Well, enough talking about world events and wondering why monks are doing this-and-that with regard to politics. Time to talk about suttas again.
One of the most important ones for laypeople, perhaps, is DN 31: the Sigalovada Sutta (Narada Thera | Kelly/Sawyer/Yareham) also known as the Layperson's Code of Discipline. Note there is more than one translation on Access to Insight, and it doesn't include the Maurice Walshe translation from The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha Nikaya.
So which translation do I use? Well, I'm too lazy to type from a book so I'll use one of the ones that I have in electronic form. The John Kelly, Sue Sawyer, and Victoria Yareham translation seems to be a bit more colloquial (using terms like "drinking buddies") while Ven. Nerada's translation is a bit more literal (using terms like "bottle friend"). I'll use the former with reference to the later.
For those who aren't familiar with it, this is a sutta about Sigala the householder, who encounters the Buddha during his morning ritual of "worshiping the six directions" in the literal sense. The Buddha recognizes that the young householder is taking things too literally and doesn't see the significance of the six directions.
At that time a young householder named Sigalaka arose early and set out from Rajagaha with freshly washed clothes and hair. With palms together held up in reverence, he was paying respect towards the six directions: that is east, south, west, north, lower and upper.
...
[The Buddha said:] "But, young man, that is not how the six directions should be worshipped according to the discipline of the noble ones."
The Buddha starts out talking about protecting oneself in the general sense through basic virtue:
"Young man, by abandoning the four impure actions, a noble disciple refrains from harmful deeds rooted in four causes and avoids the six ways of squandering wealth. So, these fourteen harmful things are removed. The noble disciple, now with the six directions protected, has entered upon a path for conquering both worlds, firmly grounded in this world and the next. At the dissolution of the body after death, a good rebirth occurs in a heavenly world.
"What four impure actions are abandoned? The harming of living beings is an impure action, taking what is not given is an impure action, sexual misconduct is an impure action, and false speech is an impure action. These four are abandoned."
At this point he is not addressing the directions specifically but in the more general sense of protecting all directions from oneself and oneself from all directions. Note that the Buddha is speaking of rebirth in a heavenly world and protection in this world; he isn't talking about Nibbana. I should try to find some commentary to confirm, but it sounds like he is speaking to someone who hasn't gone for refuge and may not know anything of Buddha-Dhamma. Therefore we can probably conclude that this is the sort of advice that the Buddha would give to anyone regardless of their stated religion.
Note also that he has covered the first four of the Five Precepts. Why? Because these are the ones that "really matter"; the fifth precept (to abstain from intoxicants) is mostly there because intoxication tends to cause one to break the other four. It's quite possible that intoxicants would be just fine if they didn't cause heedlessness, but really the causes of heedlessness aren't limited to chemical intoxicants. In fact, the Buddha doesn't mention this yet because he's about to elaborate on the whole subject of heedlessness-causing things in a big way later in the sutta. He may also not mention it in brief here because, without additional explanation, urging him to avoid intoxicants might seem arbitrary and dogmatic to Sigala at this point.
So, this covers the four impure actions. These four actions tend to be condemned by Buddhists and non-Buddhist alike.
"What are the four causes of harmful deeds? Going astray through desire, hatred, delusion, or fear, the noble disciple does harmful deeds. But, young man, not going astray through desire, hatred, delusion, or fear, the noble disciple does not perform harmful deeds."
That is what the Buddha said.
Summing up in verse, the sublime teacher said:
"Desire, hatred, delusion, or fear:
Whoever transgresses the Dhamma by these,
Has a reputation that comes to ruin,
Like the moon in the waning fortnight.
Desire, hatred, delusion, or fear:
Whoever transgresses not the Dhamma by these,
Has a reputation that comes to fullness,
Like the moon in the waxing fortnight."
Now the Buddha is getting a bit deeper, talking not only about the more obviously harmful actions but harmful deeds in general and what causes them. Why he would describe these in terms of "reputation" I'm unsure, but perhaps it's because this would have more obvious meaning for Sigala, who might not believe in a doctrine of kamma.
For negative actions that one might "get away with" in the legal sense, because perhaps the actions are bad but not actually illegal, reputation and the political consequences of being a harmful individual are probably the most obvious natural consequence. And again, we might imagine here that the Buddha could be talking to a Christian or someone to whom the idea of kamma might not mean anything, whereas "bad reputation" would.
So at this point the Buddha has covered basic core virtue for anyone, and the six directions only in general. Next in the sutta the Buddha describes specific activities to be avoided (and thus some things with more specific political implications) and that will be the topic of my next post.
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