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.