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Venerable
Ajahn Viradhammo -
Acceptance and Responsibility
This
talk was given by Ajahn Viradhammo at Bodhinyanara Monastery at the end
of last year's rains retreat.
Last week I was speaking about acceptance as a spiritual quality.
Acceptance can be misunderstood if it's taken as an absolute social
philosophy; it might then imply a state of apathy or complacency with no
urge to act for the good of our society. When I was speaking about
acceptance I was speaking about a quality of the heart. This quality of
the heart exists in the social contexts of a society, a community and a
family. The social context defines what is socially acceptable and
unacceptable.
I like to compare the social commitment of being a Buddhist to that of
being a member of a guild. If you have a guild of master builders - if
you belong to the craftspeople in that guild- then you have certain
obligations, certain skills that you have to develop before you are
accepted and accredited by that guild. Your work has to be maintained at
the standards that all the members agree upon; you have to have a
certain ability to do your craft, and you have certain obligations to
fulfil, standards to uphold. And if you do not meet those standards then
the guild will strike you off its books. But also the guild will protect
your interests and it will encourage you to sustain good standards or
use better designs or whatever might be the case. And I think
monasticism, or any kind of Buddhist culture, is something like that. It
is an association of people who undertake to live according to certain
values, who undertake a lifestyle commitment. They undertake the
responsibility of being a Buddhist. This kind of responsibility or
commitment gives form to our participation in community and supports all
of us in our spiritual work.
Our monastic community has just finished what is known as the 'rains
retreat'. It has indeed been raining. On Thursday, full moon day, we had
our 'pavarana day', which is the last day of the Rains Retreat. On that
day we came together, and performed a ceremony handed down to us from
the time of the Buddha. All the monks and novices came together in a
kind of sharing circle and each of us individually repeated a phrase in
Pali which roughly translates as, "For anything that I have done which
is against my obligations as a Buddhist monk, which is contrary to the
training I am undertaking, please admonish me or please offer me some
reflection or feedback". This creates an opening, an invitation to hear
how we are seen by our peers. It's a reflection for each of us. We have
lived together for these three months, practising meditation and sharing
in the goodness of this sanctuary, all of which has been made possible
through the generosity of our lay community. It has been a good time and
I feel grateful for these three months. We also use reflections such as,
'Have I used my time wisely? Have I honoured the alms food of the lay
people and have I honoured my monastic rule? Have I been sensitive to my
fellow monastics?' - healthy reflections which help us to remember our
heart commitment to the path of peace and our commitment to helping each
other on this journey.
Our life in community is thus a training in body, speech and mind which
encourages us to let go of selfishness and yet encourages to do our own
spiritual work.
The Buddha and his disciples were unable to design as detailed a code of
life for the laity as they did for the monastics because the lifestyles
of the lay community were too diverse. Thus the teaching on ethics and
social commitment was given in the context of social structures that
already existed in the societies of those times. In those cultures if,
for example, a couple got married, it was not only a relationship with
another person, but also it was a marriage that brought the couple
within the community of married people. They weren't just an isolated
couple, but rather a couple who had joined a 'guild of married people'.
And that implied an obligation. It implied a moral obligation, a
familial obligation, and a communal obligation.
The whole community understood that obligation. And so the whole
community could support marriage, through encouragement, through
admonishment, through helping in times of sickness, and so on and so
forth. So it wasn't just something that happened in isolation. These
kinds of supportive structures are harder to find in modern urban
society. For instance we might ask what is a partnership? Is there a
'guild of partners'? What are the obligations in a partnership? How is
that defined and are there like-minded people who support such
obligations? I think this is a very real difficulty in our culture. A
place like this monastery and a group like this where many people come
on a Sunday and meditate and reflect on Dhamma, is a vehicle for
creating a supportive social environment for our Dhamma work. We as a
community, as a group of human beings, can uphold certain traditional
values. We can honour these values, and we can give each other feedback
when traditional values are not honoured, when things become
unacceptable. If we see someone who comes to the monastery and they are
abusive, if we see a monastic who is not living by agreed monastic
standards, then that is unacceptable. We need to express our
disagreement in an appropriate manner.
When we speak of acceptance, we usually mean at the heart level.
Acceptance is an inner strategy that allows us to be with life and
respond to life with clarity. But acceptance is not an absolute social
philosophy. At the social level some kinds of behaviour are unacceptable
and our duty as members of this spiritual community is to go to the
person who we feel is not living according to our agreed upon standards,
to the lay person or to the monk, and to say that we have to talk about
this. Inner acceptance allows for clarity of action. But if we are not
aware of our inner world and attack from positions of righteous
indignation and anger then the results will be messy and confused. So we
always need to awaken to and honestly accept our own passions and
defilements of mind. This is a kind of inner obligation and commitment.
Self righteous indignation is a very destructive energy, an energy which
can be used to justify anger, hatred and jealousy. We need the courage
to speak out when necessary but we also need honesty to know our own
feelings and intentions. In a Buddhist community the accepted ethical
framework is the five precepts. The third precept encourages moderation
as regards sensuality. This is a very broad precept which asks us to
reflect on the way we conduct ourselves with regard to sensual
experience. Specifically, it encourages the observance of sexual
fidelity.
Adulterous relationships are thus against this precept. It is a precept
which draws very clear boundaries so that anyone in a marriage or in a
permanent relationship or anyone who is engaged or anyone who is
underage or anyone who is a monastic or anyone who is living under the
eight precepts, all of these people are out of bounds as regards sexual
relationships. In observing this precept our responsibility, our
obligation is to promote the harmony of existing social contracts and to
care for those who are not of age or living under renunciant precepts.
Those who are committed to a religious life based on Buddhist principles
have these kinds of obligations to each other. If anyone in our
community, be it a monastic person or a lay person, is not fulfilling
this principle of impeccability in relationship or if someone is being
in any way promiscuous or abusive, it is our duty as a community to talk
about that, to reflect on that. Not in a gossping manner but in a way
which honours the precepts. And that requires courage and compassion.
This is a kind of social activism. It means speaking about things which
are important. This kind of honesty can be very helpful if it is done
correctly, not from self-righteousness, not from anger, but from the
fact that we have an obligation to the well being of our community and
its individuals.
The one quality the Buddha could never go against in his spiritual
journey was the quality of truthfulness. Truthfulness is the heart of
the religious life because enlightenment is about truth. Freedom is
about truth and suffering is about ignorance, about not understanding.
If there is someone in our community, be it in the monastic community or
in the lay community, whose mind is justifying immoral behaviour it's
very dangerous for that person. Unfortunately we humans have the ability
to rationalise our delusions. We can be very clever with knowledge and
ideas. Perhaps we have all seen occasions when a person is trying to
admonish another and the other person is more clever with language and
twists it all around. So cleverness ends up winning the day rather than
truthfulness. There is the manipulation of words and language to suit
the desires and fears of the ego. It is a cleverness which has the
potential to do great harm to a person's spiritual life.
Precepts and moral guidelines are a common body of knowledge - a common
agreement of obligations. When someone is acting in a way which is
breaking apart existing relationships and they are using some kind of
clever language, we can say, "Perhaps, but what about the third
precept..." It is important that we have a common body of knowledge so
that there are references beyond personal preferences. For instance, our
monastic rules are a body of knowledge which is available not only to
the monks and nuns but also to the laity. In a non-Buddhist culture most
lay people don't understand the monastic rules but in Buddhist Asia
people tend to understand the rules and then everyone knows the monastic
and lay boundaries. When the boundaries are transgressed then there is a
skilful reference point - a body of common agreements. This helps both
those who are in positions of authority as well as those who seek
guidance and leadership.
Sometimes teachers travel outside the boundaries of their own culture,
outside of the constraints and obligations that help them reflect on
their responsibilities. This can lead to situations where a teacher gets
lost in selfish delusions and gets burnt-out or oversteps the boundaries
of propriety.
If, however, there is a cultural knowledge of boundaries, roles and
expectations then it is much more difficult for the teacher to follow
self-deceptions. Teachers and leaders will sometimes lose the plot and
blunder into areas of confusion. They get lost in their own
over-estimations. They need protection too, don't they? So, we all need
protection, we all need help because delusion is there, it deludes us
into doing unskilful things.
Contemplating the first precept, the precept on not harming living
beings, we see how difficult that is in New Zealand. To create Karori
and Kapiti bird sanctuaries many possums, rats, cats and stoats were
killed. Without the killing the native birds die off. What to do? One
thing we can do is to make sure we don't throw out the first precept. If
someone feels they have to transgress the precept they must think long
and hard by reflecting on the necessity and value of taking life. Then
they must be responsible for the decisions they make. If, however, the
precept is completely thrown out it is easy for attitudes to arise that
dismiss certain forms of life. The animal and plant realms are then
considered purely in terms of human desires and human economies rather
than in terms of compassion and care.
Have you ever perceived a spider as a pet? Children do this easily. Have
you ever changed your perceptions from 'this is a useless thing' to
actually looking at an animal with empathy, seeing it is a sentient
creature that is trying to be happy in its own interesting way? This
creates an entirely different relationship. It is quite beautiful. This
can sound very utopian and impractical but the Buddha's teaching
encourages us to cultivate a heart of love and turn away from the heart
of alienation. Yes, we need to protect the environment from noxious
weeds and so forth but let's not brutalise the mind with insensitive and
violent attitudes.
The second precept is about non-corruption: I undertake the training
rule to refrain from taking that which is not given. In our monastic
rule we have various refinements around this basic principle of not
stealing. For instance, if someone gave a monk a valuable object here in
New Zealand worth $1,000 and then the monk went to Canada, by Canadian
law that article would have to be declared and customs duties paid on
it. But if he were to take that object, put it in his carrier bag and
walk through without declaring it at customs, fully knowing that he was
trying to evade taxes, the monk would have committed an offence of
'defeat'. This is known as a parajika offence. We have four parajika
offences. When a monk has committed a parajika offence he has to disrobe
- very serious. That kind of cheating would be an impediment to his
spiritual life so the rule helps him to be very careful. Being careful
in this way leads to a mind which is free from remorse, from from self
hatred and free of the fear of blame.
These precepts point to a sense of impeccability as the standard of the
spiritual life. The ethical teachings encourage us to understand the
laws of the land and to determine to support those laws, because if we
don't who will? This is our commitment to community. It is not just
taking the easy way out or just going with the popular mood of the day,
'well, everyone else is taking things off the back of the lorry, why
not? The office has lots of stationery.' That kind of mind is not an
impeccable mind. A mind which follows dishonesty becomes a mind which is
afflicted by guilt, fear or arrogance. It is not a mind that is going to
experience the beauty of a peaceful heart.
The precept on speech is a very useful mirror to help us notice the
motivations and intentions that lie behind our words. Wrong speech is:
lying, swearing, destructive gossip, and stupid talk. Right speech is:
speech which is truthful, speech which is beautiful, speech which is
harmonious rather than divisive. Speech which accords with Dhamma.
Speech can be very uplifting. For example when the Dalai Lama came to
New Zealand his words were tremendously inspiring for so many people. On
the other hand, when we hear someone speaking with a heart of hate and
cruelty it can be very disturbing. So speech is very powerful either for
the good of our society or for its detriment.
Now, with the precepts themselves, we can't always get it right, but we
can reflect: speech which is truthful, speech which is beautiful, speech
which is harmonious, speech which is according to Dhamma - Right Speech.
We can take that into our hearts and minds. By reading over and
contemplating a precept every day for some extended period of time that
precept begins to echo in our minds. And then if we are talking with
someone and discover ourselves distorting the truth, exaggerating or
covering up the truth, the precept awakens us with the question "Why am
I doing that? Why am I lying? Why do I need to distort the truth?" It
awakens us to the truth of our motivations. If, however, we have no
clear ethical boundaries or moral standards we can slide into
unwholesome and unskilful behaviour that is harmful to both ourselves
and others. The precepts thus become a way to protect us from the inner
urges of insensitivity and selfishness, urges which we all experience
but which only become harmful when we believe in their voices.
Using the precepts in this way we are able to ask ourselves, "What are
my intentions" If I am being manipulative with someone or I am trying to
cover up something that I've been doing or I am just exaggerating to
make myself look better, where is that coming from? Is it coming from
fear, from greed, or from some other unskilful place? And what's the
result of that? Is the result good? Is the result peaceful? Is the
result happy? When I speak in this way, is my mind confused?
On the other hand, when we encourage people, when we are sensitive to
them, when we tell the truth, when we are able to own up to our
mistakes, what is the result of that? Is that a good result or a bad
result? Right speech thus becomes a part of the path to freedom. This is
not easy. Most people find it difficult. We can easily believe deluded
projections and dismiss someone with insensitivity and unkindness. Or we
can can believe in some petty complaint and then poke someone in a
heartless manner. Or we might feel jealous of someone's success and tear
them down behind their backs - so many ways to close the heart and get
lost in wrong speech. The empathy and love in the heart gets smothered
and we end up feeling more and more alienated.
The precept on drugs is obviously very important, because a truly
religious and spiritual life requires intelligence and focus both of
which are harmed by alcohol and various recreational drugs. We are not
asked to adopt a puritanical attitude, 'thou shalt not have a glass of
wine with granny on her birthday', it is not that. Rather it helps us
reflect on why we turn to these things and what effects they have on our
lives. Do these things make us better people and more responsible
members of our communities? And what about our poor old bodies? Is it a
kindness to fill the body with various chemicals for the sake of
pleasure or for the need to escape?
So the framework for a Buddhist guild, a religious guild, is the five
precepts. Each one of us is slowly refining and deepening our use and
understanding of the precepts.
For example the precept on harmlessness not only encourages us to live a
life of non-violence but also a life of compassion. We work towards a
deepening of that possibility. Much of Buddhist social philosophy is
based on empathy. Empathy is a marvellous attitude which helps lift us
out of selfishness and self-obsession. When we have a chance to give to
someone and we feel the joy of helping someone and caring for someone,
then they are actually giving us a lot. It's an irony isn't it? I have
sometimes said to couples who have adopted a baby that the baby is very
fortunate. They invariably answer, "no, no, we are the lucky ones". We
only have about 100 years to live on this planet, 80-100 maximum. What
is the purpose of life? If we can do something good for our society, for
our planet and the beings on it then that gives life meaning. If that is
the basis of our social philosophy then we can see more clearly our own
manipulativeness or the rationalising of our actions to justify selfish
ends. When harmful impulses arise we learn to be patient and not follow
these energies but also we cultivate wholesome states of mind,
encouraging compassion and kindness to blossom in our hearts. This is a
lovely process in the spiritual life.
The advances in science as regards medical and agricultural technologies
have created a complicated array of moral dilemmas that didn't exist at
the time of the Buddha. For instance what is the Buddhist position on
genetic engineering? Where is that covered in the five precepts? Perhaps
there need not be a fixed position. What is important, however, is that
our hearts and minds be freed from personal agendas based on greed and
arrogance. Part of right speech might then be the ability to debate the
issues that arise, to participate in the process of education that our
whole society is undertaking. This would imply a personal commitment to
become informed about the issues and then to think very carefully how
one feels about these issues in the light of one's own ethical
standards. This would give us the requisite qualities of heart and
intelligence to enter into discussion and make a meaningful contribution
to the moral direction our society.
In a guild of craftspeople there are responsibilities to the standards
that are encouraged by the guild but also there are the joys of creating
something of beauty that is an expression of one's craft. In the same
way our Buddhist community has standards that we should live by and
encourage in each other but also there is the expressive part of our
being which is a part of the craft or art of living. To give something
of oneself for the benefit of other beings is truly marvellous. At times
our Buddhist emphasis on the practice of awareness can sound as though
we are constantly thinking about ourselves; a very uninspiring way to
live this life. If I've got nothing to give to, nothing to serve, no one
to love, no one to care for, it's not balanced. The other extreme, of
course, is to be so out there, so caring, so loving that I end up in
hospital with a nervous breakdown. We need the balance of love for
ourselves as well as the love of others. Perhaps then, the deepest
standard that our Buddhist community can encourage is quite simply love
for one another. Our sense of acceptance and our commitment to good
ethics is always underpinned by the heart of loving kindness.
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