The Healing Power of the
Precepts
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The Buddha was like a doctor, treating the spiritual
ills of the human race. The path of practice he taught was like a course
of therapy for suffering hearts and minds. This way of understanding the
Buddha and his teachings dates back to the earliest texts, and yet is also
very current. Buddhist meditation practice is often advertised as a form
of healing, and quite a few psychotherapists now recommend that their
patients try meditation as part of their treatment.
After several years of teaching and practicing
meditation as therapy, however, many of us have found that meditation on
its own is not enough. In my own experience, I have found that Western
meditators tend to be afflicted more with a certain grimness and lack of
self-esteem than any Asians I have ever taught. Their psyches are so
wounded by modern civilization that they lack the resilience and
persistence needed before concentration and insight practices can be
genuinely therapeutic. Other teachers have noted this problem as well and,
as a result, many of them have decided that the Buddhist path is
insufficient for our particular needs. To make up for this insufficiency
they have experimented with ways of supplementing meditation practice,
combining it with such things as myth, poetry, psychotherapy, social
activism, sweat lodges, mourning rituals, and even drumming. The problem,
though, may not be that there is anything lacking in the Buddhist path,
but that we simply haven't been following the Buddha's full course of
therapy.
The Buddha's path consisted not only of mindfulness,
concentration, and insight practices, but also of virtue, beginning with
the five precepts. In fact, the precepts constitute the first step in the
path. There is a tendency in the West to dismiss the five precepts as
Sunday-school rules bound to old cultural norms that no longer apply to
our modern society, but this misses the role that the Buddha intended for
them: They are part of a course of therapy for wounded minds. In
particular, they are aimed at curing two ailments that underlie low
self-esteem: regret and denial.
When our actions don't measure up to certain standards
of behavior, we either (1) regret the actions or (2) engage in one of two
kinds of denial, either (a) denying that our actions did in fact happen or
(b) denying that the standards of measurement are really valid. These
reactions are like wounds in the mind. Regret is an open wound, tender to
the touch, while denial is like hardened, twisted scar tissue around a
tender spot. When the mind is wounded in these ways, it can't settle down
comfortably in the present, for it finds itself resting on raw, exposed
flesh or calcified knots. Even when it's forced to stay in the present,
it's there only in a tensed, contorted and partial way, and so the
insights it gains tend to be contorted and partial as well. Only if the
mind is free of wounds and scars can it be expected to settle down
comfortably and freely in the present, and to give rise to undistorted
discernment.
This is where the five precepts come in: They are
designed to heal these wounds and scars. Healthy self-esteem comes from
living up to a set of standards that are practical, clear-cut, humane, and
worthy of respect; the five precepts are formulated in such a way that
they provide just such a set of standards.
Practical: The standards set by the precepts are simple
-- no intentional killing, stealing, having illicit sex, lying, or taking
intoxicants. It's entirely possible to live in line with these standards.
Not always easy or convenient, but always possible. I have seen efforts to
translate the precepts into standards that sound more lofty or noble --
taking the second precept, for example, to mean no abuse of the planet's
resources -- but even the people who reformulate the precepts in this way
admit that it is impossible to live up to them. Anyone who has dealt with
psychologically damaged people knows that very often the damage comes from
having been presented with impossible standards to live by. If you can
give people standards that take a little effort and mindfulness, but are
possible to meet, their self-esteem soars dramatically as they discover
that they are actually capable of meeting those standards. They can then
face more demanding tasks with confidence.
Clear-cut: The precepts are formulated with no ifs,
ands, or buts. This means that they give very clear guidance, with no room
for waffling or less-than-honest rationalizations. An action either fits
in with the precepts or it doesn't. Again, standards of this sort are very
healthy to live by. Anyone who has raised children has found that,
although they may complain about hard and fast rules, they actually feel
more secure with them than with rules that are vague and always open to
negotiation. Clear-cut rules don't allow for unspoken agendas to come
sneaking in the back door of the mind. If, for example, the precept
against killing allowed you to kill living beings when their presence is
inconvenient, that would place your convenience on a higher level than
your compassion for life. Convenience would become your unspoken standard
-- and as we all know, unspoken standards provide huge tracts of fertile
ground for hypocrisy and denial to grow. If, however, you stick by the
standards of the precepts, then as the Buddha says, you are providing
unlimited safety for the lives of all. There are no conditions under which
you would take the lives of any living beings, no matter how inconvenient
they might be. In terms of the other precepts, you are providing unlimited
safety for their possessions and sexuality, and unlimited truthfulness and
mindfulness in your communication with them. When you find that you can
trust yourself in matters like these, you gain an undeniably healthy sense
of self-respect.
Humane: The precepts are humane both to the person who
observes them and to the people affected by his or her actions. If you
observe them, you are aligning yourself with the doctrine of karma, which
teaches that the most important powers shaping your experience of the
world are the intentional thoughts, words, and deeds you chose in the
present moment. This means that you are not insignificant. Every time you
take a choice -- at home, at work, at play -- you are exercising your
power in the on-going fashioning of the world. At the same time, this
principle allows you to measure yourself in terms that are entirely under
your control: your intentional actions in the present moment. In other
words, they don't force you to measure yourself in terms of your looks,
strength, brains, financial prowess, or any other criteria that depend
less on your present karma than they do on karma from the past. Also, they
don't play on feelings of guilt or force you to bemoan your past lapses.
Instead, they focus your attention on the ever-present possibility of
living up to your standards in the here and now. If you are living with
people who observe the precepts, you find that your dealings with them are
not a cause for mistrust or fear. They regard your desire for happiness as
akin to theirs. Their worth as individuals does not depend on situations
in which there have to be winners and losers. When they talk about
developing lovingkindness and mindfulness in their meditation, you see it
reflected in their actions. In this way the precepts foster not only
healthy individuals, but also a healthy society -- a society in which the
self-respect and mutual respect are not at odds.
Worthy of respect: When you adopt a set of standards,
it is important to know whose standards they are and to see where those
standards come from, for in effect you are joining their group, looking
for their approval, and accepting their criteria for right and wrong. In
this case, you couldn't ask for a better group to join: the Buddha and his
noble disciples. The five precepts are called "standards appealing to
the noble ones." From what the texts tell us of the noble ones, they
are not people who accept standards simply on the basis of popularity.
They have put their lives on the line to see what leads to true happiness,
and have seen for themselves, for example, that all lying is pathological,
and that any sex outside of a stable, committed relationship is unsafe at
any speed. Other people may not respect you for living by the five
precepts, but noble ones do, and their respect is worth more than that of
anyone else in the world.
Now, many people find it cold comfort to join such an
abstract group, especially when they have not yet met any noble ones in
person. It's hard to be good-hearted and generous when the society
immediately around you openly laughs at those qualities and values such
things as sexual prowess or predatory business skills instead. This is
where Buddhist communities can come in. It would be very useful if
Buddhist groups would openly part ways with the prevailing amoral tenor of
our culture and let it be known in a kindly way that they value
goodheartedness and restraint among their members. In doing so, they would
provide a healthy environment for the full-scale adoption of the Buddha's
course of therapy: the practice of concentration and discernment in a life
of virtuous action. Where we have such environments, we find that
meditation needs no myth or make-believe to support it, because it is
based on the reality of a well-lived life. You can look at the standards
by which you live, and then breathe in and out comfortably -- not as a
flower or a mountain, but as a full-fledged, responsible human being. For
that's what you are.
Source : www.buddhismtoday.com
Update : 01-12-2001