Learn Buddhism: The Buddhist Precepts

What are the precepts in Buddhism and why are they important to your Buddhist practice? Learn about the Five Precepts in this episode which are the foundational basis of all Buddhist practice, part of the conduct portion of the Eightfold Path, and what the Buddha taught!

Transcript

Welcome to the Learn Buddhism podcast.

I'm Alan Pedo.

I want to talk today about precepts.

Now you may have heard about precepts in Buddhism but not sure exactly what they are or even how to incorporate that in your Buddhist practice or even more fundamentally why it's even important at all because you may be consumed by different things such as I want to be able to meditate more or I want to understand the sutras,

The scriptures better but precepts may not be something that you've engaged fully with your Buddhist practice or even thought about to a very deep degree.

Maybe to some level yes but not to a deep degree.

Well precepts are sometimes referred to as rules,

Regulations,

Things like that but what they actually are they are the foundation of a proper moral and ethical conduct that you want to engage in in the Buddhist path and fundamentally let's take a step back here.

If you look at the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path which you've heard about this is the path that leads to enlightenment to realizing your true natural state of nirvana which is the goal of all Buddhists.

That's actually grouped into three different categories.

There's a category for morality and conduct,

A category for wisdom,

And a category for meditative concentration.

Now that morality conduct portion of the Eightfold Path that's where the precepts come in.

The precepts help you with that morality conduct portion.

Two different ways maybe to think about this.

So if you're going to be building a house or a home or whatever you want to have a solid foundation otherwise everything you build upon it it's not really going to be stable,

It can fall down,

And it's just not going to be a sturdy structure.

So that solid foundation is what you're doing with the precepts.

So morality and conduct,

Now I'll go into this a little bit more,

It is the foundation of your Buddhist practice.

A lot of people may think it's meditation or it's maybe becoming intellectually smart with the scriptures,

The sutras.

It's the precepts.

It's that morality conduct portion.

You have to have that solid foundation or the rest of your Buddhist practice.

You're not going to really get anywhere.

Again I'm going to talk more about this in a minute.

Another way to kind of think about it is you've I'm sure seen various types of trees during your life.

Now you've probably seen,

Hopefully,

A very big strong tree with roots that go deep into the ground and you probably may have had storms come through and this tree just seems to be not swayed by anything.

It's firmly rooted into the ground,

Right?

Those roots are the morality conduct portion of the Noble Eightfold Path.

That's your roots right there.

And the tree trunks and the leaves and all that,

That's everything that builds and grows from that solid foundation,

Those roots.

So what we're doing in both of these examples,

You're pouring great concrete,

Reinforced concrete there.

So earthquakes can destroy it,

Settle the ground,

Whatever.

It's going to be strong and firm there.

Or maybe on the roots.

You're nourishing the roots with the right nutrients so that you can grow in your entire practice.

That's why we have precepts to enhance that morality conduct portion.

Because ultimately what we're trying to do as Buddhists,

I would group,

I would say probably two things.

So first we're trying to break down,

Destroy this false belief in self.

And the self we're talking about is this belief in a permanent,

Unchanging,

Independent self which the Buddha says does not exist.

And closely connected to that will be number two here,

Which is where we create karmic actions,

Karma,

Based upon that belief.

And I'm going very high level here,

But we don't want to create karma,

Which may sound unusual to some people new to Buddhism because you may be thinking,

Whoa,

I want to create good karma.

That's the whole purpose.

Actually it's creating no karma.

It will be called karma with outflows.

So karma with outflows is where basically we are trapped in the cycle of rebirth.

We're being chained,

Connected to this constant cycle of rebirth,

Which is unsatisfactory.

It's dukkha.

It's not what we want.

Whereas you look at the Buddha and his enlightened followers,

They had karma without outflows.

They were not chained to the cycle of rebirth at that point because they become enlightened and they realize the true natural self of nirvana.

And so what they were able to do,

They broke down,

They destroyed that belief,

That false belief in self,

And from there they were liberated.

They saw things clearly.

They understood.

So their actions were no longer the actions of unenlightened people like you and me,

Where our actions,

Our karma,

Is keeping us trapped.

So this all flows back to what we're talking about with precepts.

Because remember we want to stop that karmic activities that's keeping us trapped,

Right?

And so the precepts are part of the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path to give us that foundation to get us to that point.

If you look at the Buddha and his followers,

You're seeing the precepts in action right there.

When we think about the Buddha,

We're thinking about,

If you think about it this way,

His conduct,

His morality,

Right?

So when it comes to precepts,

Now there's gonna be for monastics hundreds of precepts,

Hundreds,

Because they are fully engaged in this lifestyle,

In this path,

And they also have other responsibilities that you and me as layperson Buddhists do not have.

So because they're wearing the robes,

They are the religious figures in Buddhism,

They also have to present a certain decorum and presentation of Buddhism.

So there's also precepts regarding that,

But also a myriad of other things because ultimately what precepts are trying to do is prevent the violation,

The harming of others.

And we stem back to the Buddha's time and some of the early precepts and how he changed some of them depending on what actually occurred was to prevent others,

Not just the monastics but laypersons,

From being harmed.

And sometimes it was being harmed in a way that wasn't expected.

It was innocent in nature but it still harmed him.

So he created precepts for the monastics in that particular way.

But what about laypersons,

You and me?

So the Buddha had precepts for us as well because we are engaged in the Buddha's path,

Maybe not as fully as a monastic,

But we are nonetheless still engaged within it.

Now we have what's called the five precepts and I'm going to talk about this in a minute.

Now the monastics have the five precepts as part of their precepts as well,

But this is what we have.

So if you think about it this way,

We have five precepts.

They have hundreds of precepts but they are also living a different life than we are.

We are living the what's called the householder life or the layperson life or lay life and so because of that we have certain responsibilities and conditions in which we live where we would not be able to actually practice all those precepts like a monastic does.

Now let's say you are familiar with the temple.

They sometimes have what's called retreats.

It could be a short-term retreat like a day,

A weekend,

A week,

Sometimes even a month and in those particular retreats they are meant for laypersons.

You go to the temple,

You likely stay at the temple and you take what's known as the eight precepts.

And so the eight precepts,

You're taking three additional precepts to live life almost like a monastic.

Very,

Very simplistic view of this right here.

So you're not taking all those hundred precepts like they are.

You're still a layperson but you're doing certain things so you get that taste of ordained life while still being a layperson.

And the intention is here you understand a little bit more about how the monastics are and what they have to do.

But you're also,

If you will,

Think about it this way.

You're kind of refilling your faith in Buddhism.

You are learning things.

You are engaged in something where you just can't do that as a layperson and that can give you a new perspective on the Buddhist path.

So when you go to these retreats you're taking beyond the five precepts,

You're taking some additional precepts.

It's nothing that you would be hard for you to do or unable to do.

Remember you're not taking hundreds of precepts here.

You're just taking three additional ones but you're guided along during this actual retreat.

So it's something definitely doable.

And then when it comes to the Mahayana branch of Buddhism you can also take what's known as the Bodhisattva precepts.

Now all of these precepts that I'm talking about right now for laypersons,

You take these when you're ready.

So that might be news to you.

So the first part in your Buddhist journey is going to be taking the Triple Gem Refuge.

That's the start of your official journey as a Buddhist.

Now before then you might be referred to as an observer of Buddhism.

Watching videos or listening to monastics or engaging ceremonies or whatever the case might be.

You're not officially Buddhist yet but you're you're engaged in your learning but you really haven't made that commitment yet.

They're like yes you know that this I am engaging us I may not understand everything right now but yes I absolutely want to be a Buddhist and I want to follow the Buddhist path.

That's when you take the Triple Gem.

That's when you start your official journey.

Now the five precepts do not have to be at that same time.

They can come later.

To give you just an example,

When I first took the Triple Gem we didn't have the five precepts as part of that particular ceremony.

It was a large ceremony.

We took the Triple Gem but we didn't have five precepts so I actually took that later on.

And the time I took that later on was actually a combined Triple Gem and five precepts ceremony.

So you can take the Triple Gem as many times as you want to and the five precepts when I took it then you had many who were brand new Buddhist and so far as taking the Triple Gem but they were also taking the five precepts as well.

Now the reason I mentioned is take it when you're ready.

You can be a Buddhist but not actually follow all the five precepts.

Remember we're talking about being a lay Buddhist,

A lay person Buddhist.

And so you may work in an industry,

Maybe a butcher shop,

Where you're you're killing things or handling meat or whatever the case might be.

So you might be doing something where it may be violating one of those precepts based upon your job.

So the ability to follow the precepts can get nuanced more than this episode can really cover but it's all about your your thoughts,

Your deeds,

Your actions.

Like what is going through your mind when maybe you're breaking one of these precepts?

And this is something where I highly recommend you talk to monastics about if there's something where you're breaking one of these precepts,

Part of your job or your thought process or lifestyle,

I don't know,

Something like that.

Talk to a monastic.

They can give you that personalized guidance on you know what here's maybe a way to change your habit energy or here's a way to change your lifestyle so it's more aligned to the precepts.

They can give you that personalized advice where you know just a podcast like this can't do that.

So you really need to have that 101 guidance with the teacher.

So the precepts for laypersons are essentially the five precepts.

But what are they?

So the five precepts are to refrain from killing or harming living beings,

Basically sentient beings,

Stealing or taking what is not given,

Sexual misconduct,

Lying or false speech,

And consuming intoxicants.

And we may be looking at that and hearing about this and going well why these five?

Like all the different private precepts,

Why is it these five?

Essentially because they can lead to unskillful actions,

Intentional actions,

Remember karma?

They can lead to karma that violate others.

Compassion is a very fundamental teaching and practice inside Buddhism and this helps us ensure we're actually aligned with that.

Again if you look back at the Buddha and his aligned followers,

One thing that may spring to your mind after I just said that is yeah compassion.

Just even the Buddha alone.

Compassion for all sentient beings.

He had the choice to be essentially a solitary Buddha.

He did not have to teach anyone else but he did.

The compassion.

So he did not have to take it all as himself.

He achieved that high state.

He didn't have to be a teacher but he did.

And when we see how he lived and how his enlightened followers lived,

It was by following these precepts.

By that compassion,

That loving kindness.

So the violation of others is what the Buddha wants us to not do.

And unfortunately due to what's known as the three fires or three poisons in Buddhism which are greed,

Anger,

And delusion or ignorance,

We are often doing that.

And that karma that I've been speaking about a couple times,

The karmic actions,

They're typically on the unwholesome level.

So not,

We don't use the words necessarily good or bad inside Buddhism but they are on the unwholesome.

So they're not really anything that helps us progress on the path towards enlightenment or Nevada whereas wholesome would be.

So when we're doing these unwholesome karmic actions,

Yeah you can think about this,

We're harming others and ourselves because we're not advancing on the Buddhist path and we're also harming somebody else in the process.

Neither is good.

So I like to talk a little bit more about these five precepts and how they align to other Buddhist principles.

So lots of different Buddhist teachings out there and a lot of different principles but here's how these five precepts actually align.

So you're not just doing it for let's say one reason here.

There's also many other benefits to practicing the five precepts.

These are different Buddhist virtues that you can actually emulate and show right from it.

So when you do not kill other sentient beings,

You're showing kindness and compassion as the virtues,

The Buddhist virtues,

That you are demonstrating.

When you're not stealing,

It equates to generosity and renunciation.

When you're not engaging in sexual misconduct,

It's related to contentment and facefulness.

If you're not,

You know,

Saying lies or falsehoods,

It's being honest and dependable.

And when you're not intoxicated,

It is mindfulness and responsibility.

So all of these help you on the Buddhist path.

Now I've talked about the Noble Eightfold Path and how this is part of the morality conduct portion to give you a little context of what those elements are of the Noble Eightfold Path when you practice and uphold these precepts and also the virtues that come from a method I just explained,

Those correspond to right speech,

Right action,

And right livelihood in the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path.

So very fundamental and very important parts of the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path.

Now I've talked about where you can take the precepts when you're ready.

And let's say you're ready and you're like,

I'm gonna take the five precepts,

But for whatever reason you break a precept.

That's gonna happen in myriad of different ways.

You know,

Maybe for example you had a mosquito bite you and you swatted.

Well,

It's a sentient being and you have killed something,

Right?

So there are minor and major transgressions,

If you will,

When it comes to these precepts.

For example,

Killing a human being would be a major transgression.

So one way to look at the precepts is these major transgressions.

You can equate them to laws and we have in our society.

For example,

If somebody kills another human being,

That's a major transgression and you see how we react to that in our laws in our society.

Whereas if you swatted a mosquito,

You're not likely gonna go to jail,

Right?

So you can see where the differences are there and the precepts also factor that in as well.

There's many nuances to this and way more than this podcast can hope to accomplish,

But there are differences there.

So like if somebody kills a human being,

That's much different than if they were to swat a mosquito.

So we do see how they can correlate to laws in our society,

But when it comes to Buddhist precepts,

Remember we're doing this all as a result of showing compassion and not violating others,

Which includes all sentient beings.

So yes,

Even swatting that mosquito has an impact,

Maybe not a major transgression,

But it's something that we don't want to do either.

So if there's a way to prevent us from harming another sentient being,

We want to do that.

So,

But what if you break a precept?

So let's say you took the five precepts,

But perhaps maybe you lied.

Well,

You can do something called repentance.

And so what this basically means is you're repenting and you've likely have seen either pictures of this,

Videos of this,

Or you saw it at a temple where you might see Buddhist practitioners basically prostrating and repenting towards a saturated Buddha.

Are they asking the Buddha for forgiveness?

Well,

What we're doing here as Buddhists,

We are repenting.

And I like to kind of give you this illustrative example of it.

Just imagine you're sick,

Because remember the three fires are also called the three poisons.

Imagine you got like poison inside you.

You want to get that out or you know you're just sick.

You want to get this sickness out of me,

Right?

If you keep this inside,

You broke a precept,

Which is a transgression on your behavior,

Right?

So you want to get it out,

Not just buried inside,

Forget about it.

You want to bring it up so you're aware of it and you want to get it out in the open.

So you may not be verbalizing it,

But you want to get out of the open because you want to be aware of it so that you don't create that transgression again in the future.

And I kind of like that,

You know.

If you really think about it that way,

You're making it aware and a very popular practice,

Yeah,

You make it aware to the Buddha or a bodhisattva.

Do it,

Yeah.

You know,

You can make this aware and that's a very comfortable experience for a lot of people because you're not just saying it to yourself,

You're getting it out and you open it in that particular way.

And it's a great way to be aware of it and when you do that,

It brings it to the forefront of your mind and you go,

Yeah,

That's what I did.

Here's maybe how I can prevent that in the future compared to burying it deep inside.

So remember,

You're taking these five precepts on voluntarily.

You're not going to be struck down by some supernatural being.

But remember,

We're creating karma,

Karmic actions,

Because remember,

When we create karma,

It's going to come to fruition either in this lifetime or the next,

You know,

Cycle of rebirth.

It can come right away,

It can come later on.

So karma does occur.

And remember,

We want to basically create wholesome karma.

We want to advance on the Buddhist path.

So when we're breaking these precepts,

Well,

Yeah,

We are creating,

Depending on your mindset and your intention,

Your volition,

Likely you're creating unwholesome karma.

And what I like to relate that to,

Once again,

Back to the three fires,

Three poisons,

That ignorance,

Delusion part of it,

Imagine like you have a window that's super dirty.

You can't really see out of it.

So when you see like shadows on the other side or sounds,

You're making assumptions and perceptions about what's going on there and you're acting upon that.

And so that's when we're creating the karma,

Right?

Because we don't have a clear idea of what's actually going on,

Like the Buddha explains.

So when we're able to clear it away,

We can see clear,

We can understand,

We don't react in a way like we did before.

So where I'm going with that is,

We are,

Let me just,

Mundane existence,

We're regular human beings,

We are clouded in delusion and ignorance.

So we're gonna create karmic actions.

Yeah,

We're gonna break these precepts to nuanced different levels.

And so when that happens,

It's not something where you beat yourself up over it,

You repent.

And I'm talking about the religious context here,

Not any type of laws in our society at this time,

But a religious context.

You need to repent on that because you don't want to keep doing these transgressions.

You want to change your lifestyle.

You want to align yourself on the Buddhist path.

Remember,

The Noble Eightfold Path,

Right?

Well,

Just imagine like an actual path that you're walking down,

Right?

You don't want to kind of go off on a dark night.

You have this well-lit path,

Right?

You go off on these dark portions of the path,

You could get probably injured.

It could be muddy.

It could be a hole down there you fall down or animals or something like that.

So you want to stay on that lighted path,

The path that the Buddha lit for us.

And so the precepts,

Kind of think about this,

What they're keeping you on that that straight and narrow path.

Now,

Will you again likely venture off?

Yeah,

You will.

We're all human beings here.

We're not enlightened beings at this particular point and so we're trying our best here.

And that's where stemming back to the Triple Gem,

The Buddha,

The Dharma,

And the Sangha,

They are helping us.

So if you're going to break these precepts,

Sometimes during your life,

Yeah,

Go to temple.

I'll leave you with this example when it comes to the precepts and the Triple Gem.

So the Triple Gem we also correlate to the Buddha being a doctor,

The Dharma being,

If you will,

The cure or the medical textbook,

And the Sangha,

The monastic community,

Relate them to nurses or medical practitioners,

Specialists,

Right?

So in the temple as a hospital.

So this is all related to getting rid of dukkha,

Suffering,

Unsatisfactoriness in our life,

You know,

Breaking down ideas,

Self,

Etc.

So when we go to temple,

We're going to the hospital because remember we're all sick patients.

So we're gonna break the precepts?

Yeah,

Because we're sick.

So we're sick with this delusion of ignorance and the anger and greed that spring from it,

The three fire,

Three poison.

So we're going to the temple where it's a hospital.

We're going there where the nurses and medical practitioners are,

The monastics are to help us.

We have the Buddha as the overall doctor,

If you will,

Think about this way,

Overseeing us all.

And his cure,

The no-waitful path,

The Buddhist teachings.

So that is why we go to the temple to repent because that is a wholesome place,

A wholesome place where you engage in a wholesome activity.

So that long explanation I'm giving there is don't fret if you break a precept.

There's actions you can take and they're actions to help you.

So you can help others by not violating them in the future.

And so when we're looking at these precepts,

And I've talked about it in many different ways in this particular episode,

We got these five precepts that we are trying to uphold and follow for our Buddhist practice.

They are,

I think,

One of the best parts about Buddhist practice because if we didn't have this,

We didn't have that foundation.

And it's really,

You might want to think about this as far as your mindset when you're looking at the precepts and wanting to follow them.

How can I be more like the Buddha?

Precepts.

How can it be more like his enlightened followers?

Precepts.

How can be more like the Bodhisattvas?

Precepts.

Because a lot of times when we think about them,

We think about that morality and conduct that they actually had.

You,

Of course,

Well,

Buddha was very wise.

He meditated and all this stuff,

Right?

But it's really all these stories about how he interacted with people,

Laypersons,

Kings,

And other monastics.

He was,

He just shown the precepts,

If you will,

In a very enlightened way,

Which is fantastic.

How can you incorporate this into your everyday practice?

Let me give you two tips here before we sign off at this particular episode.

So if you've engaged in a Buddhist practice already,

You likely have either a morning or evening routine or maybe both.

So if you do it in the morning,

You can recite the five precepts.

It's a very common practice.

Maybe not by all traditions,

Maybe you do it in different ways,

But you can recite the five precepts.

And what happens then,

You're actually bringing the precepts into your mindset as you set forth into the day.

And that's a good way to bring it out of the subconscious and right in the forefront.

You know what?

There's this big thing going on at work.

I need to be mindful of this.

Or,

Let's say at the evening,

You can bring up the five precepts again and you may go,

Wow,

I didn't realize I actually broke one of the precepts,

But now upon reflection,

By reciting them,

I just realized it.

And remember,

There's many nuances to these these precepts.

For example,

Online.

Let's give an example where maybe there is a criminal gang and they're looking for this innocent victim who took shelter inside your home.

They come to your door looking for that person.

Do you have him inside there?

And you go,

No.

You're lying,

Right?

You've broken a precept,

Right?

Not necessarily.

So yes,

You did lie,

But your intention was out of compassion.

Compassion to make sure that the criminal gang members do not create unwholesome karma by injuring that person,

But also compassion and loving kindness for the victim so that they are not violated or not injured either.

So there's many nuances to this that you will learn as you engage more in the Buddhist path and with monastics and teachings and understanding the stories about the Buddhist past lives,

Which are great morality and conduct tales,

But this is all to help us.

Do you have any questions about the precepts?

I would like to hear back from you and hopefully answer some of your questions.

Thank you.

Reviews

🙏

Thank you for the teachings and bringing it to life in a simplistic and understandable way.

Wonderful!

Excellent. One question: why is it so difficult to engage with these precepts…? Than you 🙏🏽

I appreciate your kindness and your clear explanation. Thank you 🙏🏽

Outstanding information & explanation on the precepts. Thank you for your podcast.
Namaste 🙏

Really enjoying the deep dive of Buddhism!