I made an entry in my journal in the summer of 1968 which at the time expressed a revelation to me. What the entry said was:
“I know what is right but I do what is wrong.”
Embedded in that statement was the unsaid but oh, so burning question: why do I do this?
Why does instant gratification always seem to triumph over long-term happiness? Why is now, now, now so everything and the future so nothing?
At the time I had no answers to these questions. All I could do was articulate the fact: I knew what was right, but I did what was wrong.
This was a private epiphany. It was something no one needed to know about. Outwardly I was the same old me who seemed to be doing what was right, at least most of the time. Only I knew the difference. Only I knew that I could do so much righter—if that’s even a word.
Later that summer, and as I’ve covered in “Who Am I Really Really?,” I had a life-changing spiritual experience which woke me up and turned my life’s course just about 180 degrees. Ever since I have searched for the way out, or back.
In 2007, after various detours and much not necessarily wasted time, I finally found my path in Theravada Buddhism, and its Pali Canon.
And it is here, in the words that we believe quote the historical Buddha, that I ran into musings on virtue again, and head on.
Let me paraphrase the Buddha’s view on virtue: If you are not virtuous, truly virtuous, don’t even bother to meditate. You will be too riled, guilt-ridden, anguished, angry, unsettled (pick just about any synonym to “restless” you can find) to get anything out of meditation.
Keep in mind that the Buddha makes no moral judgment on the virtuous or the not so virtuous. Rather, being immensely practical, he simply offers the wisdom that if you are not virtuous you will not benefit from meditation, simply because true meditation does not take place under un-virtuous conditions.
My realization is that virtue is the spiritual backbone that allows you to actually still the mind, to actually meditate.
Five Precepts
The Buddha outlined several sets of precepts (of increasing severity) to help guide both laymen and monks attain to the level of virtue necessary to walk the path truly, to meditate effectively.
For the layman, the five precepts are these:
- Kill no living thing.
- Take no thing that is not given.
- Abstain from sexual misconduct.
- Never lie.
- Abstain from intoxicants.
On the surface, these may appear harmless enough, no big deal. But these are not surface precepts, these are precepts that mean precisely what they say, all the way.
Kill no living thing means never, ever, knowingly or intentionally kill any living thing, be it an ant, a mosquito, a cat, a pig, a cow, a human. Ever.
Take no thing that is not given means never, ever steal in any guise. Not even a paperclip from the office. Not even a bite from your child’s dinner plate. Never, ever steal, no matter how small (or large) the item.
Abstaining from sexual misconduct is not defined per se in the Canon, but does encompass the obvious: no illicit sex, no illegal sex, no sex with anyone other than your long-term partner. Do not engage in sex which disturbs or causes suffering either to yourself or to another. Better still, stay celibate.
Sex is such a turbulent force that given the slightest bit of free rein it will run slipshod all over you, leaving you in tatters and not in the least fit to meditate.
The Buddha knew this creature and warned us against it.
Never lie means precisely that, for any reason.
Abstain from intoxicants means no hard liquor, no whine, no beer, no drugs of any kind (excluding medicines necessary for your health).
1968 Life
The funny thing is that when I look back at the 1968 journal entry, and at the life I then led, I could probably summarize it in these words:
I killed anything that bothered me and that I legally could kill (i.e., flies, worms, mosquitos, and such); I had no problem helping myself to those things I wanted, regardless of ownership; I viewed sex with whom I so chose as a privilege and a god-given (or fate-given) right, no matter who was hurt in the process; I lied or not as I saw fit and as circumstances called for; and I used intoxicants daily.
Not exactly virtuous.
These days I have experienced first-hand, and often, the truth of the Buddha’s insight: if you violate these basic precepts, you are not fit to meditate. At least not to the Buddha’s standards.
Other Precepts
The Pali Canon contains other, longer sets of precepts that all include these first five, but then go on to add more, finer but nonetheless significant rules to aid virtue and so also aid meditation.
The Buddha was nothing if not practical, and Buddhism is nothing if not an applied philosophy. I would not even call it a religion. It is a philosophy (bordering on science) of why life often, and in the long run always, entails suffering, while also outlining the path away from and out of suffering.
This path is still here for all of us to walk. It is a workable path. It is a path that can only be effectively blocked by lack of virtue.
Ulf Wolf