The Five Precepts: Dhamma Talk With Bhikkhuni Vimala

Bhikkhuni Vimala outlines the five basic Buddhist Precepts. These are the guidelines that the Buddha suggested we follow. She integrates this with the important teaching of the Four Noble Truths. If you would like to learn more about Buddhism and deepening your practice, this is a wonderful Dhamma talk to listen to.

Transcript

Today is an occasion that happens every year and it's not to talk about Buddha Day but I want to talk about the precepts today because we do the precepts in October.

We have a ceremony here at our temple where once a year we take the precepts,

Those who want to take the Buddhist precepts and we do it,

Different temples do it different ways and different cultures do it different ways but the precepts are basic to all different types of Buddhism and we do a ceremony in October,

I think it's October the 12th.

So right now is the six month period,

I think it's six months and two weeks maybe before we do the ceremony and what we ask and we're going to be really focused on this for this precept ceremony,

We want people to have six months of meditation practice before they take their first five precepts and so that gives you time if you have any interest in taking precepts and you haven't been doing it for six months you can start tracking it now or if you don't know anything about them but you decide maybe that would be a good thing to do you can start now.

So that's why I wanted to talk about them today and I have a different approach right now to the precepts that I think is a really nice way to look at them,

To use them more as a really a daily practice to set intentions for the day and I'm talking about the basic five we'll go over those but how many of you have taken the precepts ceremony here?

So that's maybe half,

A little bit less than half.

So in some of you we have the five precepts and we have the eight precepts that we call lifetime precepts,

They're just names and then we have the bodhisattva vows which are ten qualities and those are sometimes called the ten perfections so those are qualities so people have to work with one set of precepts at least a year before they take the next set.

And some people work with the five and that's enough to work on for probably several lifetimes so you know don't be in any rush.

You want to work with them and be comfortable with them and it's also part of a daily reminder for you that you're studying under the teachings of the Buddha and that the Buddha is one of your teachers and it's a reminder.

I think the precepts are always a good reminder and we can come back to the essential.

It's like everything that we do in our Buddhist path should bring us back to how it connects with the four noble truths.

The four noble truths are that there is suffering in the world,

It's not all there is but suffering exists and that's an important thing to say because a lot of people don't want to think that life isn't perfect.

You know if your philosophy is to be positive about everything you have to be in denial about suffering and the Buddha was very clear.

He had lived a privileged life for a long time and didn't know there was suffering in the world.

Every single need he had was taken care of before he even knew it was a need.

He was literally raised as a very pampered but well educated and wise person but his every need was tended to.

So when he realized that there are people getting sick,

There are people dying,

There are people growing old and people are dying,

He had never seen any of that.

And then he saw an aesthetic,

Someone who seemed to be withdrawn from the everyday world and he saw that person off in the distance and that inspired him.

So suffering is often considered a bad translation.

So a good translation would be maybe stress or sometimes I think it's simply there is agitation,

There is friction in the world and that's in our minds.

We're never totally satisfied and if anybody here thinks they are totally satisfied all the time I want to know about it.

We're not satisfied because if we find something that's just perfect it doesn't stay that way and we don't continue to want that very perfect thing.

So there's impermanence in the world so our very nature is to go after things that we want and to desire things and there's nothing wrong with that but then when we find something that we really like we want to keep it forever,

We want it to always be there and that doesn't happen or if there's something we really don't like we decide that's not going to exist in our world and we can't make that happen either.

So there's always that kind of friction going on with us,

Right?

And so that's just part of the nature of this world,

Our human mind is not able to be satisfied because it changes so quickly,

Everything changes,

Everything is impermanent and the other absolute truth is that there is suffering,

There is that discomfort over it.

So the Buddha wants every,

But the Buddha taught there is a way to understand what that suffering comes from and then there's a way to move out of the suffering,

To end suffering in your life.

So that's what the Buddha was teaching,

How do we deal with and end the suffering in our life.

So everything that we work with and study and whenever we're letting the world be our teacher which we should be doing all the time,

We need to always come back to the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to tell us how does this relate to the Four Noble Truths,

How is this issue in my life connected?

And then because I know the Eightfold Path,

How can I,

Where am I going wrong on that path or where do I need to focus and that path is always going to help us get back in line with finding a way out of suffering.

So how do the precepts tie into that?

We have to use the precepts as well to tie back into the Four Noble Truths.

And a way that I think now as I work with the precepts and see them and how they can work in my own life,

I think they can be our daily intentions because they are noble and it's a noble way to live.

And I see more and more that the precepts,

It's just like sending loving kindness or working with the four Brahma Viharas and how we develop that quality for ourselves and then we can radiate it out to others.

The precepts are the same way because when we live by those five basic precepts,

We're not only making our own lives more humane and more calm and letting go of regret and letting go of the things that stay on our mind all the time that are negative,

But we're also giving that humaneness,

We're sending it out to others because our first precept is not to kill a living thing.

So we're not only helping ourselves never have regret,

Overtaking the life of a living thing,

But we're also,

Think of all the living beings we're saving by taking that precept,

Just one of us.

And so if we multiply that by all of that commitment to not taking life,

We're sending that quality of other living beings will feel safer in the world.

If human beings,

And imagine if all human beings took that precept,

The whole world would be a humane place.

Now the other thing about the precepts is that it's very important when we take the precepts that we don't automatically start extending them globally.

So we don't have to wait until everybody in the world takes the precepts,

Right?

I'm just saying imagine that.

That can help you understand how humanity is benefiting from our taking the precepts.

So,

The other thing we want to do is take the precepts more literally and we don't need to,

Let me give you an example.

The second precept is not to take anything that doesn't belong to us or is given to us,

So not to steal.

And a lot of people,

The first thing they want to do is globally take that precept and the first precept and make it about,

Let's globally recycle and reuse everything and that's what the world needs to do and that's urgent and we've got to do it now.

That makes it so big that we're losing out on our immediate path right in front of us and we're making it such a large precept that we can't do that.

We can't make the world safe from all of this material that we've wasted and all this plastic that's floating around in the ocean and we can become hopeless thinking we can't save the world that way.

So then we have the same regret,

It's not allowing us to develop that freedom that the precepts give us and that's the freedom to sit down and meditate without a lot of stuff telling us you're not good enough or you've been,

You know,

Remember all the things you did bad today,

Don't think about being good.

You know,

That's what gets in the way of our meditation are the thoughts we have about,

Often for us it's the thoughts we have about the regrets we have or the things we didn't do right.

So if we turn that precept immediately into saving the world from plastic and there it's about okay,

Not to steal,

It's like we've taken the earth's resources,

We've kind of stolen them and turned them into all this garbage.

You know,

We've consumed so much that we're destroying the planet.

Don't make that be your precept that you take.

Your precept needs to be about like I am not going to take things that don't belong to me and that might well be,

I'm not going to take on the garbage that I can bring into my life by consuming certain things or packaging or using materials that have been misused and now they've become destroyers of our planet.

But your precept needs to be I'm not going to take things that don't belong to me.

We can work with that and that can get pretty profound.

That's like not taking someone's freedom from them,

Like not being a helicopter mom or not being someone who takes the ideas of other people and doesn't literally credit them if they're a writer or someone doing work where it's important to,

Like doing research.

Kids in school don't learn anymore about the proper ways to make footnotes and bibliographies.

They don't know the difference between taking someone's material and calling it their own and I think part of that is just,

Part of that is the way our education system doesn't have the time to do that but part of that is they don't see any difference between what belongs to somebody else and what belongs to them.

When I was teaching,

That was the hardest thing was to have a poetry contest and then you start reading people's submissions and you immediately recognized,

You know,

Go to Google and sure enough they've just,

And they're really the obvious poetry too,

But some of the kids didn't even realize that that's plagiarism,

That that's not a good thing.

They just thought I'm going to win the poetry contest and I'm sure millions of children have won poetry contests for the same reason or adults.

So we can work with not taking things that don't belong with us and not stealing things and most of us would say I don't steal things but we have to be careful about that one,

Like when have we maybe been too judgmental of a person?

We might be stealing something from that person or we don't listen to someone's viewpoints and maybe it would be good to sit down and listen to viewpoints that don't agree with ours sometimes.

In that sense,

We're not allowing someone else who may really want to discuss something that opportunity to talk about something.

We can certainly take the precept without globalizing it and I think that's one of the dangers because globalizing it makes it impossible to be totally successful and then we take on that burden personally and it makes us be discouraged about the precepts and about ourselves.

So we need to come back and work with it,

With our own world and know that that's the best thing we can do because global issues depend on us coming back to our very local personal level and starting there.

That's with all the teachings and that brings us back to the Four Noble Truths that way.

We're always all working with the way we can purify our own minds and purify everything we do and then that's usually the most important,

Strongest thing we can do for the world.

So I think I have found something that I really like and it's a way to work with the precepts every day and just build them in because a lot of times people want to know,

Like,

What should my intentions be?

It can be overwhelming,

Like do you have intentions,

Do we not have intentions because we don't want to be,

We think of intentions as maybe being goal oriented but intentions are just setting,

Our intentions should be to do no harm.

Our intentions are very simple.

It can be,

And I'll show you what I like about this,

So this is working with the five precepts and I think it can solve the problem.

If you go to a workshop and somebody says set your intentions or a lot of yoga classes,

The teacher will say now set your intentions.

Now it doesn't need to be that I'm developing my core,

You know,

But people,

I think I've seen people be,

What's my intention for the yoga class or what do I have to make up an intention for something coming up?

Well,

I'm going to give you five intentions you can have and they work in any situation and this is how you can work with the precepts every day and see how they work for you.

What are my intentions for today?

On behalf of myself and all beings,

I intend to refrain from consciously hurting anyone.

I intend to refrain from overtly or covertly taking what is not mine.

I intend to be sure that my speech is kind as well as true.

I intend to refrain from addictive behaviors that confuse my mind and lead to heedlessness.

And those are the five precepts and we can start each day with those being our intentions and then our day will be just fine and we'll end the day without adding any more harm to the world,

Without adding any more harm to our own minds that we carry around with us.

So I think,

I like the idea of shrinking these precepts back down to us.

Don't try to globalize and that's if everybody starts practicing the precepts that way we don't need to globalize because we'll all start in our own little bubbles,

Our little bubbles of the precepts will just start,

Will just get to be a bigger and bigger bubble as we bump into other people's bubbles,

Right?

And we'll find plenty of good work to do in our own world.

And I'm not saying don't take social action but we need to be very clear about the action that we take,

That we're not doing something out of anger and that it's not doing any harm to anybody else and that we're not taking things from other people with the social action that we get involved in.

So these are criteria when we do feel moved to action about something,

This is a good set of criteria to use as a guideline for what is a good thing to do,

How can you really help,

How can you really make a difference but without doing anything that violates the precepts.

So now we have Buddha kids so thank you very much.

Reviews

Life changing Dharma talk, how lovely the world could be when everyone followed Precepts. Thank you 🙏🏽🌺

Thank you for this teaching 😇🙏