The Five Precepts

The Five Precepts are the basic set of virtuous principles that a Buddhist takes upon themselves in order to live their lives in a more skillful and benefical way with no regret or remorse.

In living your life more skillfuly you give a gift of fearlessness to those around you, who can trust you will not harm them, and you then benefit from this as well.

The Buddha said do not fear doing good deeds, this is another meaning for happiness.

Transcript

I'll talk about the five precepts now.

And I want to read this directly because I think it's impactful,

More impactful than if I just summarize it.

The Buddha says there are these five gifts,

Five great gifts,

Original,

Long-standing,

Traditional,

Ancient,

Unadulterated.

Notice that.

He's saying that these things,

These five precepts are not something that Buddhism made up.

They're not something that he created.

They're something that had already existed,

Most likely in the culture at the time,

These kind of things.

So this is something that Buddhism is ancient.

It's unadulterated,

Unadulterated from the beginning,

That are not open to suspicion,

Will never be open to suspicion,

And are unfaulted by knowledgeable contemplatives and Brahmins.

Which five?

Pāṇātipata veda mani sikha-pādaṅ samādhyāmi.

I undertake the training rule to abstain from slaying beings.

Sikha-pādaṅ samādhyāmi means a training rule to be undertaken.

You can see right from the get-go,

This is not a commandment.

This is not thou shalt not.

This is you are taking upon,

Of your own volition,

Of your own choice,

The training rule to train in following this precept.

Doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect in it and that you're never going to break it.

It's a training rule that you're taking upon.

Adinādāna veda mani sikha-pādaṅ samādhyāmi.

I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking what is not given.

Kāmesu mīcchācāra veda mani sikha-pādaṅ samādhyāmi.

I undertake the training rule to abstain from sexual misconduct.

Musāvāda,

Sounds familiar.

We did that yesterday.

Musāvāda veda mani sikha-pādaṅ samādhyāmi.

I undertake the training rule to abstain from lying.

And the last one,

Everybody's favorite.

Suvara mērriya madhyāpāmadhatāna veda mani sikha-pādaṅ samādhyāmi.

I undertake the training rule to abstain from,

Actually there's two types of alcohol mentioned in that,

Suvara and mērriya,

Drinks and drugs that cause heedlessness.

So that's the five precepts.

These are the basic sila that somebody who becomes a Buddhist follows.

When you officially quote unquote become a Buddhist,

You take refuge in the Buddha,

Dhamma and the Sangha,

And then you choose to take on and follow these five precepts.

And so,

Some of them are pretty simple.

Most people are not stealing and killing and all these kinds of things.

Others like alcohol are a little tougher for some people.

And people have questions like,

What if I only drink a glass of wine at dinner and all these kinds of things.

Again,

It's lots of gray areas.

People ask all kinds of questions in these regards.

So that's up to you to make that decision.

So the Buddha goes on and he talks about these five precepts,

They're faultless gifts.

What are they gifts of?

They're gifts of fearlessness.

Somebody who follows these five precepts,

The Buddha says,

Gives countless beings freedom from what?

Freedom from danger,

Freedom from animosity,

Freedom from oppression.

And not only do you give countless beings this freedom,

You also partake in that freedom.

And one of the benefits of metta is that you become dear to human beings and non-human beings.

If you think about just interactions with people,

You have somebody in your life who follows the five precepts,

Who you trust,

Who you know they're not going to steal from you,

They're not going to lie to you,

They're not going to sleep with your spouse,

They're not going to try to kill you or your dog or whatever.

In a world where you have all kinds of greed,

Hatred and delusion and all kinds of,

You don't know,

You can't trust anybody,

You can trust that person.

They have your back,

They're not going to stab you in the back,

They're not going to throw verbal daggers at you behind your back and all these kinds of things.

That's that gift of fearlessness.

You can fear about all these other people,

But I don't have to fear that person.

That person's a good person.

I can trust them.

And if you think about it,

That's a wonderful thing to have,

That you can even just have one person in your life that you can fully trust.

That's a heck of a gift,

In my opinion.

And so,

They don't have anything to fear.

They don't have to worry about these things,

Danger,

Animosity,

Etc.

So again,

When you are everything in the Noble Eightfold Path,

Absolutely everything in the Noble Eightfold Path,

When you're following that,

You're not only benefiting yourself,

You're benefiting everybody else around you.

And the Buddha tells us this,

As in the Buddha in the Sutta in the Angadur Nikāya,

The fourth book,

Number 99,

He talks about four times of individuals living in the world.

There's a person who practices the Dhamma,

Practices the precepts,

The Noble Eightfold Path,

For their benefit,

But not for the benefit of others.

There's a person who practices for the benefit of others,

But not for the benefit of themselves.

There's the person who practices,

Probably not the Noble Eightfold Path,

Neither for themselves or others.

And there's the person who practices both for themselves and for others.

Pretty obvious who the Buddha exalts as the person who's doing it the right way.

The person who practices for themselves and for others.

There's a wonderful sutta called the Acrobat.

And in this sutta there's this master acrobat and there's his apprentice.

I always forget her name.

It's a really long Pali name that I haven't gotten yet.

But anyway,

So the master goes,

You know,

We will get up on,

So apparently they get up on stilts and they do all kinds of acrobatics like on stilts,

Like 10 feet in the air,

These kind of things,

These acrobats.

And he says,

We will get up on the stilts and we will perform our trade and then we will,

You know,

You will look after me and I'll look after you and we'll come down safe and we can enjoy what we earn.

But the assistant,

She was much smarter than her master because she said,

She says,

No,

I'll watch after myself,

You watch after yourself and then together we'll be safe,

We'll come down and we'll do what we earn.

And the Buddha says,

Just as the assistant says,

One who watches after themselves watches after others.

One who watches after others watches after themselves.

And then the Buddha says,

How do you watch after yourselves and others?

Well,

His answer is actually the four foundations of mindfulness,

What you're going to learn from Vantesila is following the Satipatthana.

And in brief,

It's living mindfully.

When you are living mindfully of your own actions,

When you are mindfully following this nobile full path and living it,

Well then you're protecting yourself and you're protecting the other people around you when you follow these five precepts.

So in the end,

Actually,

I'll go a little bit more into,

Five precepts is the most basic,

The most common thing that a person who is following the nobile full path practices.

But there's also eight precepts.

These are what we usually call eight monastic precepts.

You took these precepts when you came here to stay at the monastery for the week.

In lay life,

People,

It's tradition that during Apocetas,

These are like full moon days,

New moon days.

It's tradition that laity will take on these eight precepts and try to do practice more diligently and longer and these kinds of things.

So it's like once every two weeks for a day,

You're trying to really double down on your practice of the nobile full path.

That's following those eight precepts.

And if you've heard like Bonte Silla,

Right,

When he quote unquote gave you the precepts when you came here,

It's come down in the tradition that the monastic,

And even if you can read it,

Says,

I ask you Bonte to give me the precepts.

But in all reality,

Nobody can give you the precepts.

A monk can't bless upon you.

I bless upon you the five precepts.

May you follow the five precepts.

There's something that you have to take on of your own choice in your life.

Nobody can give them to you.

I can give you the five precepts the next day.

You're like,

Oh,

I broke this precept.

Now I have to go rush back to the priest so they can give me the precept again or something like that.

No.

No,

So when you're in your own life and you screw up,

You do three things.

And the way it works in Buddhism,

Especially usually in regard to the monks,

But not only the monks,

Somebody will do a transgression.

Somebody will do something stupid and they'll go to the Buddha and they'll say,

I've transgressed.

And the Buddha's like,

Foolish man.

Yes,

You have transgressed.

The Buddha's like,

You're foolish.

It's kind of funny when you read it.

But he's like,

But he says,

You admit that you've transgressed and you have made amends in accord with the Dhamma.

Making amends in accord with the Dhamma is apologizing,

Confessing.

So the first thing you're doing is that you're acknowledging that you did something wrong,

That you broke a precept.

The second thing that you're doing is making amends for breaking that precept.

And the only confession in Buddhism is between monks.

So you don't have to come and confess to a monk or anything like that,

What you did.

But if what you did harmed somebody else,

Do your best to make amends.

Apologize to that person.

Try to do whatever you can to compensate to that person.

And that's making amends in accord with the Dhamma.

And then the third thing is strive for future restraint,

I.

E.

Try to be better,

More wise next time,

Not do it again.

So these three things,

Actually Ajahn Brahm kind of took from that and he does this thing.

It's called AFL,

Acknowledge,

Forgive,

And learn.

I think that works just as it's the same thing,

Really.

It works even easier because you can remember that snazzy three-letter thing.

You're acknowledging that you did something.

You're forgiving yourself.

You're apologizing.

You're seeking forgiveness.

And you're learning from that so you do better next time.

And so that's what happens.

If you break a precept,

Don't try to fool yourself that you didn't break the precept.

Acknowledge that you did it.

Forgive yourself.

Realize that you're just a being in samsara trying to do the best that you can.

And make a vow,

Make a determination that from here on in I follow this precept again and I'm going to do better next time.

So every time you do that,

You just go through that little cycle,

That little thing of acknowledge,

Forgive,

And learn and move forward.

Sometimes people really get mired in their own pity and their own judgment.

They're like,

Oh,

I'm so horrible.

I'm a really bad Buddhist and all these kind of things.

Why did I do that?

People are hitting their head and doing all kinds of silly things,

Really coming down on themselves.

The right way to do it is acknowledge,

Forgive,

Learn.

To really understand that you are a being in samsara just like all the other beings.

Do the practice.

Don't get too mired in your failures.

But also don't hide from them too.

Accept them.

Move forward.

And so this comes to the end of my two days talking to you guys about sila,

Talking to you guys about living by virtuous principles.

Remember the difference between a rule and a principle.

A rule is something that somebody imposes upon you.

A principle is something that you take up on yourself.

If you keep that understanding inside,

Then you can be joyous and joyful that you are trying to live in a restrained and beneficial way as opposed to feeling like some other outside power is making you do something.

Why do I got to do this?

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

So I wish you much success and benefit.

Reviews

Am excellent teaching of the precepts. Thank you, bhikkhu. 😊

Words can change the world, appreciated the practical examples. Thank you Bhante J.

Great 👍🏻 reassuring conversation, with lots of supporting but enhanced guidance about simply things and choices in live . Thanks 🙏🏻

Succinct and relatable. Thank you for this teaching.

Awesome! Thank you

Thank you! I learned today that I must look out for myself in order to ensure others around me are ok. Simple for some but for me, quite powerful.

Thank you for the teaching. He is wonderful to listen to, you can hear his love of the Dharma.

Excellent explanation of the five basic precepts of Buddhism. Easy to follow and acts as a refresher to my pledges as a Triratna Mitra. Namaste.

I enjoyed the message of revisiting the five precept.
Thank you 🙏

Love his talks. Humor and wisdom.
Thank you so much

Very clear and clarifying description of the precepts. Thanks for reading the Pali, also.

Acknowledge, Forgive and Learn. Namaste🙏

Clear and joyful thank you 🙏🏼

Quite clear and helpful. Thank you very much! 🙏

A n interesting talk 🤔🙏🏻

This was an empowering talk.

Good introduction to the set of trainings that, when accepted by a novice, leads one to the spiritual path of a bodhisattva.

Great talk and refreshing reminder of basic principles, thank you

Appreciate the view on growth, versus perfection.

Thank you so much for this AFL so easy for an Aussie to remember!