. And I think when we look at the content of these five precepts, we can see or we can reflect for ourselves: in what ways do they cause agitation, affliction, and harm for others, and in what ways do they not cause harm, agitation, affliction? What ways do they cause well-being? In what ways do they keep us safely on the path?

Conclusion

So I would like to propose that when we finish each of these sessions for the next five days, anyone who would like to can take up this practice with me of reciting the five precepts, and perhaps thinking of them as guideposts or encouragements of the Buddha in wholesome conduct. I'll do this after we close, and anyone who would like to stay on, we can do that. Keeping us safely on the path.

I hope that many of us who gather here for these morning meetings can, in whatever small way, help keep each other safely on the path with our conduct, with our sitting, with our encouragement. Wishing you a fruitful week of practice. Until tomorrow, please take care.