Eightfold path: Wise Action (Part II)

A reminder: this is the second part of Wise Action, which is the second of eight parts of the path the Buddha described as the way to freedom from suffering. I first wrote an introduction to the Eightfold Path, which you can find here, then a post on Wise Speech. My last post was the first part of Wise Action. In this discussion Wise Action is synonymous with the Five Precepts, which are to refrain from killing, stealing, sexual harm, harsh speech and intoxicants. In my first post on Wise Action I described the first two of these precepts. This post describes the other three.

The third precept is to refrain from sexual harm. As with the others, there is a very basic level of this precept, which is that adultery causes suffering. Whereas this is normally a true statement, the very term adultery does not necessarily have meaning for many relationships in the modern world. Even a suggestion that one ought not have any sexual relations outside of a committed relationship does not take into account the many varieties of sexual experience that might or might not cause harm, not to mention that sex has the power to do great harm even within a committed relationship.

Therefore the crux of this precept must be avoiding the creation of harm, of suffering in oneself or in another. Sexual energy is a powerful force and can be used to reinforce intimacy and to have great fun but can also cause great and often permanent harm if misused. As with the previous precept, we must also be cautious that none of our actions are manipulative, creating a situation of seeming consent where at a deeper level there is none. If we use pornography we must ask ourselves a similar question about our assumptions of consent on the part of those who participate in its creation. Is this also a form of sexual harm?

The aspiration form of the precept concerning sexuality is the vow to cultivate responsibility. If we behave responsibly toward all beings, it is unlikely that we will knowingly create sexual harm.

If you study the dharma (the teachings of the Buddha) for a while, it will become evident that many of the terms repeat in different forms and places. Thus it is that Wise Speech is the first part of the Eightfold Path and is also one of the precepts. Specifically, the precept asks us to refrain from harmful speech. I refer you to the post on Wise Speech for a lengthy discussion of this concept.

The aspiration form of this precept is the vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening. I did not write much about listening as a form of skillful speech, but it is an important part of this. To listen deeply is to have no agenda but to listen, to be entirely open to what is being said without judgment and without any impulse to interrupt or begin formulating our response before the other person has stopped speaking. It is a very difficult practice and one to which we are not accustomed. Amazing what you can hear if you are actually listening! It can be quite different from what we thought was being said.

The fifth precept is to refrain from intoxicants. This one is tricky, too. Of course, it would be simple to say that we should avoid all alcohol or other drugs, but this is not necessarily true. For those who can safely do so, a glass of wine or other alcoholic beverage might lead to a greater ability to be present. Many wise people have sworn by hallucinogenics as an aid to realization. Caffeine can an intoxicant if used unwisely. Food can be addictive. Too much sugar can lead to unwholesome mind states.

On the other hand, we need not get into splitting hairs to understand the intent of this precept. We are being asked to refrain from anything that keeps us from a clear awareness. We also avoid use of any substance that has the potential to create harm or in any situation where harm might result (driving after drinking being the classic example). As with all of the precepts, if we align ourselves with the desire to avoid harm and move on a path toward enlightenment, we cannot go far wrong.

The aspiration form of this precept is a vow to ingest only that which preserves peace, well-being, and joy. It is worthwhile reminding ourselves that this means not only our own peace, well-being, and joy, but that of all beings. If our consumption of any substance creates harm for another or has the potential to do so, it should be avoided.

The next step on the path is here.

Eightfold path: Wise Action (part 1)

Wise Action is perhaps the most difficult topic to address without giving the impression that the Buddha was being essentially moralistic. One can read the precepts of Wise Action to mean "thou shalt not" but, as I mentioned in the post introducing the Eightfold Path, the Buddha never gave such dictates. He only told us of those actions and attitudes that tend toward suffering and those that tend away.

In most descriptions (including this one), Wise Action consists of the Five Precepts. Following the Precepts, like all of these teachings, is a matter of comprehending the grosser levels of the precept and then peeling away layers to get at the deeper meaning and then doing our best to practice at this deeper level. As I go along, I will try to describe these layers as I understand them, although I hope it is goes without saying that I am still on the path of seeking these deeper understandings and my wisdom concerning them will be necessarily limited.

The first precept is to refrain from killing. Well, that seems easy. Most of us are not called upon to kill other humans in our day to day lives. But it does not take much peeling away to find the depths of complexity to this precept.

• What if one is a soldier? At what point would it be one's moral duty to kill? At what point would it be one's moral duty to refuse to kill and face the consequences of that refusal? Even if one is not a soldier, at what point does inaction give tacit permission to a government or individual to kill in our name, even if without our explicit permission?
• Most of us have asked ourselves this question: at what point would it be more entirely moral to kill than to allow violence to another? Would the threatened one have to be our child? A loved one? Any defenseless being? This is a very controversial area and there are those who would claim that preventing harm to animals or unborn children fall into the realm of acceptable reasons for killing.
• Then there is the issue of assisted death, helping someone who is terminally ill to die comfortably. Is this killing? Or is it the more compassionate path to take this action? We feel no compunction in putting our dogs out of their misery at the end of their lives; why do we allow our humans to suffer? Is there a higher moral precept for keeping them alive to the very end?
• If we eat meat, we live from killing every day. Where is our obligation here? Where does the precept begin and end? Not even all Buddhist monks are vegetarian; the Dalai Lama himself comes from the Tibetan lineage and (to the best of my knowledge) eats meat.
• When we look to smaller or less clearly useful (or downright obnoxious) forms of life, where does our obligation lie? Is killing rats, mice, cockroaches, mosquitoes, or ants in opposition to this precept? I live in an area of the country where the only persistent pest is small sugar ants, which Kathy and I just sweep to the floor without killing, so it would be easy for me to be smug about this question. But what if I lived where pests infested my house? Would I be so sanguine about them?
• We can go even further down the chain and ask if it is right to kill bacteria and viruses, but this is clearly a place at which the precept cannot apply, since much of the killing is a natural part of our body's defenses. I don't know of any Buddhist sect that would take this precept so far as to prohibit the use of antibiotics; even the most devoted Buddhist would, I believe, see the human form as claiming some primacy over the life of the bacteria that are trying to kill it.

Rather than tying ourselves in ethical knots over all these questions, we can aspire to do the best we can to be the kind of human being the precepts are asking of us. Rodney Smith has come up with an aspiration specific to each precept and for Wise Action he recommends that we aspire to develop compassion toward all beings to the best of our ability. Rather than becoming paralyzed with trying to figure out which way to jump, if we increase our practice of compassion, we cannot go far wrong in practicing this precept.

The second precept is to refrain from taking that which is not freely given. The most basic part of this precept (and where many people stop when considering it) is to refrain from stealing. Once again, most of us can readily claim to abide by this precept in such a basic form; we do not need to steal and know it is wrong to do so. To take another's possessions without their permission is clearly a violation of the social contract; you want to know that your things are relatively safe around others, so you make sure that theirs are safe around you.

But this precept goes much deeper than simply not stealing. How often do we pick up a pen or a paperclip, take a souvenir from a park or perform some other casual act without thinking or assuming that the object is being offered? More subtle yet is when something is offered out of a sense of obligation but without the giver's heart being truly in the gift. How easy it may be for us to manipulate a situation so an offer is made that is not truly the giver's wish; this, too, is something not freely given. It is not enough for us to think that each person must watch out for him- or herself. We must look into our hearts to ensure that what is being offered is being offered freely.

A more subtle form of this precept is allowing others to give to us without overweening pride that prevents them from being generous to us. Giving others the chance to be generous is a form of generosity. Generosity is indeed the aspiration form of this precept. We must look for every chance we can to be generous, though this, as with all the aspirations, must be tempered by wisdom. It is not wise to give away all your possessions if that makes you a beggar dependent on the common purse, though in its purest form to give away all one's possessions and live on the generosity of others can be a noble calling, as many a Buddhist monk in Asia can attest.

I will complete the discussion of Wise Action in the next post.

Eightfold path: Wise Speech

Whereas Wise Speech obviously has to do with what one says, it is perhaps more importantly a way of viewing the world and those in it. One of the most vital teachings of the Buddha is that we are all so thoroughly interconnected and interdependent that to do harm to one is to do harm to all, including ourselves. To lie, to speak ill of another, to gossip, all of these are ways of driving a wedge between others and ourselves. This division is entirely artificial and therefore cannot be otherwise than harmful, a source of suffering.

In all parts of the path we can begin at a very basic level but when the goal is to create the greatest harmony between ourselves and the world, the layers begin to fall away and our actions become ever more subtle and attuned to the true meaning of what it is to be wise within the Eightfold Path. In terms of speech, the most basic level of Wise Speech is truthfulness. This accords with what we were told as children, that to lie is wrong. But it doesn't take much thought to realize that absolute truthfulness is not only a very difficult assignment but is often neither kind nor judicious. One famous example is this: if you know that a man intends to kill your brother and your brother is hiding in your house, if the potential killer comes to your door and asks, "Is your brother inside?", what should you answer? It is clear that there are gradations to the morality of truthfulness.

However, in most instances it is best to frame our answers so they are both truthful and skillful. It is sometimes necessary, I have found, to simply say, "I choose not to answer that question." Not that such an answer would help defend my poor brother from the murderer; in that case a lie is the moral choice. But in everyday commerce, when I am faced with the opportunity to lie or tell the truth, I always choose to tell the truth or warn the questioner that the answer may not be to their liking and then give them the choice to hear the answer. Sometimes I don't even provide that choice if I feel it would create a situation of unhappiness that would have no usefulness.

The truth can also be used as a weapon and must be skillfully applied. When speaking of someone not present, what is our motive, even if we are speaking the truth? If we speak the truth maliciously with the intent of spreading bad news in order to denigrate the person being spoken of, we are not being skillful in our speech. Gossip often falls into this category of speech even when truthful, which often it is not. Rare is the occasion where we have enough information to be certain that the gossip we are repeating is entirely true. Even more rare (and almost nonexistent) are the times when we both have access to the truth and that such speech is entirely necessary and helpful. By these standards, we can see that gossip is never skillful speech, for if it is both entirely truthful and entirely useful, it is no longer gossip but some other form of speech altogether.

Sayadaw U Pandita lists four kinds of "crooked" speech (he draws a contrast between the straightness of the Eightfold Path and the crookedness or actions that are in opposition to the Path): lying; speech which causes disharmony; crude, profane, or coarse speech; and frivolous speech.

It seems to me that this last one, frivolity in speech, is particularly relevant in today's world of nearly nonstop chatter. Facebook posts, tweets, You Tube videos, text messages, emails; all of these are forms of speech and quite often entirely trivial. It is easy to conclude that these are also entirely harmless, but Wise Speech would disagree. When we are distracted by such frivolous speech, we cannot dwell on what is wholesome and beneficial. It is quite clear that often such speech is a blatant attempt to escape the need to focus on what is important because doing so can be frightening. Just as some people in a dark forest cannot help chattering on and on to escape their fear so, on a more subtle level, we often chatter to hide the fear in our day-to-day lives.

Where speech has the potential to do harm, there is another layer of subtlety wherein the harm to be avoided is greater than the harm done. This is a very difficult judgment to make and requires great wisdom. It is better to avoid such speech than to be wrong in speaking in such a way. But it is not acceptable or wise to avoid speech when a greater harm can be averted by speaking honestly, even if the honest speech might cause a lesser harm. A simple example is when you become aware of abuse; to report the abuser (which will undoubtedly cause that person harm) is not evil when the greater evil of abuse can be averted. This level of moral speech has been much in the news lately with the scandal in the Ohio State athletic department. The protective silence of the Catholic church around the sexual abuses of a small minority of priests has served to irreparably harm not only the children who were abused but the credibility of the church itself.

At work, I find myself often in the position of speaking truth to power. I feel this is essential because one of the most subtle forms of unwise speech is to allow false assumptions to take hold which then create the conditions for further falsehood or unwise actions. At the same time, though, I have a reputation for being something of a malcontent, which means that many of my challenges are dismissed as the ravings of the same old lunatic. It is clear that Wise Speech in this context would be to limit my opposition to those things which truly have the potential to cause harm rather than every cockamamie scheme, many of which are clearly smoke and mirrors with absolutely no potential to have any effect, good or bad, on the operation of my clinic. These I could as easily just leave alone and I am learning, quite slowly, to do so.

One mnemonic I was taught that is sometime helpful is T.H.I.N.K. In this paradigm, all speech should be thoughtful, honest, intelligent, necessary, and kind. If it cannot satisfy all five of these criteria, the words are better left unspoken. Of course, we must be wise in applying these standards or we will allow some potentially injurious actions to go unchallenged. (Would it be kind to unmask an abuser? Perhaps not in a very narrow sense, but the greater kindness is to harm the abuser). Nonetheless, when I truly apply the THINK principle, I find that I am silent much of the time. How much of what is say is truly necessary? Is my sarcastic wit kind? Do I think intelligently before I speak? Is my honesty truly thoughtful and necessary, or am I hiding behind a mask of honesty in order to seek revenge or a feeling of superiority?

It is clear that Wise Speech is extraordinarily subtle. Silence is an important form of Wise Speech and is better resorted to than error. But, as described above, silence can also be unskillful speech. There is no one right answer to questions of Wise Speech, but the heart most often knows what is right to do. Even if it requires courage, to speak wisely when the heart says it is right is an important step on the straight path of real wisdom.

The next part of this discussion is here.

The week that was

There is a clerk at my favorite grocery store who, when I see her each Friday, asks me, "So, how was the week that was?" I like this question for some reason, perhaps because I like her, and I usually give her an answer that is both honest and not excessively revealing.

Today, in thinking about "the week that was" I am amazed that it has been so tumultuous. What amazes me even more is the fact that I seemed to have fallen into that old complacency of believing I have figured something out about the world and therefore should somehow be free of confusion or chaos. What I know to be true is precisely the opposite, that confusion and chaos, the unexpected and the unpleasant, the challenges to my assumptions and the evidence of my failures are an integral part of being alive as a human being. What is of value (and what the Buddha taught) is to accept all of these and their positive counterparts as the eddies of a stream, of no more real consequence than a passing cloud.

I am convinced, though, that the Buddha never meant for us to be indifferent or above it all. Quite the contrary, it was his intent that we be right in the middle of it all, that we feel the joy, the disappointment, the love, the hate, the confusion, the certainty as fully as we can while not attaching our expectations or revulsion to any of them.

So, what the heck happened to me this week, anyway?

• I think my friend Debbi is probably sicker than she was. I don't want to say much more because it's not my story to tell, but it makes me very sad. I had to miss seeing her in January when I was prevented from going to California by the snowstorm here, which bugs me.
• I think my car is sicker, too. I know I more or less wrote an epitaph for our dear Polly here some months ago, but she seemed to have a revival of sorts. Over the last few days, though, she has been much worse and is probably not safe to drive anywhere we do not want to get stuck for a few hours. This also necessitates renting cars and using Zipcars, which while pretty convenient, still is not as simple as walking out the door and taking off.
• I lectured to a health class on Wednesday which, while enjoyable, was also stressful, time-consuming and exhausting for me.
• I lecture again today in a more familiar setting, but it's still time-consuming and moderately stressful.
• My every minute the past few weeks has felt claimed by some necessity.
• Several days over the past week I have not gotten as much sleep as I probably need, due to several different causes.
• I am not eating as well or in as disciplined a fashion as I would like.
• I am experiencing some symptoms that are probably benign but could be otherwise. Nothing to alarm me but enough to keep me on low-level alert.
• I am reading a book that is rocking my world a bit, changing the way I think about my work and my relationship to it. The book is Trauma Stewardship by Lipsky and Burk and is about the fact that those of us who care for the broken of the world (or the broken world) internalize some of the trauma felt by those we care for and that, without proper self-care, serious consequences can result. I will no doubt write more about this book once I finish it.
• I find my work to be more stressful and less rewarding by the day. Much of this is a result of economic strictures that, while they have not decreased the funding for my clinic, have asked us to serve more clients with no increase in resources. I find administrators there to be more clueless and less sympathetic than ever before.
• The world is a mess. At least it sometimes seems that way to me. What are we doing? What are we thinking? As I have said before, if I intend to write on political themes I will start a different blog; I will not do that here. But sometimes I do despair. Where have all the true leaders gone? Where is our Martin? Our Gandhi? (Of course, both of those were shot to death, so that may be one answer to my question).
• Someone I love is depressed and that causes me to feel sad by proxy. I want her to be happy and contented, but what I want does not come to pass because I wish it; more's the pity.
• In a parking lot I backed right up to someone's bumper when I parked. I did not do any damage, but he or she was perturbed enough to leave a note on my car threatening me with the insurance company. Whereas I know myself to be blameless, it is still stressful to anticipate that I may get an unpleasant phone call one of these days.
• Not least of all, though I mention it last, seasonal allergies have kicked in for the year and that always makes me cranky and a little foggy, especially at first. I adapt to it later on, but this early I am still pretty disconcerted.

I hope it's understood that I am not complaining, just explaining, as the saying goes. I am trying to make it clear to myself, too, just why I am feeling a bit down and tense. After reading that list (and reflecting on the ongoing stressors like my parents' needs and other such daily thoughts) I guess it's not so surprising.

I am determined to step into the stream of all this and go where it takes me. I sometimes am afraid that I will not like the destination, but I know that my resistance is what creates the suffering I feel. I will survive and thrive.

The Eightfold Path, Introduction

I have a tendency to overcomplicate things (sound familiar?). I think I have said in this blog before that this excessive complication is a way of making myself feel important: since I am such a deep, complex, multifaceted being, the explanations of my behaviors and instructions for the way to happiness in my life must be correspondingly complex, n'est-ce pas?

But when I go back to the Buddha's teachings, what I find again and again is the fact that the Buddha was very clear about the fact that he was teaching only two things: suffering and the end of suffering. Furthermore, all of the complicated ritual, commentary and intricacy (not to mention the divisions, schools, and disagreements) of what has become modern Buddhism is entirely the invention of us complicated humans believing that we must make of a simple message something far more intellectually rigorous and meritorious than was even intended by the man who taught it.

Because what the Buddha said was this and nothing else (all the rest is only further explanation, elucidation or, often, obfuscation): suffering is an outgrowth of our experience as filtered through expectations and suppositions. It is possible to end suffering. The way to end suffering is to follow a simple path. This path is known as the Noble Eightfold Path, though I tend to the opinion that the Noble part is another complication, a way of making us feel self-important as we follow it. So let's just call it the Eightfold Path.

Just as with the rest of the teachings, the Eightfold Path is unambiguous. Which is not to say it is not open to interpretation, but it does not allow for deviations; it says what it says. One may choose not to follow the path, but to circumvent it and claim to still be on it is a form of dishonesty with oneself. At the risk of being redundant, I will say again (if only because I need to hear it) that this is the path to the end of suffering and there is no other.

It's important to remember that the Buddha was not prescriptive ("thou shalt") in his teachings but descriptive ("thus have I seen"). He did not think one ought to follow the Eightfold Path. He merely said that it was possible to reach the end of suffering and that this was the way he had found. He believed (or so it seems to me) that all beings who have reached the end of suffering have in some way or another found this same path, not because they all thought about it really hard and came to the same conclusions (this won't work, so you might as well give up now), but because it is as natural as the opening of a flower and, given the correct conditions, just as inevitable.

So I want to go back to basics and take another look at the Eightfold Path to see where exactly it directs me. For the moment I want to drop all the ornamentation of the lotus and see the lotus itself for what it is, to the best of my ability.

By the way, I will be using as my reference for this exploration the wonderful book In This Very Life, by Sayadaw U Pandita. Well worth a read if you are curious about the basis of Buddhist teaching and thought.

The next part of this discussion is here.