The Zen Wisdom of Jesus and Buddha

Since the age of twenty-one, I have been attracted to the philosophies and faiths of Asia, especially Buddhism. Which is pretty strange considering I grew up on a small farm in Georgia, was saved at 13 and baptized in the Baptist Church. Of course Jesus was my role model. Then came the turmoil of the 60s. By 20 I no longer thought Jesus was God. By 1968 after the assassinations of ML King and Robert Kennedy I was in dispair and didn’t believe in anything, especially the “God” that Baptists taught. But soon I found answers–in what may seem far from my childhood faith --in Zen Buddhism. And I woke up one morning to realize that I was connected in total oneness to a Timeless and Infinite Universe. Now I don’t deny Jesus’ divinity. I don’t deny anyone’s divinity. Jesus is a wonderful model of what humans can be. And so is Buddha. I was raised on Jesus. I had to search for Buddha. And what I found was they were two masters with one message. I believe the teachings of Buddha and Jesus offer a way to end human suffering. But I believe Jesus and Buddha were trying to heal human pain in this life, not just the next life. Jesus’ remedy was called the Kingdom of Heaven and Buddha’s tonic was called Nirvana. Of course we Unitarian Universalists are not much interested in getting people into heaven, but we are interested in getting heaven into people. I think that is the message of Jesus and Buddha. Both Jesus and Buddha taught the inner person is more important than outer image or ritual. Both proclaimed that love and compassion for others were the highest ideals. And not just to love your friends. That what every society expects. Good Zen masters have to think outside the box.



Jesus said. “You have heard it said, love your neighbor. But I tell you, love your enemies, be good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who hurt you.” “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Buddha said, ”See yourself in others, who then can you hurt.” “Hate never overcomes hate. Only love overcomes hate. Cultivate boundless love toward all beings.”

There is evidence that the teachings of Buddha, who probably was born around 560 BC influenced Jesus’ teachings. By 30 AD Buddhism had already gone east, met the Taoism of China and become Zen. Buddhist monks seemed to have wandered as far west as Alexandria Egypt by the time of Jesus. These mendicants may have influenced a whole wave of wandering philosophers including the the Cynics, the Stoics, as well as that little band around Jesus that later split into the Gnostics and the orthodox church.

Of course Christianity as we know it is strongly influenced by Paul who was steeped in ancient mystery religions and Greek philosophy. Some people even think Jesus never lived but was a vision of Paul’s as a kind of western Buddha ; it was later orthodox Christians who twisted the original teaching about Jesus into a powerful way to maintain control over the Roman Empire. I do think the original followers of Jesus were probable the Gnostics, for they taught that Jesus’s resurrection was not literal but symbolized enlightenment. Buddha was actually canonized in the early church as Saint Barlaam. So Zen wisdom can be attributed to both Jesus and Buddha. Zen is everyday spirituality; It is living in the moment. It is being mindful, awake to Reality. Zen is religion stripped of false ritual and pretense. Enlightenment is seeing that the natural order of things is often just the opposite of what we normally think. Thus Zen wisdom is often called“crazy wisdom.” Conventional wisdom is if we follow the rules and obey laws and conventions the world will treat us fairly.

Conventional wisdom says you can bargain with God or society. But Jesus and Buddha will have none of that. Jesus always insisted that the “first shall be last.” He was a good Zen Master. Jesus subversively taught that who would save his life (by being proper and moral) will lose it. If you are nice in order to get into heaven then you don’t deserve to get into heaven. And Buddha agrees. He said, “The fool who knows he is a fool is that much wiser.” ”The enlightened one is liberated by not clinging.” In other words you can’t be enlightened by trying to be enlightened. So Jesus and Buddha are my teachers, my Zen masters. That is why I often label myself a Zen Baptist.

I recognize the need to be born again --to be transformed, to have a direct experience of ultimate reality, that was taught by the original Baptists, Quakers Gnostics, even Universalists. Whether independently or interdependently both Jesus and Buddha preached the perennial philosophy which Aldous Huxley said may be found among all religions. He said, “There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” The term “Perennial Philosophy” was coined by German philosopher Gottfried Leibnitz to described the ancient wisdom that the appearance of the world of separate things is an illusion-–Instead there is really only one all encompassing Reality.

The perennial philosophy does not insist that there is a God out there or here or anyplace. Rather there is unity underlying everything, similar I believe to what physicist David Bohm called quantum interconnectedness and Emerson called, “The Over-Soul.” The Zen Buddhist Huang Po said, “All Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing else exists.”

The medieval Christian monk Meister Eckhart taught, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” This teaching of course got him excommunicated.

Both Jesus and Buddha say what all mystics say––and I have felt it too––we are connected to something greater than ourselves and to each other, and we must treat each other accordingly. Despite this message of Jesus and Buddha, they seem like the yin and yang of religious prophets. Jesus is said to be born a peasant, Buddha a prince. Jesus evidently did not know who his father was, claiming the infinite was his “father.” Buddha rejected his father, and proclaimed the infinite a void.

Jesus of Nazareth is portrayed as an intuitive, emotional, loving, healing man; Siddhartha, the Buddha, a rational, thinking solver of the most perplexing of human problems. It has been said that Jesus healed the body, Buddha healed the mind. Jesus was crucified on a tree at the age of 33 for criticizing the ruling elites. Buddha died peacefully at the age of 80 while resting under a tree.

Yet they both taught a way of inner transformation so radical that eventually they were both seen as more than human. For centuries they have served as symbols of the sacred who offered a way of salvation and liberation. For many they are mythic figures who transcend death. (pause) The peasant Jesus became the Christ, the Anointed. The prince Siddhartha became the Buddha, the Awakened.

The religions that later sprang up around them offered escape from this world. But that is to totally misunderstand their message. And neither was interested in being glorified. Buddha said, “A fool wants recognition and a place over other people.” Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” To actually worship Jesus and Buddha is to make a mockery of that message. Instead these two sages called on all to live according to what each called “The Way.” Both taught inner change and inner peace comes from that inner awareness of unity— which means all dualisms disappear: Male, female, good and evil, God and self. No wonder Jesus said, “The Father and I are one. and “you are all Gods” No wonder Buddha said, “More than all the joys of heaven is entering into the One Stream.”

Those who have been baptized in such waters are said to be enlightened, to be awake, to be reborn, to be in heaven. And that creates a different outlook from our conventional wisdom. Of this new way of seeing— Buddha said to his followers, “You are the lamp to lighten the way.“ Jesus told his disciples, “You are the light of the world.”

Yet in spite of the light they preached, both Jesus and Buddha lived in dark times. The Graeco-Roman world had overpowered the peasant society of Jesus. The Romans ruthlessly ruled Judea, Samaria and Galilee. Siddhartha was born into a society in which his people, the Indo-Aryans had conquered the dark-skinned natives of the Indian subcontinent and imposed a caste system. With the inequities of such cultures there arises the recognition that something is broken in the unity of the world. Jesus and Buddha were looking for a way to mend that broken condition. Jesus challenged the priestly caste of Judea which had attached itself to Roman might. Those priest had become that era’s religious and political fundamentalists. Of course Jesus satirized them in Zen-like parables. Instead of “What is the sound of one hand clapping” he said—”The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Jesus expanded on the ideas of the Hebrew prophets who came before him—the Amoses and Isaiahs, who challenged the complacent, saying God demanded justice not sacrifice—that empty ritual was no substitute for inner change. “Unless you humble yourself and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.” (pause)

Siddhartha also criticized the ritualized Brahmanism of his day. With cool logic he proclaimed sacrifice and the caste system worthless. For they did nothing to alleviate human suffering. All still face disease, decay and death. And no amount of fiery rites could stop that. Once Siddhartha saw this problem, his mind would not let go of it until he solved it. Leaving his father’s palace, his beautiful wife and son, Siddhartha gave away his riches and power. He followed forest dwellers and meditating monks. He fasted, he held his breath, he wrestled with the problem.

Siddhartha could find in the many gods of his faith only empty symbols. He abandoned rules and rituals. He sought the ultimate truth of enlightenment. And after years of meditation, one day sitting under a tree he woke up, and became the Buddha. His solution, “All deeds are led by the mind. If one acts with serene mind happiness follows. There is an end to suffering by letting go and rejecting craving.”

Both sages had dropped out of the conventional roles of society at about the age of thirty and retreated to the wilderness to get in touch with their higher selves and both returned to the world to proclaim this new Way of seeing. Neither Way was an easy path for the followers they attracted. For both preached the death of the ego. Jesus told his followers to die to their old selves and be “born again” and Buddha said to awake one must destroy the rafters of the house called “self”. Yet neither was strictly an ascetic. Each tried a middle way between the extremes of wealth and poverty, so of course they displeased almost everybody: Jesus’ critics said “The son of man came eating and drinking and you say, Look at the glutton and drunkard— a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”

When Buddha quit his long fast to find the Middle Way some of his followers abandoned him, saying: “Friends here comes the recluse Gautama who lives luxuriously, who gave up his striving and reverted to luxury.”

Both Jesus and Buddha found their new way of seeing reality made them challenge the hypocrisy around them. The following quotes from Marcus Borg from his book, “Jesus and Buddha, The Parallel Sayings,” illustrate my point. The Buddha said “Just as a line of blind men go by, holding on to each other, and the first one sees nothing, the middle one sees nothing, and the last one sees nothing—so it is with the talk of priests.”

“If a blind person leads another blind person,” said Jesus to the priests, “both of them will fall into a hole.” Said Jesus, “Blessed are those with a pure heart, they will see God.” Buddha said “The way is not in the sky, the way is in the heart.” Jesus also said, “Out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.

Buddha said “One does not become pure by washing, as do the multitudes in this world. Who casts way every attachment, great and small, that one is a true brahmin.“ These sages weren’t about setting up rules of behavior but about compassion: They wanted humans to let love take them beyond the letter of the law.

Said Jesus,”If someone slaps you on the right cheek turn the other cheek as well. If someone takes your coat, give him your shirt and pants as well.”

Buddha said, “If anyone should strike you with the hand, with a stick or with a knife, you should abandon all desires and say no bad words.”

“Do not judge and you will not be judged,” said Jesus. “Don’t go looking for the splinter in your brother’s eye and not notice the plank in your own eye,”

Buddha said, “How easy its to see your brother’s faults, how hard to see your own.”

So these masters taught a way of being that turns social status upside down, because we are all connected, all children of the cosmos. Both preached nonattachment and freedom from material worries. Both these homeless itinerant preachers depended on others to feed them, yet they are seen as holy figures (even by those who still pray to them for success). Jesus said, “Foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” Buddha said “Live joyfully on the edge of the forest without desire, without possessions.”

As I said, Zen is about living in the moment with mindfulness. Jesus said, “Don’t worry about life, wondering what you will eat or drink or what you will wear. Surely life is more than food and the clothes you wear. Look at the birds. They do not sow, they do not reap, they do not store food in barns. Yet the heavenly father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than birds.” Buddha said, “Like a bird, one rises on the air and flies an invisible course. One wishes for nothing. One’s food is knowledge. One lives on emptiness, One has brokenfree.” They were concerned that over attachment to wealth and power can be an impediment to a spiritual life, a life devoted to the nourishment of others as well as self.

Jesus told one young man, “If you wish to be perfect go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Buddha said, “The fool laughs at generosity. The miser cannot enter paradise, but the master finds joy in giving and happiness is the reward.”

Both Buddha and Jesus were not only critics of social status but of the family values of their times. Treating your family well was not enough. You must of course see everyone as your family.

A would-be follower of Jesus said, “Let me go first and bury my father,” Jesus responded with the very Zen-like “Leave the dead to bury the dead.” When told that his mother and brothers were outside waiting for him Jesus said, “Who are my mother and my brothers? Whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.” Mark 2.2 relates that after Jesus began his ministry, “his relatives set out to size him convinced he was out of his mind.”

The Buddha’s father gave orders that he was to be locked in his palace and never see the suffering of the outside world, lest he be tempted to renunciation. No wonder Buddha said, “As the rivers flowing to the ocean lose their names, so do my followers lose there former names and become children of the Buddha.”

Jesus described God as his “Abba” - or Father (and according to Gnostic sources his Mother, however this “God” is a metaphor for universal mind emanating from the dark void), while Buddhists speak not of God as a separate personal being, but of “Sunyata”, a vast womb-like emptiness, which cannot be described. And attaining Nirvana causes one to become free from craving, free from violence, free from competitiveness. Buddha said, “There is an unborn, an unoriginated, an uncompounded, were there not, there would be no escape from the world of the born, the originated, and the compounded.”

Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of Heaven, but Heaven is not a place but a state of mind. In the long-lost Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus proclaims, “The Realm of God is already spread on the earth, but people do not realize it. The realm is inside you and outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and will understand that you are children of the Eternal.” Buddha said, “Look within yourself and be still. Free yourself from fear and attachments. Know the sweet joy of the way.”

Of course Jesus’ Zen view of God seems to be quite different from those who say God answers all prayers and brings prosperity to those who follow him. As a matter of fact praying for these things has no effect. He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Heavenly father, for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain to the honest and to the dishonest.”

And the teachings of the Buddha are in agreement, “That great cloud rains down on all whether their nature is superior or inferior. The light of the sun and of the moon illuminates the whole world.” I’m not sure that Jesus and Buddha expected their teachings to change the world immediately. They were trying to plant some seeds. When asked, “What is the Kingdom of Heaven like?” Jesus said, “What can I compare it to? It is like a insignificant mustard seed which a person planted in the garden. It grew and became a large tree and the birds made nests in its branches.” Jesus also compared the Kingdom to yeast and a wedding. So entering this Kingdom, the Realm of God is just a beginning, not an end in itself. As Buddha said, “Do not underestimate your virtues or say they are nothing. As a bowl fills with water drop by drop so a Wise One is filled with virtue little by little.”

The Way of Buddha and Jesus challenges the modern materialistic world view that the universe is utterly indifferent to us. I agree with them that we are more than an accident of matter and energy. We are part of the unity. To Jesus, that unity is symbolized as a parent full of love. Thus we are urged to love one another with a pure heart.

To the Buddhist, the metaphor for unity is called the Net of Indra--a vast interdependent web. Suffering is caused when we cling to the illusion that we are separate from all other beings. Thus we must treat each other with love. And cultivate a pure heart and mind. Heaven or nirvana comes when we experience that we are part of this grand unity, the true source of reality. Then we can all become lamps, Buddhas or Christs.

Said Jesus: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you.”

And Buddha says “All things arise and pass away. But the awakened awake forever.”So be it, Shalom, Shanti

Which Way is the Way?

I can’t believe I’m sitting here. I‘ve never sat in this seat, and I haven’t been here in a long, long time. To be here today, particularly at this time in my life, is very touching to me. I want to thank you all for your practice and your big lives and I especially thank Cal for inviting me and to Sekijun, my sister, for her dedication and also her kindness and encouragement. And I most especially thank Katagiri roshi whose practice inspired me to continue to find the way. I also thank my preceptor, Dosho Port sensei, who continues to help me touch the truth.I am returning to the world. I’ve been gone for three months. On Easter I came back from a three month retreat, a solo silent meditation intensive in a cabin about 20 miles north of St. Croix Falls. I would have liked to go to a monastery, but I have this problem with incense—it’s a very serious problem with incense, so there wasn’t anywhere I could go. I couldn’t figure out where I could go, so I went by myself instead. I’m in a transition from that to I don’t know what, to the rest of my life. I will say that the retreat time was very challenging and transformative and I learned so much, and I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to do that. I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to be with you and share what I can, a little bit of the fruit of deep practice. It’s pretty hard for us to get away like that and take that time to do that. Also I was making jokes, imagining giving a talk while I was there. You know when you see a trick on TV, and they say, “Don’t try this at home”? [laughter] I was imagining saying, “Please, this is for professionals. Don’t try this at home!” Here is a poem by Hongshi Zenji, a Chinese Zen ancestor, which I recited every morning as part of my personal service when I was on retreat. It is “The Heart of Zazen.”Essential function of all the Buddhas,Functioning essence of all the ancestors,It knows without touching things.It illumines without facing objects.Knowing without touching things, its knowledge is inherently subtle.Illumining without facing objects, its illumination is inherently mysterious.Its knowledge inherently subtle, it is ever without discriminatory thought.Its illumination inherently mysterious, it is ever without a hairsbreadth of sign.Its illumination comprehends without grasping.The water is clear, right through to the bottom.A fish goes lazily along.The sky is vast, without horizon.A bird flies far, far away.I think I sang some of it. I sing a lot. I would sing it to myself. Do you get it? [laughter] It’s really amazing that he could write something that is exactly the heart of practice, the truth. So I’m going to talk about this and I’m going to talk about Layman Pang, a little koan story from Layman Pang, and I’ll tell you who he is in a minute.What is the work of the way? What is that? “The water is clear, right through to the bottom. . . . The sky is vast, without horizon.” Which way do we go to find the way? Which way? What motivates us to take it up, to take up the question? And what do we find on the path as we go? When we take up our travelling stick and we begin our journey, what do we ask? What is this beauty? What is this pain? What IS this? Who am I and why do I suffer and also why do I cause suffering? What is the meaning of this? Do you ever ask yourself that?When we ask that, we ask the same question the Buddha asked himself, and he jumped over the palace wall and left. You know, when you’re deep in retreat, deep things come from the mind. You don’t know where they’re coming from—a deep place. For me, given my root tradition of being Jewish and the Old Testament is in there somehow, sometimes passages from the Old Testament would arise in my whole being and become illuminated, to my shock and amazement. Sometimes they would come up in Hebrew, and I don’t speak or read Hebrew, so I don’t know how that happened. But one is “Lech L'cha”—“Go forth, leave your father’s house.” Abraham heard in his inmost heart the voice that the Buddha heard. “Leave your father’s house and go to a land which I will show you. Leave the house bounded by the conditions of self-clinging and go to the land flowing with milk and honey.” Isn’t that fantastic? It’s the same. It’s the same question. It’s the same journey.There’s a Zen saying that I found on my wonderful Zen calendar that my friend gave me when I went on retreat. Maybe you have this one, you know, where you tear off the days? “All things flow freely as a fish swims in water.” Does it feel like that? [laughter] How deep do we have to do to see that? Pretty deep.This poem by Hongzhi Zenji tells what that is, that flowing, this ordinary, non-ordinary heart. This is a mystical practice we’re doing here. There are all kinds of practical aspects, but it is about illuminating our existence, about quenching the thirst, about answering the question that has no answer.I want to say that this practice very ordinary people can do, like me, like you, and when we do we can enter the realm of Rumi and the Christian mystics and the psalms and Moses and all of them—we can do it. But it requires the utmost of us—the utmost discipline, and the utmost compassion, and the utmost effort, and the utmost persistence. So as our practice refines itself and us, we see what is required as we go. Thank goodness we don’t have to figure it all out—in the next moment, just breathe. Sometimes for me, I ask, “WHAT? You want me to do WHAT? No, no, no, no, no. Usually I say no, no, no and that’s my way of saying yes, yes, yes, But first I have to say no, no. It’s too big. It’s too much. I’m too scared. Don, my husband, is sitting right there. He knows, first I say no, but he waits, [laughter] because he knows it’s just my way. Just give me one more minute!The Buddha said as his last words—sometimes they say one thing in one place and another thing in another place about his last words—one of his last words was, “Work out your salvation with diligence.” He also said, “Be a lamp unto yourself.” Wow.Something pokes us, motivates us, calls us, and we step out into the unknown, out of our habitual comfort or out of our habitual pain. Clarifying our own questions puts us in the way of the Way, doesn’t it? We get close, and we get closer. This is in the way of being intimate, frighteningly, brilliantly close to who we are, beyond apprehensions, which is just what this poem is pointing to. When I took jukai in 1980 with Katagiri roshi, Byakuren Judith was sitting right next to me, right over there. Suddenly the question of the suffering of all living beings was recognized as my personal, inmost quest, right in the middle of the ceremony. I have to say, I had no idea what I was getting into. Probably it was a good thing. I have spent many, many years enter this question of the suffering of all living beings. Save all living beings? Who? What? How? What is that?While I was on retreat, I had to chop wood every day. Every day, like it or not, because I was in a cabin, and sometimes I was very tired. I sat six hours a day, but sometimes when I was chopping wood a lot happened. In March one day I was chopping wood and I started sobbing. I cried every single day, many times, so I just said well, now what’s going on? All of a sudden—this is so wild—out of my deep mind this question came up: Why couldn’t Moses cross into the promised land? WHY? I was almost laughing while I was crying. Oh, my God. [laughter] Where is this coming from? But it had me by the throat, as they say, so I ran into my cabin, plugged in my little e-mail thing, e-mailed my friend who’s in rabbinical school and also Clark Strand, who’s the Bible koan guy, and I said, “I have to know! Tell me! What do you know?” My friend e-mailed me back Talmudic commentaries and said, “Good luck. Nobody knows the answer to that question.” [laughter] Clark Strand e-mailed me back a clarification of the question. I really wanted to punch him. But, it was helpful. He said, “It has nothing to do with Moses’ character or his actions. So he clarified the question. He said, “It’s a universal question with a universal answer and the question is ‘Why couldn’t SHE cross?’”Who is the question about? It really was amazing because I couldn’t put it down. I was in the bathtub, throwing water around the little bathroom. “I don’t understand! I need to know!” I knew what was happening, but still. And then in bed, crying, crying, “Why? Why? He was an enlightened being! Why couldn’t he cross?”We say cross all the time—cross the river. The river came up a lot. There was a river right outside my door, and images of the river come up in our practice, crossing over, crossing over, cross to the other shore. I burned with that question. I burned and it started to burn inside and reveal itself. That’s what I mean, getting close to your question, intimate, so intimate that there’s no you asking the question. Then maybe we can fall down the rabbit hole of realization.This is the burning, so let’s just take a minute to breathe, and look inside, and see if there’s a question lurking around in there. Just breathe into your own heart and your own gut. It’s OK if it’s just a big nothing. We’re just on the way. This is the way. Even if what you’re hearing is “I don’t know,” that’s great. On our journey, we try to get a sense of how to choose our direction, and who should be our companion, and by what standards we acknowledge our process. We all know that there’s no easy answer, and there’s no one answer, and things are changing all the time. Let’s look at one of these stories from Layman Pang. Do you know Layman Pang? Layman Pang was born around 740 CE in Jiang [?] Province in China. His name means “Lofty Interior.” He died on August 3rd, 808 according to this book. At this time in China there as a great flowering of Ch’an, or Zen. He met incredible teachers. His father was the prefect of Hangyeng and Pang lived there and he married, he had a son and a daughter. His daughter, with whom he was very close, was named Ling Zhao, which means “Spirit Shining.” They spent a lot of time together, wandering around, selling bamboo utensils. When he became middle aged, he gave his house to be used as a temple, and sank his money and his possessions in the river, which blew people’s minds because they still talk about it. Because it was also a very difficult time, and people were hungry, but he didn’t give everything away because he didn’t want people to be confused by having possessions. He didn’t want to hurt anyone’s chance of getting in the way of the way, so he put them in the river as a compassionate action.His son became a farmer and supported Mrs. Pang, and Pang and Ling Zhao wandered around and sold implements. In 785 he traveled to Zen master Shi Tou, “Cloud Cliff Cloudy Light,” and was enlightened by him immediately. They had one of those dialogues, you know? I’m dying to have one of these. [laughter] You ask one question, the teacher goes like this, or coughs, or says something, and crack! That’s it! Anyway, he had one of those, and he stayed with that guy for a year, and then he went to another incredible teacher, Ma Tsu, often called Master Ma. With Master Ma Layman Pang experienced great, complete, unsurpassed enlightenment, and stayed there for two years and received transmission—permission to teach—from Ma Tsu. Shi Tou and Ma Tsu were seven generations after Bodhidharma, considered the first great Zen ancestor, bringing Ch’an from India to China.Then he traveled around and met with monks and they liked to see who had the deepest realization, so they would have these little contests and talk to each other, and that’s how they had fun. He wrote a lot of verses to set down his understanding too. And then he went, toward the end of his life, back to a cave near Xianyan [?] with his daughter, and I just want to mention that he had a friend, the prefect Yu Chi, [?] who set down all of his verses in a collection. Also, if you ever want to read about Yu Chi, he had a kind of a wild life and conversion experience that’s quite interesting.Then there’s a story that when Layman Pang was ready to die, he got all ready, he took a bath, and he was going to sit on his cushion and die sitting. His daughter said, “Father! Come and look! I think the eclipse is happening.” He went to the door of the cave and looked, and then his daughter jumped on his seat and died first. He and his daughter had this sort of friendly, loving dharma competition thing going their whole life. [laughter] So she won. He thought that was great, by the way. Then, a week later, he died. Layman Pang defies categories, which pleases me tremendously. He had no ambition, he was a lay practitioner who lived like a monk, yet he declined to become a monk. He did not give lectures or train disciples. He loved the Vimalakirti Sutra, and I just want to say, I spent so many years on Wednesday nights in this room, listening to Hojo-san discuss the Vimalakirti Sutra. I didn’t understand one thing he said, [laughter] but I was here every Wednesday and now I can study it. Wait, I do remember one thing—that there were like 500,000 bodhisattvas in a 10 by 10 room with Vimalakirti, and Vimalakirti pretended to be sick to get them all to come so he could argue with them about whose understanding was deeper, and he always won, by the way. That I do remember.Vimalakirti, just like Layman Pang, could pursue many activities forbidden to monks without it affecting him, and yet be bested all the monks and all the bodhisattvas too in his discussions. When I read you this little short, short story, which you probably have heard, maybe, see for yourself who us this story about? Who does it describe? And what is the point for you, okay?
The layman was sitting in his thatched cottage one day. “Difficult! Difficult! Difficult!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree.”“Easy! Easy! Easy!” returned Mrs. Pang. “Just like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed.”“Neither difficult nor easy!” said Ling Zhao. “On the hundred grass tips, the patriarchs’ meaning.”
“Difficult! Difficult! Difficult!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree.” Can you imagine? You have sesame seed, trying to get it to stick on a tree. Have you ever had that experience with anything? [laughter] You know? When we practice, sometimes it’s exactly like this, isn’t it? Our concentration is—what is it? It’s nowhere. Nowhere. We don’t know what we’re doing, and sometimes then we react with frustration and self-abnegation and doubt. WE can’t do IT, or something. The joke is that each of the mind states that arises is the gate. Even the aversive mind state is the gate to freedom. It’s not a sign of failure. But, do I see that? Do we see that. Just look inside—what happens then, when it’s just not going the way we thought it ought to, or hoped it would?The habit of clinging to like and dislike and my view and just about everything is so strong that I can miss the boat. Even though I’m holding on to the rail of the boat, I miss the boat. But, in next moment I might catch the boat. Then come back again and again and again. This idea of the joke that every mind state is itself the gateway to freedom--I want to read you what Master Ma thought about this. This is a summation by Tsung-mi, the fifth and last ancestor of the Hua-yen sect. “Our arousing the mind and moving thought, snapping the fingers, moving the eyes, etc., is wholly the activity of Buddha-nature itself, and not the movement of anything else. In a word, the entirety of our wanting something, getting angry at something, or arousing the passion is all Buddha-nature.” That’s a radical view. “Since the Way as it is is mind, we cannot cultivate mind with mind. Since evil is also mind, we cannot cut off mind with mind. Not trying to cut off evil or trying to cultivate good, just letting things follow their own courses and being ourselves is what they call liberation of mind.”That is so profound. It sounds like, “Well, why practice, then? Just be yourself. That’s the liberation of mind.” That’s an interesting question. What does that mean? Being ourselves? Not trying to cut off evil or cultivate good? That seems like, “What about . . ?” In the midst of some strong aversive mind state lately that I’ve experienced, one thing I’ve been doing is dedicating whatever is happening to the liberation of all beings, right in the middle of these strong experiences. What happens then is quite astonishing. It really becomes a liberating gate. The practicing, like training for a marathon, is to be able to stay with, stay with, not control, not even understand, but stay with, deeper and deeper into the question. Sometimes we forget our question. What am I doing in sesshin? Why am I here? What am I doing here? Or we lose the energy of it. We forget what we’re doing, and sometimes we enter the dry desert where there’s very little joy and it all feels very rote and dry, just going through the motions. Difficult, difficult, difficult. We all know this. In the three months I was away, all of these things happened that I just said, over and over again. Sometimes I was just able to assert my discipline and begin again. I’m a pretty disciplined person, and I could just take it up. Sometimes I would read something from the Flower Ornament Sutra, which is just gorgeous beyond gorgeous, and it would inspire me. Or sometimes I would take a walk or have a cup of tea or write in my journal, and sometimes I just cried. Sometimes I called my kalyana mitra, my spiritual friend, who had agreed to be my support person while I was gone. Also there was a thing about balance on a long retreat, and I was all alone. I had to kind of have this inner grandmother that would say, “Don’t push now,” or “You have to eat. I don’t care if you don’t want to eat. You will eat.” I couldn’t get so strung out that I couldn’t deal with my survival needs. It was a race, I’ll tell you, but it was very interesting. I had some sense about “All right, where is the balance in this moment? Come back to balance,” which wasn’t about denying what was happening. It was sanity. It didn’t mean I understood what was happening, either. One evening, toward the end of my retreat, I was sitting and I just completely didn’t know what I was doing at all any more. I put my head on the floor and I said, “AAAHHHH! I can’t do this any more! I don’t know what I’m doing!” I carried on for awhile like that. [laughter] You know, it’s great when there’s nobody to blame it on. You’re just there by yourself. Then I think I did walking meditation and then I sat down again. I just went on. Another thing that can happen when we do intensive practice is that there can be a lot of purification experiences. Generally speaking, these might not be so pleasant. The mystics that we know of like Rumi and Hildegard of Bingen—we don’t get to hear what it was really like. We just hear their poetry, which inspires us, but what was their actual physical, mental, emotional vast experience moment to moment? What were their lives like? I don’t think it was so easy. I could tell you stories, but they’re different for everybody, and they’re just a story. It’s a story and it’s passing through a particular territory. I’m so well trained—Hojo-san said, “Phenomena is not enlightenment. Phenomena is not enlightenment. Phenomena is not enlightenment.” There were a lot of phenomena, which is what happens when we’re burning karma for all living beings. What is happening? Sometimes I thought, “Where is this coming from? I’m just this sort of ordinary person, I haven’t been in a war, I haven’t murdered anyone.” But it’s for everyone, and we take it up. It’s probably too late for all of you right now. When we take it up, we take it up for all beings, and that’s a lot of work, but also without being for all beings, I wouldn’t have enough energy to do what it is myself. It inspires me.I want to say that it’s really normal if you do this and this kind of intense stuff happens for you. Please don’t worry. Please have a spiritual friend to connect with, or a teacher, but don’t worry. It’s normal. This is what happens. It’s written about. Joen Snyder O’Neal told me that this Korean nun wrote about her time in hermitage and it was almost exactly my experience. That was very reassuring. It’s very important to open to it all with a deep cultivation of compassion—really important—and also steady equanimity. I have a friend, whom I love, who practices deeply, deeply, deeply, and he is very quiet and smooth, and that’s how he does it. My equanimity doesn’t look like that, but it’s still equanimity. Even though I put my head on the floor and go “AAAHHH! I don’t know what I’m doing,” really that’s my way of staying with it. It’s really equanimous. I’m not quitting. I want to open up the expression of equanimity very wide and this is linked to trust in the practice, and in the lineage, which says that many, many, many beings have walked this way, just like us, just like me, just like this. This is the work, exactly like this, and many, many are doing it right now in many traditions. This very moment, this very work, this is the Way. We’re actually doing it. We’re upholding the Way. It’s not only some ancient Chinese people, wearing outfits like this. It’s you in your life for real. This is the work of it, to see clear right through to the bottom. I want to read you a poem that I love so much. It’s called The Law that Marries All Things.1.The cloud is free onlyto go with the wind.The rain is freeonly in falling.The water is free onlyin its gathering together,in its downward courses,in its rising into the air.2.In law is restif you love the law,if you enter, singing, into itas water in its descent.3.Or song is truest law,and you must enter singing;it has no other entrance.It is the great chorusof parts. The only outlawryis in division.4.Whatever is singingis found, awaiting the returnof whatever is lost.5.Meet us in the airover the water,sing the swallows.Meet me, meet me,the redbird sings,here here here here.That’s by Wendell Berry. It’s the truth.So then Mrs. Pang says, “Easy! Easy! Easy! Just like touching your feet to the ground.” Just chop wood, just this step, just take the compost over to the teepee frame and dump it, just wander lonely as a cloud on the frozen marshes where I was. Nothing to do or say or know or figure, not happy, not unhappy. I had a quote up on my sink from George Carlin, the comedian: “Always do the next thing.” Oh yeah—the next thing, breathing.In sesshin we don’t have to know what the next thing is. Isn’t that great? The bell rings and we do the next thing. It just rises up and we are met. Hojo-san used to say, “Just take one step, and very naturally the next step will arise.” But do you forget that sometimes? When things are flowing or opening I like it, and when they are painful or scary I notice dislike. That’s human. That’s just human. This like and dislike fool me, which is the good moment? Which is not good moment? How do I discern? Should I discern? It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Dogen Zenji says in the Fukanzazengi, “If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.” I sort of understand what he means now. For me, Mr. and Mrs. Pang’s speech shows me this is how it is. This is my own goings-on they’re talking about. This is real! It’s really simple. It’s really, really like this, and they point to my tendency to hold to a concept of what practice should be like. Do you have an idea about what should be happening? Here’s a quote from Art and Fear, a book by Bayles and Orland: “Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art”--realize the Way—“and tolerance for uncertainty is a prerequisite to succeeding.” This work of navigating difficult and easy--that’s the work. That’s what we do. Water clear all the way to the bottom, vast sky transparent throughout, and then who is the one who wants to know? Who wants to know? Who is the one who wants to know how it’s going? Who is that one? Bring me the rhinoceros fan. That’s from a koan. It just came up right now. I want to encourage us to say that the compassion and equanimity that it takes to do this work is enormous. It is. It’s enormous and ongoing, and it means having a very large view and a wide container for everything that’s happening, the changing states of body and mind and bringing all the phenomena back to the center. Turn the light around, right here, right now, giving everything that arises the opportunity to reveal itself, to reveal its Buddha-nature to us. Its true nature is unfixed and it gives us the opportunity to see and experience the suffering when we fix, when we cling. Really see that very clearly, returning again and again and again and again and again and again, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly. The center moves from self-concept to freedom. We can do this by our practice. Gradually Hongzhi’s Zazenshin is revealed to us. This is what blew my mind. You mean us? Even us! Ling Zhao says, “Neither difficult nor easy! On the hundred grass tips, the Patriarch’s meaning.” The hundred grass tips means the myriad things and beings, the world of differentiation. The patriarch is Bodhidharma. The marriage of difficult and easy produces the daughter, Ling Zhao. This difficult, easy, right here is a concise and explicit description of my three months in solo practice, right there in that little story—the depth of difficult, the simplicity of easy, and the vastness manifested like a spinning jewel, over and over again. Where does the jewel spin? Where does the jewel of awakening spin? Right here. Nowhere else. “The water is clear right through to the bottom.” To me, this points at the work of seeing through the powerful habits of self-clinging that are set in place by conditioning, by we don’t know, by our karma. This can be very treacherous and courageous work, and it takes enormous compassion to see through it. Seeing through to the bottom, there’s no problem. One of my Vipassana teachers once said, “No self, no problem,” and she was quoting another famous teacher. “Vast sky without horizon” points to the vast mind without hindrance or attachments which allows and fulfills the blowing grass tips, blowing in the wind without obstruction. Who takes up this Way? Where will we realize it and for whom? Here’s a cute quote from this Art and Fear book: “After all, someone has to do your work, and you’re the closest person around.” [laughter] Isn’t that wonderful?

Delivered 28 April, 2002 at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center

Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Promises and Pitfalls
Mark Berkson
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The Center for the Pacific Rim and the University of San Francisco hosted a conference on Buddhist-Christian Dialogue on May 8, 1998. The conference brought together scholars and practitioners of both traditions in an encounter that was not only academically stimulating, but also personally and spiritually enriching for those involved. The participants included both those who have had extensive experience in the dialogue, as well as a number of new voices. The conference both critiqued previous and ongoing efforts at dialogue and also took the dialogue itself in new directions. While Buddhist-Christian dialogue of the past has often focused on comparative doctrine, involving theological issues and comparative beliefs, this conference focused instead on comparative practice, an approach that was quite productive. The practices explored included monasticism, pilgrimage, bowing, meditation, renunciation, social action and--of particular relevance to the overall project of interfaith encounter--the practice of dialogue itself and the methods and virtues necessary to carry it out successfully.
Comparative Practice
In the first of three panels, the following questions were central: Despite the differences that exist in metaphysics, doctrine, and worldview between the traditions, are there certain practices which, because they are shared, point to some deep commonalities between the traditions? What is the relation of belief to both the interpretation of practice and to the experience itself? Can a tradition authentically incorporate the practices of another tradition? What obstacles are involved in the process?
The first speaker, Sister Mary Margaret Funk, executive director of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue and a Benedictine prioress, gave a paper entitled "Monastic Practice: Views of the Mind." She focused on the theme of renunciation in monastic life and discussed three types of renunciation Benedictine monastics undergo that seem to resonate with the experience of Buddhist monastics. The first is the renunciation of the former way of life, moving away from "the designs of self-willed projects and works that serve to shore up the ego and make one's own personality the main concern in life." Following that comes the renunciation of thoughts about the [End Page 181] former way of life. Sister Funk pointed out that while monastics might physically renounce their former life (e.g., move into a monastery), their thoughts, desires, and passions follow them. The final renunciation is to give up even thoughts, images, and mental constructs of God. She observed: "The monastic practices that deal with the mind seem to be parallel tracks in both spiritualities. The observation of our thoughts, desires, and passions [is] a universal experience."
David Komito, a fellow at the Center for the Pacific Rim and scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, in his talk "Teacher, Reliquary, Circumambulation," discussed the practice of pilgrimage in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition of Tibet. The questions that framed his talk included, "What would be the virtue of visiting a stupa (reliquary) and what would be the goal of travel?" He pointed out that the answer to such questions would depend on one's philosophical or theological position, explaining that the different schools of Buddhism would often provide different answers. This raised an important point for the conference: We might look at Buddhists undertaking a particular practice, such as pilgrimage, and assume that they're doing the same thing; for example, traveling to a place in a group, walking around that place, and returning home. Yet their experiences might be very different; in fact, pilgrims on the same journey who arrive at a sacred site may even be seeing different things while looking at one and the same object. This is because they might be framing, interpreting, and understanding the experience differently. If this is true among Buddhists, how much more so between Buddhists and Christians?
The panel continued with Father Paul Bernadicou's "Catholic Guides to Buddhist Practice." Father Bernadicou, the chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at USF, discussed a number of Catholics who have had deep encounters with Buddhism and incorporated Buddhist practice and insights into their own spiritual path. Through this historical survey, he both provided a context in which to understand our conference and showed us the possibilities that lie in our own encounter with another tradition when we enter into genuine dialogue rather than looking to proselytize. The thinkers Father Bernadicou discussed include Thomas Merton, Aelred Graham, Heinrich Dumoulin, and Thomas Keating. He concluded with a quote from Merton that sounded a theme echoed throughout the conference: "I think we have reached a stage of (long-overdue) religious maturity at which it may be possible for someone to remain perfectly faithful to a Christian commitment, and yet to learn in depth from, say, a Buddhist or Hindu discipline and experience."
Rev. Heng Sure, director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery, gave a talk entitled "Humbling Pride: Buddhist Repentance Bowing." Pointing out the centrality of bowing in Mahayana Buddhism, he discussed both the physical practice of bowing as well as its psychological and spiritual components. The act of bowing, he suggested, is used as an "effective means to reduce pride and penetrate the illusory view of the self." Bowing is a "yoga," a physical practice that alters one's orientation. As one lowers oneself, pride and arrogance are reduced; a layer of "self" is shed with each bow. To give the audience a concrete example, he gave a lively and dramatic account of his nearly three-year "three steps, one bow" pilgrimage in which he made [End Page 182] a full prostration to the ground every three steps for eight hundred miles of California coastline. He also addressed the problems that many westerners have with the practice of bowing, but concluded that Mahayana Buddhists "saw in the practice of bowing not so much worship of idols or surrender of personal autonomy to an external religious authority, but as an effective means to reduce pride and penetrate the illusory view of the self."
The Practice of Dialogue
The second panel looked at issues surrounding the ongoing interreligious dialogue, including problems of interpretation, understanding, and meaning. Durwood Foster, professor emeritus at the Pacific School of Religion, provided a thoughtful overview of the process of dialogue in "Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Progress and Problems." He started by warning against common pitfalls that beset the dialogue, including "taking the particular for the general" (e.g., Zen for Buddhism, Lutheran for Christian), excluding underrepresented voices, expecting quick results, and "presumption about the other's beliefs." He went on to point out some of the deep commonalities between the two traditions, including "their boundless saving intentionality, addressing our universal plight of self-centeredness and grounded hopefully in the nature of things."
Professor Foster then provided a list of sticking points that create difficulty for the process of mutual understanding. These include the following pairs of concepts (where, depending on interpretation, the Buddhist concept might be incompatible with the Christian and might, in certain ways, be analogous or very similar): emptiness/God, compassion/agape, upaya (skillful means)/truth, and nirvana/kingdom of God.
Father Thomas Hand, director of the meditation program at Mercy Center in Burlingame and a self-described "Zen Christian," provided a specific example of how this reinterpretive enterprise might work in his talk "Christ and Buddha: Facing the Millennium." He began with a quote from Kevin O'Shea that provided the background for his reflections: "A new sense of Godness is arising in our cultural consciousness. Assertions about the femininity of God, and of change in God, are only steps along the way to a massive paradigm change about God, in which we are using our brains differently." Using the text of the Mahayana Heart Sutra (in particular the lines "Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form"), Father Hand gave a thought-provoking interpretation of Buddhist notions of emptiness and form and Christian notions of the trinity, exploring how new light can be shed on each through an exploration of the other. Among the patterns that emerge from the encounter of the two traditions is "the coincidence of opposites (which) constitute the unified whole of reality." On the Buddhist side, while emptiness (formlessness) and form are in one sense opposites, they are not entities (beings) but rather are both constituents of being. Formlessness and form are "the ultimate constituents of the unified whole which we call reality." Father Hand then applies this understanding [End Page 183] to the Christian notion of the Trinity. The three of the Trinity must also not be seen as beings, but rather as constituents of Divine Being. Through a careful, complex interpretation, Father Hand connects the Buddhist and Christian understandings, stating that "the One God is Three, who are called Father (formless source), Son (universal form) and Holy Spirit (movement from the formless into form and back)." In the words of Father Hand, "We are nothing but the movement of formless/form manifesting individually."
Taigen Daniel Leighton, a Soto Zen priest and scholar of Buddhism, in a talk entitled "Finding the Heart through Another Tradition: How Buddhism Is Informed by Christianity," showed in a very practical way how Buddhism can benefit from an encounter with Christianity. He focused particularly on the ways that Buddhism can be enriched by incorporating elements of Christian teachings on social justice and Christian devotional practices. Regarding the teachings on social justice, Taigen began by praising Christian social action for its "strong commitment and dedication to social justice and righteousness." The Christian notion that God acts in history, acting to oppose injustice and oppression, energizes Christian approaches to social transformation. While such notions resonate with the movement of "engaged Buddhism" and the spirit of the bodhisattva, the Buddhist approach is framed in terms of nondualism, the idea of karma, an emphasis on ignorance as the primary problem (rather than evil), and a stance of nonjudgment. Taigen shows how we can work toward an effective combination of the Christian intensity of commitment with the Buddhist approach grounded in meditative calm and an understanding of the workings of karma.
Dialogue as Religious Practice
The final panel looked at how engaging in dialogue itself can be seen as a part of one's religious path. One thread that ran through all three talks in this panel is our need to cultivate certain virtues (excellences of character) in order to participate in interfaith encounter most fruitfully and ultimately live well in an increasingly pluralistic nation.
Professor Lee Yearley of Stanford University, in his talk "Buddhist-Christian Dialogue and New Religious Virtues," began by pointing out four ways that adherents of religious traditions have historically looked at those who belong to another tradition: seeing the adherents of the other tradition as "in error," as "less developed," "more developed," and "only apparently different." Each of these positions required the proponents to manifest certain virtues. Professor Yearley, after showing that virtues can be "era specific," showed another possibility by providing an account of a new religious virtue, "spiritual regret," which he argued "concerns the appropriate response to the recognition that extremely varied, legitimate religious ideals exist and that no person can possibly manifest all of them." This virtue, which requires the training of the imagination, combines a deep appreciation and enjoyment of the goods represented in the view of another tradition, along with a sadness [End Page 184] that, due to our facticity and the need to maintain integrity of the self, we will never be able to realize these goods in our own lives. We begin with the understanding that our way of life, our vision of the good, is only one among many.
Professor Jim Fredericks of Loyola Marymount University, further developing the theme of important virtues in a pluralistic age, delivered a paper entitled "Interreligious Friendship as a Theological Virtue." Professor Fredericks began with a theoretical discussion of virtues, explaining that they have a history (are defined in response to changing historical situations) and can function as correctives to human weaknesses. He then gave a specific example with his discussion of the importance of friendship with someone of another religious tradition, exploring the virtues that are required to make friendship possible and those that are cultivated through the relationship. He emphasized the notion of love captured by philia--preferential love that requires a bond of reciprocal affection--rather than agape--unconditional love that is steadfast in the face of rejection. While agape may provide the basis for religious tolerance, philia moves us beyond this to a place where our lives may be transformed by the concrete "other." Befriending someone with a different way of understanding and being in the world can decenter our ego, expand our horizons, and "draw us out of ourselves and into a world significantly different than our presuppositions."
Professor Mark Unno of Carleton College opened his talk, "Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: By Whom and for Whom," by stating, "We may talk about Buddhist ideas and Christian ideas in abstraction, but the real significance is, I believe, in the one-to-one encounter." Professor Unno highlighted how critical reflection on Buddhist self-understanding must be undertaken in light of non-Buddhist discourse (e.g., Christian, feminist, psychotherapeutic) while remaining within a perspective grounded in Buddhist tradition. Both a centeredness within a tradition and an openness to the insights of other ways of thinking are necessary for what Professor Unno calls a "critical synergy" to emerge. Is there a way of becoming responsive to the great diversity of human life in a manner that expands the horizons of Buddhist theology rather than rendering it ineffectual and self-enclosed? Professor Unno pointed out three possible strategies that adherents might take: conservative retreat, progressive reform, and "constructive bricolage," which entails the creative intellectual task of weaving together, from one's social and conceptual inheritances, a pattern that "is provisional and created to meet the needs of the moment." Drawing on the Vimalakirti Sutra, which states that the ultimate truth of emptiness "should be sought in . . . heretical teachings," Unno said, "Where should a Buddhist look for his or her truth? Look for it in Christianity, Islam, feminist discourse . . . in all discourses in the diversity of this world."
The keynote address of the conference, entitled "Religious Transformation: Rituals of Traditional Practice and Contemporary Dialogue," was given by Anne Klein, professor and chair of religious studies at Rice University. Although she acknowledged the importance of "the commonality of experience" of Buddhists and Christians, a theme that had been discussed a number of times throughout the day, Professor Klein began her talk by emphasizing that "this is a profoundly cross-cultural [End Page 185] dialogue" and that what looks the same from the outside (e.g., a particular practice) may involve very difference experiences. She illustrated this by showing the remarkably different ways that Americans and Chinese understood the experience they had on an identical meditation retreat. She explained this by saying: "We bring our cultural selves to whatever practice we do. . . . We all are born out of a certain cultural matrix and whatever we take into ourselves (e.g., in dialogue) participates with that matrix." While never losing sight of these differences, Professor Klein went on to characterize a basic structural characteristic of the religious experience common to each. She said, "Perhaps the archetypal religious move of virtually any practitioner is to open beingness up to a larger system, however that is understood." When one prays or otherwise interacts with a larger system, one is expanding the sense of self. This involves commonality between religious practitioners and is, at the same time, a mark of difference because "we do this in different ways with fundamentally different assumptions about the self that we're bringing to practice in the first place."
The full papers from this conference will be published and distributed by the Center for the Pacific Rim. Inquiries may be directed to the Center.

A Constitution For Life

PART I

The Buddhist's life standards can be summarized according to the Buddha's words as follows:


Organizing one's life and social relationships so that they become a solid foundation with the layman's code of discipline [gihi-vinaya], as follows: Law 1: Refrain from fourteen kinds of evil.


A. Refraining from the four deeds that defile (kammakilesa):
Killing, doing bodily harm or taking life (panatipata).
Stealing, violating property rights (adinnadana).
Committing sexual misconduct (kamesumicchacara).
Speaking falsely, lying, deceiving (musavada).

B. Refraining from the four kinds of biased conduct (agati):
Biased conduct on account of like (chandagati).
Biased conduct on account of dislike (dosagati).
Biased conduct on account of fear (bhayagati).
Biased conduct on account of foolishness (mohagati).

C. Avoiding the six channels to ruin (apaya-mukha):
Being addicted to drink and drugs.
Always reveling in nightlife.
Being bent on entertainment.
Being addicted to gambling.
Consorting with evil friends.
Being chronically lazy.


Law 2: Prepare resources for life on two fronts.


A. Choosing the people one associates with, in order to steer one's life along a path that is prosperous and constructive, by avoiding false friends and associating only with true friends, as follows: a) Being wise to the four kinds of false friends or enemies in the guise of friends (mitta-patirupaka):
1. The out-and-out robber, who only takes from his friend, has four features:
He thinks only of getting.
He gives little in the hope of getting much.
Only when he is in danger does he help his friend out.
He associates with his friend only for his own profit.

2. The smooth talker has four features:
He talks only of what is done and gone.
He talks only of what has not yet come.
He offers help that is ineffectual.
When his friend needs a hand, he makes excuses.

3. The flatterer has four features:
He consents to [his friend's] doing wrong.
He consents to his doing right.
He sings his praises to his face.
He runs him down behind his back.

4. The leader to ruin has four features:
He is a companion in drinking.
He is a companion in nightlife.
He is a companion in frequenting shows and fairs.
He is a companion in gambling.
b) Knowing of the four kinds of true friends or friends at heart (suhada-mitta):
1. The helping friend has four features:
When his friend is off guard, he guards him.
When his friend is off guard, he guards his property.
In times of danger, he can be a refuge.
In times of need, he gives more than asked for.

2. The friend through thick and thin has four features:
He confides in his friend.
He keeps his friend's secrets.
He does not desert his friend in times of danger.
He will give even his life for his friend's sake.

3. The good counselor has four features:
He restrains his friend from doing evil or harm.
He encourages him in goodness.
He makes known to his friend what he has not heard before.
He points out the way to prosperity and happiness.

4. The loving friend has four features:
When his friend is unhappy, he commiserates.
When his friend is happy, he is happy for him.
When others criticize his friend, he comes to his defense.
When others praise his friend, he joins in their praise.


B. Allocating one's wealth by being diligent in earning and saving righteously so that wealth increases, as bees make their hive or termites make their mound, and by planning expenditure as follows: One portion to be used for supporting oneself, one's family and dependents, and for doing good works.
Two portions to be used for investment.
Another portion to be put aside for future needs.
Law 3: Maintain one's relations toward the six directions.


A. Making reverence in the directions around one by performing the duties toward the people related to one in due accordance to their six positions:

First direction: as a son or daughter, one should honor one's parents, who are compared to the "forward direction," in the following ways:
Having been raised by them, one looks after them in return.
One helps them in their business and work.
One continues the family line.
One conducts oneself as is proper for an heir.
After their death, one makes offerings, dedicating the merit to them.

Parents help their children by:
Cautioning and protecting them from evil.
Nurturing and training them in goodness.
Providing an education.
Seeing to it that they obtain suitable spouses.
Bequeathing the inheritance to them at the proper time.

Second direction: as a student, one should show respect to one's teacher, as the "right direction," as follows:
One rises to greet the teacher and shows respect to him.
One approaches the teacher to attend him, serve him, to consult, query and receive advice from him, etc.
One hearkens well so as to gain understanding.
One serves the teacher and runs errands for him.
One learns the subject respectfully and earnestly, giving the task of learning its due importance.

A teacher supports his students by:
Teaching and training them to be good.
Guiding them to thorough understanding.
Teaching the subject in full.
Encouraging and praising his student's goodness and abilities.
Providing a protection for all directions; that is, teaching and training them so that they can actually use their learning to make a living and know how to conduct themselves well, having a guarantee for smoothly leading a good life and attaining happiness and prosperity.

Third direction: as a husband, one should honor and support one's wife, compared to the "rearward direction," as follows:
One honors her in accordance with her status as wife.
One does not disparage her.
One does not commit adultery.
One gives her control of household concerns.
One gives her occasional gifts of ornaments and clothing.

A wife supports her husband by:
Keeping the household tidy.
Helping the relations and friends of both sides.
Not committing adultery.
Safeguarding any wealth that has been acquired.
Being diligent in all her work.

Fourth direction: as a friend, one should conduct oneself toward one's friends, as the "left direction," as follows:
One shares with them.
One speaks kindly to them.
One helps them.
One is constant through their ups and downs.
One is faithful and sincere.

Friends reciprocate by:
Protecting their friend when he is off guard.
Protecting their friend's property when he is off guard.
Being a refuge in times of danger.
Not deserting their friend in times of need.
Respecting their friend's family and relations.

Fifth direction: as an employer, one should support one's servants and employees, as the "lower direction," as follows:
One assigns them work in accordance with their strength, sex, age, and abilities.
One pays them wages commensurate with their work and adequate for their livelihood.
One grants them fringe benefits by, for example, providing medical care in times of sickness.
One shares with them a portion of any special profits that may accrue.
One gives them appropriate holidays and time to rest.A servant or employee helps his employer by:
Starting work before him.
Stopping work after him.
Taking only what is given by his employer.
Doing his job well and seeking ways to improve on it.
Spreading a good reputation about his employer and his business.

Sixth direction: as a Buddhist, one should show respect to the monks, as the "upper direction," as follows:
One acts toward them with goodwill.
One speaks to them with goodwill.
One thinks of them with goodwill.
One receives them willingly.
One supports them with the four requisites [almsfood, robes, shelter and medicine].


Monks help lay people by:
Enjoining them from evil actions.
Encouraging them in goodness.
Assisting them with kind intentions.
Making known to them things not heard before.
Explaining and clarifying those things they have already heard.
Pointing out the way to heaven, teaching them the way to happiness and prosperity.

B. Helping all people by joining in constructively creating social harmony and unity according to the four principles for helpful integration (sangaha-vatthu), which are:
Dana: giving, sharing (helping through money and material goods).
Piyavaca: amicable speech (helping through words).
Atthacariya: helpful action (helping through physical effort).
Samanattata: participation (helping through participation in constructive action and problem solving).





Conducting one's life so as to attain the three levels of attha, the benefits that are the objectives of life:
First level: the temporal objective or present benefit (ditthadham-mikattha):

a) Having good health, a strong body, freedom from disease, pleasant appearance and longevity.
b) Having work and income, honest livelihood, and economic self-reliance.
c) Having good status, being of good standing in the community.
d) Having a happy family, making one's family worthy of respect.


All of the above should be righteously obtained and used or treated so as to produce rightful benefit and happiness both for oneself and for others.
Second level: the spiritual objective or further benefit (samparayikattha):

a) Warmth, deep appreciation and happiness through faith; having an ideal.
b) Pride in having a clean life, in having done only virtuous deeds.
c) Gratification in a worthwhile life, in having made sacrifices and done good.
d) Courage and confidence in having wisdom to deal with problems and guide one's life.
e) Security and freedom from worry in having done good as a guarantee for the future life.
Third level: the highest objective or greatest benefit (paramattha):

a) Not wavering in face of vicissitudes and changes.
b) Not being despondent or distressed because of attachments.
c) Being secure, calm, clear, cheerful and buoyant at all times.
d) Living and acting with wisdom, which looks at causes and conditions.

One who is able to attain from the second level of benefit upwards is known as a wise man (pandita). These three levels of objectives or benefits can be attained on three fronts:


First front: the objective for oneself or one's own benefit (attattha); i.e., the three levels of benefits explained above, which one should establish for oneself or develop one's life toward. Second front: the objective for others, or other people's benefit (parattha); the three levels of benefits explained above, which one should help other people successively achieve by inducing and encouraging them to develop their lives.


Third front: the mutual objective or benefit to both parties (ubhayattha); the collective benefit, happiness and virtue of the community or society, including environmental conditions and factors, which we should help create and conserve in order to help both ourselves and others advance to the three levels of objectives mentioned above.
PART II
A CONSTITUTION FOR LIVING



INTRODUCTORY SECTION
HUMAN BEINGS AND BEING HUMAN
1. MAN, THE NOBLE BEING
(A member of the human race)


Human beings are special, unlike any other kind of animal. What makes them special is sikkha, or education, namely learning, training and development. Human beings who have been trained, educated or developed are called "noble beings." They know how to conduct a good life for themselves and also help their society fare securely in peace and happiness.

To be truly involved in this education, human beings, especially children and young people, who are the new members of the human race, should acquire the seven fundamental qualities known as the auroras of a good life, or the dawn of education. These are the guarantees of a life moving toward full human development, to people's becoming truly noble beings. They are:
Kalyanamittata (having a "good friend" [a person or social environment that is helpful to one's life development]), seeking out sources of wisdom and good examples. This is to live with or be close to good people, beginning with one's parents as good friends in the family; to know who to associate with and to socialize with good people who will influence and encourage each other to betterment in conduct, mentality and wisdom. It is especially [that association which encourages one to] learn and develop communication and relations with fellow human beings through goodwill, to have the faith to follow good examples, and to know how to utilize external resources, be they people, books, or other communications media, for seeking knowledge and virtue for one's life development, problem solving and constructive action.
Sila-sampada (perfection of morality), having discipline as a foundation for one's life development. This is to know how to organize life-style, activities, work, and environment so that they provide opportunities for personal growth; at least to have a basic level of morality; that is, to have proper conduct in one's relationship with the social environment by living helpfully and not exploitatively with one's fellow beings, and in one's relationship with the material environment by using the four necessities [food, clothing, shelter and medicine] as well as technological appliances and equipment in a way that supports the quality of one's life and is favorable to one's education, to constructive action and to the state of balance in nature.
Chanda-sampada (perfection of aspiration): having a heart that aspires to learning and constructive action. This is to be one who is driven by desire for knowledge, goodness, action, constructiveness, achievement and excellence, by the desire to help all the things and people one meets or is involved with to attain to a good state; not obsessively thinking only of getting what one wants and seeking pleasure through consuming, which only drags one into the whirlpool of heedlessness and contention. Instead, one knows how to use one's faculties, such as the eyes and ears, in learning, and to derive joy from learning and doing good things, by using one's brain and hands for constructive ends.
Atta-sampada (perfection of oneself): dedicating oneself to training for the realization of one's full human potential. This is to always bear in mind the truth that human beings by nature are beings that can be trained, and must be trained, and that once trained are the most excellent of beings; then to resolve to train oneself so that one views difficulties, hardships, obstacles and problems as training grounds to test and develop one's intelligence and abilities; to pay heed to one's continuing improvement toward the realization of one's full potential through a comprehensive development that encompasses behavior, mentality and wisdom.
Ditthi-sampada (perfection of view): adhering to the principle of conditionality, seeing things according to cause and effect. This is to be established in good and reasoned principles of thought and belief; at least adhering to the principle of conditionality, a principle leading to consideration, investigation and research as the way to wisdom development, and believing that action is the most powerful determinant of one's fate; it is also having behavior and mental states that are under the control of reason: even though one aspires to the highest achievement and excellence, one realizes what is possible within the limitations of the causes and conditions that exist and that one has created; in success, one does not forget oneself, and in failure, one is not despondent; one maintains one's mental clarity and independence, not being impulsive, overreactive or petty, and also not allowing oneself to drift along the stream of public hysteria and values.
Appamada-sampada (perfection of heedfulness): establishing oneself in heedfulness. This is to be aware of impermanence, to realize the instability, unendurability and insubstantiality of life and all things around one, which are constantly changing according to causes and conditions, both internal and external. Thus one sees that one cannot afford to be complacent. One sees the preciousness of time and strives to learn about, prevent and rectify the causes of decline and bring about the causes of growth and prosperity, using all one's time, night and day, to the greatest benefit.
Yonisomanasikara-sampada (perfection of wise reflection): thinking wisely so as to realize benefit and see the truth. This is to know how to think, to know how to investigate, to be able to see all things as they really are within the system of causes and conditions, by intelligently examining, investigating, tracing, analyzing and researching to see the truth of a given situation, or to see the perspective that will enable one to benefit from it. By so doing one is also able to solve problems and do things successfully through intelligent methods that allow one to be self-reliant and at the same time become a refuge to other people.

(S.V.29-31)
2. THE IDEAL PERSON
(An exemplary member of the human race)


The ideal person, or perfect human being, who can be counted as a truly valuable member of the human race, and who can be called a complete person, able to lead his community and society to peace and well-being, is one who possesses the following seven qualities:
Dhammannuta: knowing principles, knowing causes; he knows the underlying principles and laws governing the things with which he must deal in the process of everyday life, in performing his duties and carrying out his tasks; he knows and understands according to reason what he must do. For example, he understands what duties and responsibilities are involved in his post, his status, his occupation and his work. He knows the principles involved therein and he knows how to apply them so that they become factors for the successful completion of those duties and responsibilities. At the highest level, dhammannuta means knowing fully the natural laws or truths of nature so that one can deal correctly with life and the world, with a mind that is free and not enslaved by them.

Atthannuta: knowing objectives, knowing results; he knows the meaning and objectives of the principles he abides by; he understands the objectives of the task he is doing; he knows the reason behind his actions and his way of life and the objective to be expected from them. [He knows] the aim behind a duty, position or occupation. He knows what may be expected in the future from the actions he is doing in the present; whether, for example, they will lead to a good or a bad result. At the highest level, atthannuta means understanding the implications of the natural course of things and the benefit that is the real purpose of life.

Attannuta: knowing oneself; he [or she] knows as they are the current extent and nature of his [or her] status, condition, sex, strength, knowledge, aptitude, ability, virtue, etc., and then acts accordingly, does what is needed to produce results, and rectifies and improves himself or herself so as to grow to greater maturity.

Mattannuta: knowing moderation; he knows the right amount in such areas as consumption and spending; he knows moderation in speech, work and action, in rest and in all manner of recreation. He does all things with an understanding of their objectives and for the real benefits to be expected, by acting not merely for his own satisfaction or to accomplish his own ends, but rather to achieve a proper balance of supporting factors that will produce the beneficial result as revealed to him by wisdom.

Kalannuta: knowing occasion; he knows the proper occasion and the proper amount of time for actions, duties and dealings with other people; he knows, for example, when what should be done and how, and he does it punctually, regularly, in time, for the right amount of time and at the right time. Kalannuta includes knowing how to plan one's time and organize it effectively.

Parisannuta: knowing company; he knows the locale, he knows the gathering and he knows the community. He knows what should be done in a given locale or community, thus: "This community should be approached in this way and spoken to thus; the people here have these rules and regulations; they have this culture or tradition; they have these needs; they should thus be dealt with, helped, served and benefited in this way."

Puggalannuta: knowing persons; he knows and understands individual differences; he knows people's greater or lesser temperaments, abilities and virtues and knows how to relate to them effectively; he knows, for example, whether they should be associated with, what can be learned from them, and how they should be related to, employed, praised, criticized, advised or taught.

These seven qualities are known as the sappurisa-dhamma, the qualities of a good or genuine person, one who has the qualities of a complete human being.

(A.IV.113 )

SECTION ONE
PEOPLE AND SOCIETY


3. THE VIRTUOUS PERSON
(A member of the noble society)


One with the moral virtue or manussa-dhamma [qualities that make one human], who can be rightfully called civilized, conducts himself as follows:

A. He has the threefold sucarita, the three kinds of good or proper conduct:
Kaya-sucarita: righteous bodily conduct; he does things that are virtuous and proper; he has good bodily conduct.
Vaci-sucarita: righteous speech; he says things that are virtuous and proper; he has good verbal conduct.
Mano-sucarita: righteous mentality; he thinks things that are virtuous and proper; he has good mental conduct.

(D.III.215)

B. He abides by the noble qualities (ariya-dhamma) by practicing properly according to the ten courses of wholesome action (kusala-kamma): Three of the body:

Abstaining from killing or taking life, oppression and harassment; possessing kindness, compassion and helpfulness.
Abstaining from filching, theft and exploitation; respecting the property rights of others.
Abstaining from misconduct and violation of others' loved or cherished ones; not abusing them, disgracing or dishonoring their families.Four of speech:

Abstaining from false speech, lying and deception; speaking only the truth, not intentionally saying thing that stay from the truth out of a desire for personal gain.
Abstaining from malicious speech inciting one person against another; speaking only words that are conciliatory and conducive to harmony.
Abstaining from coarse, vulgar or damaging speech; speaking only words that are polite and pleasant to the ear.
Abstaining from worthless or frivolous speech; speaking only words that are true, reasonable, useful and appropriate to the occasion.Three of the mind:

Not being greedy; not focusing only on taking; thinking of giving, of sacrifice; making the mind munificent.
Not thinking hateful and destructive thoughts or having a destructive attitude toward others; bearing good intentions toward others, spreading goodwill and aiming for the common good.
Cultivating Right View (sammaditthi); understanding the law of kamma, that good actions bring good results and bad actions bring bad results; having a thorough grasp of the truth of life and the world; seeing the faring of things according to causes and conditions.

These ten qualities are variously known as kusala-kammapatha (wholesome courses of action), dhamma-cariya [principles for virtuous living] and ariya-dhamma [noble qualities]. They are a more detailed description of the threefold sucarita mentioned above: namely, points 1-3 cover righteous bodily conduct, 4-7 cover righteous verbal conduct, and 8-10 cover righteous mental conduct.

(M.I.287)

C. At the very least he observes the five precepts: the ten basic principles of conduct given above are a comprehensive description of the moral conduct or noble qualities through which personal development of body, speech and mind can be made. For those who are not yet firm in these noble qualities, however, it is recommended that at least moral restraint through body and speech should first be developed by observing the five precepts, which are among the first factors of the ten principles for virtuous living (dhamma-cariya). The five precepts are:
Abstaining from killing: not taking life or doing bodily harm.
Abstaining from taking what is not given: not stealing, pilfering or filching; not violating [others'] properties.
Abstaining from sexual misconduct; not violating the loved or cherished ones of others, thereby destroying their honor and dignity and confusing their family lines.
Abstaining from lying: not telling lies or using deceptive speech; not violating other people or their interests through speech.
Abstaining from alcohol and intoxicants: not taking wines, liquor, intoxicants or addictives, which are causes for heedlessness and drunkenness, and lead to damage and blunders such as accidents due to lack of mindfulness. An intoxicated person at least threatens the sense of security and well-being of fellow community members.

(A.III.203, 275)


4. THE SOCIAL BENEFACTOR
(A helpful member of society)


A constructive member of society possesses the following qualities or principles of conduct:

A. He has the Divine Abidings, the four mental attributes of a being who is sublime or grand-minded like a god, which are:
Metta, loving kindness: goodwill and amity, the wish to help all people attain benefit and happiness.
Karuna, compassion: the desire to help other people escape from their sufferings; the determination to free all beings, both human and animal, of their hardships and miseries.
Mudita, appreciative gladness: when seeing others happy, one feels glad; when seeing others do good actions or attain success and advancement, one responds with gladness and is ready to help and support them.
Upekkha, equanimity: seeing things as they are with a mind that is even, steady, firm and fair like a pair of scales; understanding that all beings experience good and evil in accordance with the causes they have created; ready to judge, position oneself and act in accordance with principles, reason and equity.

(D.II. 196)

Having established these four mental qualities as a foundation, he may express them outwardly in the following ways:

B. He contributes to social harmony: he practices in accordance with the four principles for helpful integration, or qualities that bond people in unity, known as the sangaha-vatthu. These are:
Dana: giving; being kind, generous; sacrificing; sharing; helping and providing assistance with the four necessities, money or material possessions-including the imparting of knowledge or understanding and learning.
Piyavaca: amicable speech; speaking words that are polite, pleasant to the ear, and helpful, that point the way to benefit, and that are based on reason and conducive to goodness; or words that are sympathetic and encouraging; speaking words that lead to understanding, harmony, friendship, and mutual love, respect and service.
Atthacariya: helpful action; helping with physical service, making an effort to lend a hand to others in their activities; performing actions that are helpful to the community; including helping to resolve problems and promote morality.
Samanattata: participation; putting oneself in communion with others; behaving consistently and impartially; behaving equitably toward all people, not taking advantage of them; sharing in their happiness and suffering, acknowledging problems and participating in resolving them for the common good.

In brief, these are to help through contributions of money, material things or knowledge; to help through speech; to help through physical action; and to help through participation in facing and resolving problems.

(D.III.152,232)
5. THE HARMONIOUS PARTICIPANT OF THE GROUP
(A good community member)


A useful participant of a community, who contributes to the peaceful co-existence of the community, possesses the following qualities or principles of conduct:

A. Being self-reliant: he makes himself a refuge unto himself, he is ready to take responsibility for himself and does not make himself into a problem or burden on his company or kin. This can be achieved by maintaining the ten protective virtues (nathakarana-dhamma):
Sila: having good conduct and discipline; he conducts his life honestly in body and speech; he has discipline and earns his living through right livelihood.
Bahusacca: possessing much experience and learning; he has learned and heard much; he is well versed in his own field of study or specific area of knowledge, understands it extensively and profoundly, knows it clearly and can really put it to use.
Kalyanamittata: knowing good association; he has good friends, he knows how to choose his companions, and approaches those people who are capable of giving good advice; he chooses to associate with and emulate beneficial external influences in society that will guide his life to prosperity and growth.
Sovacassata: being easily spoken to; he is not stubborn or headstrong; he is willing to listen to reason and facts, and ready to correct and improve himself.
Kimkaraniyesu dakkhata: making an effort with the group's activities; he takes an interest in helping the business and activities of the group, his family, friends, and the community, and uses his wisdom to look for appropriate ways to carry them out, to organize them and bring them to fruition.
Dhammakamata: being a lover of truth; he is a lover of truth, he likes to learn, to research, to inquire, to acquire knowledge and seek the truth; he knows how to speak up and ask, and to listen; he has a friendly and relaxed manner that encourages others to approach him for consultation and conversation.
Viriyarambha: having effort; he is industrious in avoiding and abandoning evil actions and cultivating the good; he makes an effort and strives forward; he does not give up in despair or neglect or forsake his duties and responsibilities.
Santutthi: being content, knowing moderation; he is glad and contented only with gains, results and successes brought about or achieved rightfully through his own efforts; he is not caught up in material comforts.
Sati: having firm mindfulness; he remembers and is mindful; he recollects what he has done and said and what he needs to do in the future; he is circumspect and restrained with whatever he does, not rushed, sloppy, absentminded or reckless; he does not allow himself to slide into wrongful ways or fail to seize an opportunity to do good.
Panna: putting head over heart; he has the wisdom to see causes and results; he knows right from wrong, benefit from harm and what is useful from what is not; he sees all things as they are; he knows how to examine and judge with a free mind; he does things with reflection and discernment.


(D.III.266,290)

B. Living harmoniously in the group: in regard to relations with colleagues, associates, fellow community members and siblings in the family, the principles for harmony known as the six saraniya-dhamma (conditions leading to mutual recollection) should be observed, as follows:
Metta-kayakamma: friendly action; [members of the community] each show friendliness and goodwill to their colleagues, associates, and fellow community members by willingly helping them in their duties, and bearing a courteous and respectful manner, both in their presence and in their absence.
Metta-vacikamma: friendly speech; they each inform the others what is of benefit; they teach or advise them with a heart of goodwill; they say only polite and respectful words to them, both in their presence and in their absence.
Metta-manokamma: friendly thoughts; they establish their minds in goodwill, thinking of ways to be of service to each other; looking at each other in a good light, having a pleasant and congenial attitude toward each other.
Sadharana-bhogi: sharing of gains; they share with each other whatever gains have been rightfully acquired, seeing to it that even small things are distributed equally to all.
Sila-samannata: moral harmony; they maintain virtuous conduct, abide by community rules and regulations, and do not conduct themselves in ways that are objectionable or damaging to the community.
Ditthi-samannata: harmony of views; they respect and honor each other's views; they have reached consensus or agreed upon the main principles; they adhere to the same ideals, principles of virtue or ultimate aims.

(D. III. 245)
6. THE CONTRIBUTOR TO GOOD GOVERNMENT
(A responsible member of state)


Citizens who contribute to bringing about good administration, especially in a democracy, should know and abide by the following principles:

A. Understanding the three kinds of supremacy (adhipateyya) as follows:
Attadhipateyya: supremacy of oneself; putting the prime importance on one's own self, position, reputation, or status; acting in view of one's self and what relates to oneself; on the wholesome side, it means abandoning evil actions and cultivating the good out of a sense of self-respect.
Lokadhipateyya: supremacy of the world; putting the prime importance on worldly values; wavering in face of criticism and praise; operating on the basis of what pleases the group, seeking popularity or fearing censure; on the wholesome side, it refers to avoiding evil actions and cultivating the good in deference to the opinions of the community.
Dhammadhipateyya: supremacy of Dhamma; putting the prime importance on principles, truth, righteousness, virtue and reason; operating on the basis of what has been learned and verified against the facts; acting on views that have been extensively and clearly investigated and considered to the best of one's wisdom and integrity to be righteous and for the sake of goodness; on a general level, it means acting out of respect for established principles, laws, rules and regulations.

Bearing these three kinds of supremacy in mind, a responsible member of a democratic state should adhere to the last of the three, namely the supremacy of Dhamma.

(D.III.220)


B. Participating in government by practicing in accordance with the principles for collective responsibility which help prevent decline and lead only to prosperity, known as the seven aparihaniya-dhamma:
Meeting often and regularly; regularly conferring on community affairs and projects (which are to be shouldered by each person according to his level).
Meeting together, dispersing together and doing together what needs to be done together.
Neither instituting laws and regulations not communally agreed upon simply out of convenience or personal preference, nor denigrating or abolishing things already instituted; upholding the main provisions established as the constitution.
Honoring and respecting the elders long in experience, giving weight to their words.
Honoring and respecting the womenfolk, protecting them from abuse and ill-treatment.
Honoring and revering the shrines, holy places and national monuments, which are memorials arousing virtue and centers of community spirit; not neglecting to honor the ceremonies required for those places as dictated by tradition.
Organizing rightful protection, support and sanctuary to monks and priests who maintain pure moral conduct and who serve as spiritual refuges and moral examples for the people; gladly receiving them and wishing for their comfort.

(D. II. 73)

In addition to these principles, it is also advisable to maintain the principles outlined in Chapter 12 on the ideal householder, particularly point E: conducting oneself as a good citizen.


7. THE STATE LEADER
(A king or administrator)


For the lord of the land, the state leader or ruler-be he an emperor, king or administrator in general-there are the following qualities and principles of conduct:

A. Being endowed with the ten regal qualities: to have the ten qualities of a righteous ruler or king (raja-dhamma):
Dana: sharing with the populace; he is a benefactor in that he rules or works to give, not to take; he devotes himself to administering services and providing welfare and aid for the people to ensure their well-being, convenience and safety; he renders assistance to those in distress and difficulty and supports those who have done well.
Sila: maintaining good conduct; he is impeccable in conduct and restrained in actions and speech; he does only good actions and upholds his honor; he sets an example for the people, commands their respect and is free from any cause for contempt.
Pariccaga: working selflessly; he is capable of sacrificing personal comfort, even his own life, for the benefit of the people and the peace and stability of the country.
Ajjava: working honestly; he is honest and upholds the truth; he is free of deceit and upright in his dealings; he is sincere and does not deceive the people.
Maddava: deporting himself with gentleness and congeniality; his bearing is not arrogant, rude, harsh or conceited; he has nobility and dignity that are based on a polite and gentle manner, inspiring devotion and loyalty but not without awe.
Tapa: rejecting indulgence through austerity; he destroys defilements and cravings and does not allow them to control his mind; he can restrain his mind and does not allow it to become lost in sensual pleasure and debauchery; he is simple and regular in life-style, and dedicated to the fulfillment of duty.
Akkodha: adhering to reason, not anger; he is not given to fiery outbursts and does not make judgments or act out of anger, but has a heart of goodwill, suppressing anger; he judges and acts righteously with a mind that is subtle and calm.
Avihimsa: bringing tranquillity through nonviolence; he does not let his power go to his head or use it to repress his subjects; he is kind; he does not find a pretext for punishing a subject out of vindictiveness and hatred.
Khanti: overcoming difficulties with patience; he endures a heavy work load and perseveres in the face of tiredness; no matter how difficult or depressing the work may be, he does not give in; no matter how much he is provoked or ridiculed, or with whatever harsh and abrasive words, he does not despair; he refuses to abandon a task that is rightfully done.
Avirodhana: not doing that which strays from righteousness; he does not transgress the principles of public administration that are based on the welfare, happiness and righteousness of the people and the country; he does not oppose what the people rightfully desire; he does not stand in the way of those activities which are for the common good; he establishes himself firmly in righteousness, steadfast and unwavering in the face of pleasant and unpleasant words, gain and loss, desirable and undesirable conditions; he is firmly established in righteous principles and does not deviate from or subvert them-both in judicial terms, namely [the administration of] justice, and in regulatory terms, namely [the observation of] regulations, formalities and administrative principles, including good customs and traditions.

(J.V.378)

B. Performing the duties of a universal emperor: he performs the five duties of a supreme ruler, called the cakkavatti-vatta:
Dhammadhipateyya: holding the Dhamma supreme; he adheres to truth, righteousness, goodness, reason, principle and rightful rules and regulations as standards; he respects, upholds, favors and establishes himself in righteousness and practices accordingly.
Dhammikarakkha: providing righteous protection; he provides fair protection to all groups of people in the land, i.e., the royal household, the military, administrative officials, civil servants, academics and people of various occupations such as merchants and farmers, country people and inhabitants of the border provinces, monks and priests who uphold moral conduct, and even beasts and birds requiring conservation.
Ma adhammakara: prohibiting unrighteous actions; he arranges preventive and remedial measures, not allowing unrighteous actions, exploitation, oppression, corruption, or unrest to arise in the country; he encourages the people to establish themselves firmly in honesty and virtue and also establishes a system that excludes bad people and promotes good ones.
Dhananuppadana: distributing resources to the poor; he ensures that there are no poverty-stricken people in the land by, for example, arranging that all people have a chance to make an honest living.
Paripuccha: not failing to seek counsel; he seeks advancement in wisdom and virtue by having advisors who are learned and virtuous, who are morally upright and not heedless or self-indulgent, and who can help him to cultivate his wisdom and wholesome qualities; he approaches monks and wise men and queries them to seek knowledge, goodness and truth; he discusses various problems with them at regular and appropriate times so that he may examine and improve himself and carry out his duties rightfully, properly and so as to bring about true welfare and happiness.

(D.III. 61)

C. Effecting the royal benefactions: he supports the people, allowing them to live in unity and harmony, with the four raja-sangaha-vatthu (principles by which a king supports his people):
Sassamedha: shrewdness in promoting agriculture; he is skilled in agronomic policies and promotes agricultural activity which brings about bountiful crop yields.
Purisamedha: shrewdness in promoting government officials; he is clever at making policies for supporting government officials by, for example, encouraging honest and capable officials and providing them with adequate social benefits.
Sammapasa: bonding the people together; he assists the people with policies that support their livelihood by, for example, providing funds from which the poor may borrow to set themselves up in commerce or start business operations, thereby eliminating an economic disparity that is so wide as to cause rifts among the people.
Vajapeyya: impressive speech; he knows how to speak, clarify and advise; he takes an interest in greeting people of all levels and inquiring about their welfare; his speech is pleasant to the ear, worth listening to, reasoned, well-founded and useful; it leads the way to constructive action, to solution of problems, to increased harmony, and to mutual understanding, trust and respect.

(S.I.76)

D. Avoiding the biases: when an administrator is carrying out his functions, he should not allow the four biases, or deviations from righteousness, to interfere:
Chandagati: biased conduct on account of like
Dosagati: biased conduct on account of dislike
Mohagati: biased conduct on account of delusion or foolishness
Bhayagati: biased conduct on account of timidity and fear

(D.III.182, 288)






















SECTION TWO
PEOPLE AND LIFE

8. THE CONFIDENT ONE
(A life that is perfect)


Through conducting his life impeccably and reaping the most benefit out of birth into this world, a person can attain such confidence in his life that he fears nothing, not even death. This is living victoriously, making a success of life. Such a person is one who has attained the objective of living and leads his life according to the following principles:

A. Steering one's life to its objectives: he conducts his life toward the realization of the three benefits which are the objectives of life known as the three attha:

1. Ditthadhammikattha: the temporal objective or present benefit, the important kinds being:

a) Having good health, a strong body, freedom from disease, pleasant appearance and longevity.
b) Having work and income, wealth derived from honest livelihood; being economically self-reliant.
c) Having good status, having rank, honor, friendship and social acceptance.
d) Having a happy family, making one's family worthy of respect.

All of the above should be righteously obtained and used or treated so as to produce rightful benefit and happiness both for oneself and for others.

2. Samparayikattha: the spiritual objective or further benefit that gives value and meaning to life, and which leads to the profound inner happiness, especially:

a) Warmth, deep appreciation and happiness through faith; having an ideal.
b) Pride in having a clean life, in having done only good and virtuous actions.
c) Gratification in a worthwhile life, in having made sacrifices and performed beneficial actions.
d) Courage and confidence in having wisdom to deal with problems and guide one's life.
e) Security and freedom from worry in having performed good kamma, having a guarantee for the future life.

3. Paramattha, the highest objective or greatest benefit; having insight into the truth, having penetrated to the nature of life and the world, thereby rendering the mind free, [as a result of which]:

a) One is not shaken or overwhelmed by vicissitudes and changes.
b) One is not disappointed, downhearted or distressed on account of attachment to things.
c) One is secure, calm, clear, cheerful and buoyant at all times.
d) One lives and acts with wisdom, which looks at causes and conditions.

These three levels of attha can be attained on three fronts, as follows:
Attattha: the objective for oneself or one's own benefit; i.e., the three levels of benefit explained above, which one should establish within oneself, or develop one's life toward.
Parattha: the objective for others, or other people's benefit; i.e., the three levels of benefit explained above, which one should help other people successively achieve by inducing and encouraging them to develop their lives.
Ubhayattha: the mutual objective or benefit to both parties; i.e., the collective benefit, happiness and virtue of the community or society, including environmental conditions and factors, both concrete, such as forests, rivers and roads, and abstract, such as morality and culture. We should contribute to the creation and conservation of these in order to help both ourselves and others advance to the three levels of objectives mentioned above, at the very least not allowing our own pursuit of benefit to adversely affect the benefit and well-being of the community. For example, in keeping the discipline a monk helps foster the harmony of the monastic community, which is an atmosphere that helps the monks living together all live in comfort and grow in their practice toward attaining the highest benefit (paramattha).

(Nd2 26)

B. Maintaining inner strength: he has the strength that arises from the moral qualities or practices that are life's assurances-known as the four powers (bala)-which instill such self-confidence into him that he fears no peril, namely:
Panna-bala: the power of wisdom; he is learned; he has proper and clear knowledge and understanding of all matters and tasks he must deal with, and ultimately the true nature of life and the world; he does things with understanding of their reasons and their real nature.
Viriya-bala: the power of effort; he always applies himself to his tasks and duties with effort and perseverance; he does not give up, slacken or become discouraged.
Anavajja-bala: the power of integrity or the power of purity; his conduct and work are honest, faultless, clean, pure and uncensurable.
Sangaha-bala: the power of benefaction; he helps and supports others and makes himself useful to his fellow man; he is a benefactor of the community.

A government official, for example, might bear in mind these four brief injunctions: "Know your work well, perform your duty faultlessly, be honest and do not neglect human relations."

(A.IV.363)



C. Establishing oneself on a firm foundation from which to grasp the highest success aspired to without causing self-delusion, creating opportunities for error and blemish or leading to the accumulation of defilements. This can be achieved by practicing according to the principles known as the four inner strongholds (adhitthana):
Panna: using wisdom; he lives his life with wisdom and acts with reason; he does not react impulsively or emotionally to the incidents he encounters or get carried away by temptation; he studies things to know them clearly and penetrate to their raison d'etre; he understands things as they really are, ultimately attaining the truth.
Sacca: upholding truth; he establishes and maintains himself firmly in the truth that he has clearly known and seen with wisdom. Sacca ranges from being truthful in speech, being true to principles and having integrity in deeds, to [realizing] the highest truth.
Caga: fostering relinquishment; he fosters or increases his relinquishment to ever greater heights to prevent or restrain himself from becoming enslaved by any fame, fortune or success, for example, that he may acquire, which keep luring him into attachment, pride and delusion; he can relinquish whatever he has previously been attached to-ranging from material possessions to mental defilements-that is mistaken, false or wrong.
Upasama: calming the mind; he knows how to find peace in his mind; he trains to be able to overcome mental defilements and remove the frustration and confusion resulting from them; he makes his mind calm and clear so that it can experience the taste of peace; having known the taste of happiness that arises from the calmed mind, he is not easily infatuated with material possessions, status, or fame.

(M.III.243)
9. THE SUCCESSFUL ONE
(A life that advances and succeeds)


One who desires progress and success in life, be it in the field of education, occupation or livelihood, is advised to abide by the following principles:

A. The principles of growth: to practice according to the teachings that guide life to prosperity and eminence known as the four cakka (the conditions likened to the four wheels that carry a vehicle to its destination):
Patirupadesavasa: choosing a suitable environment; to choose a suitable location in which to live, study or work, where there are people and an environment conducive to learning and betterment in life, to the pursuit of the truth, virtue and knowledge, and the generation of goodness and prosperity.
Sappurisupassaya: associating with good people; to seek association or alliance with people who are learned and virtuous and who will support one's pursuit of the truth, virtue and knowledge, and one's advancement and growth in a rightful way.
Attasammapanidhi: establishing oneself rightly; to establish oneself firmly in virtue and a right way of life; to establish a clear and virtuous goal for one's life and work, and set oneself resolutely and firmly on the right path to that goal, not wavering or being negligent.
Pubbekatapunnata: having a good "capital foundation"; one portion of this capital foundation comprises innate qualities such as intelligence, aptitude and a healthy body; the other is, on the basis of that foundation, knowing how to rectify or improve oneself, to seek further knowledge, to strengthen good qualities and to train oneself in preparation for when these qualities are needed, to be ready to welcome success, to bring about welfare and happiness and to advance to even greater heights.

(A.II.32)

B. The principles of success: practicing according to the four conditions that lead to the success of any undertaking, known as the iddhipada (pathways to success):
Chanda: having a heart of zeal; to be keen to do something, and to do it for the love of it; to wish to bring an activity or task to its optimum fruition, not simply doing it to get it out of the way or merely for reward or material gain.
Viriya: doing with effort; to be diligent and apply oneself to a task with effort, fortitude, patience and perseverance, not abandoning it or becoming discouraged, but striving ever onward until success is attained.
Citta: committing oneself to the task; to establish one's attention on the task in hand and do it thoughtfully, not allowing the mind to wander; to apply one's thought to the matter regularly and consistently and do the task or action devotedly.
Vimamsa: using wise investigation; to diligently apply wise reflection to examine cause and effect within what one is doing and to reflect on, for example, its pros and cons, gains and shortcomings or obstructions. This can be achieved by experimenting, planning and evaluating results, and devising solutions and improvements in order to manage and carry out the activity in hand so as to achieve better results.

When applied to the work situation, for example, these four conditions may, in short, be remembered as love of work, tenacity, dedication and circumspection.

(D.III.221)


C. The conditions effectuating enlightenment: to follow the Buddha's example by conducting oneself in accordance with the two qualities that enabled the Buddha to attain his own enlightenment (sambodhi), known as the virtues which the Buddha himself practiced and saw the benefit of (upannata-dhamma):
Asantutthita kusalesu dhammesu: non-contentment with wholesome qualities; knowing no satiation, never having enough, of generating virtue and performing good works.
Appativanita ca padhanasmim: unrelenting effort; striving forward constantly, not retreating; refusing to give in or become discouraged in the face of obstacles, weariness and difficulties.

(D.III.214)


10. THE SHREWD BREADWINNER
(A life that is well founded)


Through abiding by the following principles, a person can be said to know how to acquire and use wealth (i.e., to be money wise), to be a good breadwinner, and to have established himself and used his wealth beneficially-he is one who performs his economic duties properly:

A. On the level of seeking and safeguarding wealth: practicing according to the principles that lead to immediate benefit, or that aid in the attainment of basic benefit, known as the four ditthadhammikattha-samvattanika-dhamma:
Utthana-sampada: endowment of industry; he is energetic and applies himself to his duties and making an honest living; he trains so that he acquires skills and true knowledge; he wisely scrutinizes [his undertakings] and seeks skillful means to manage and conduct his work for good results.
Arakkha-sampada: endowment of protection; he knows how to protect from risk and loss the wealth and fruits of his labor, gained through his own honest efforts.
Kalyanamittata: association with good friends; he discerns which people are worth associating with and which not, and does not associate with or emulate those who would lead him downward, but associates with, studies and emulates people who are learned, worthy, capable, honorable and endowed with qualities that are helpful to his livelihood.
Samajivita: balanced life-style; he keeps track of his income and expenditure and lives within his means so that he is neither deprived nor extravagant, and has income left over for saving.

(A.IV.281)

B. On the level of allotting wealth: having acquired wealth, he knows how to allot it into four portions, according to the principles for dividing wealth known as the four bhoga-vibhaga:
Ekena bhoge bhunjeyya: one portion to be used for supporting himself and his dependents and for good causes.
Dvihi kammam payojaye: two portions to be used for investment.
Catutthanca nidhapeyya: another portion to be put aside for future needs.

(D.III.188)

C. On the level of using wealth: it should always be borne in mind that the acquisition, protection and possession of wealth are for the purpose of creating benefit for both oneself and others. If wealth is not used to create benefit, its acquisition and possession are of no value or meaning. Thus, when one owns or acquires wealth, one should use the first portion as given in B. above in accordance with the five benefits to be derived from wealth, or reasons a noble disciple should hold to for acquiring and possessing wealth (bhogadiya), as described in the Buddha's words:

Having acquired wealth through the sweat of his own brow and the strength of his own arms, honestly and rightfully, a noble disciple:
Supports himself, his parents, children, wife and dependents and sees to their comfort.
Supports his friends and associates and sees to their comfort.
Uses it to safeguard his well-being and to make himself secure and free from dangers.
Makes sacrifice; that is, he gives offerings as support and oblations, in the following ways:

(1) Nati-bali: supporting relatives.
(2) Atithi-bali: receiving guests.
(3) Pubbapeta-bali: making merit or offerings in dedication to the departed.
(4) Raja-bali: supporting the government through taxes, etc.
(5) Devata-bali: making offerings to the deities; that is, contributions made in accordance with his faith.
Supports those monks and priests who are virtuous and free of heedlessness and indulgence.

Having used wealth in this way, even if it has been exhausted he can still rest assured that the wealth has been rightfully used for beneficial purposes, while if it increases he can also feel at ease; thus he is free of remorse in either case.

(A.III.45)

The use of wealth through these five channels is mentioned with a view to enumerating the ways in which wealth should be spent so that one learns how to use it. It is not implied that an equal portion of wealth should be assigned to each. Moreover, this teaching points specifically to expenditure on a regular basis; those who are able should create further benefit in accordance, for example, with the principles for helpful integration (sangaha-vatthu) given in Chapter 4.


11. THE IDEAL HOUSEHOLDER
(A perfect home life)


A person who can be said to have achieved success in domestic life as a good householder, who is worthy of respect and emulation, can be measured by the following gauges:

A. Possessing the four kinds of happiness: these are the four kinds of happiness that are fitting for a householder, or that lay people should always make efforts to attain. They are briefly known as the four kinds of happiness for a householder (kamabhogi-sukha):
Atthi-sukha: the happiness of possessing wealth; the pride, satisfaction and security of having wealth, rightfully acquired through the sweat of his own brow and the strength of his own arms.
Bhoga-sukha: the happiness of spending wealth; the pride and satisfaction of knowing that he has used his wealth, rightfully gained, for the support of himself, his family and his dependents and for good causes.
Anana-sukha: the happiness of freedom from debt; the pride and satisfaction of knowing that he is free, not indebted to anybody.
Anavajja-sukha: the happiness of blameless conduct; the pride and satisfaction of knowing that he has acted honestly, faultlessly and blamelessly in body, speech and mind.

Of these four kinds of happiness, the last is the most valuable.

(A.II.69)

B. Being a model householder: people who live the household life can be divided into several groups and classified into various levels. There are both bad and good, and the good can in turn be divided into several levels. The ideal householder, who is truly worthy of respect, is the tenth of the following ten kinds of householders (kamabhogi):

First group: acquiring wealth through wrongful means [a minus]:
Having acquired wealth, they do not use it to support themselves in comfort [a minus], and they do not share it with others or use it for good causes [a minus] (bad on all three counts).
Having acquired wealth, they use it to support themselves in comfort [a plus], but they do not share it with others or use it for good causes [a minus] (bad on two counts, good on one).
Having acquired wealth, they use it to support themselves in comfort [a plus], and they share it with others and use it for good causes [a plus] (bad on one count, good on two).

Second group: acquiring wealth both rightfully [a plus] and wrongfully [a minus]:
Having acquired wealth, they deal with it as in point 1 (bad on three counts, good on one).
Having acquired wealth, they deal with it as in point 2 (bad on two counts, good on two).
Having acquired wealth, they deal with it as in point 3 (bad on one count, good on three).

Third group: acquiring wealth rightfully [a plus]:
Having acquired wealth, they deal with it as in point 1 (bad on two counts, good on one).
Having acquired wealth, they deal with it as in point 2 (bad on one count, good on two).
Having acquired wealth, they deal with it as in point 3. However, they are still attached to, infatuated and obsessed with wealth, using it without full awareness of its drawbacks, and they lack the wisdom that leads to independence from and mastery over wealth [a minus] (bad on one count, good on three).

Special group: one who acquires wealth rightfully and uses it mindfully and comprehendingly, with a mind that is detached, has the following characteristics:
Having acquired wealth rightfully [a plus], he supports himself comfortably [a plus], shares it with others and uses it for good causes [a plus]. Moreover, he is not obsessed or infatuated with wealth, but uses it with full knowledge and awareness of its benefits and faults, its merits and demerits; he has the wisdom that frees him, making him master of his wealth [a plus].

This tenth kind of householder was commended by the Buddha as the most excellent kind of person, praiseworthy on all four counts, a model householder.

(A.V.176)

C. Governing life with four qualities: he practices according to the four qualities for leading the household life, known as the gharavasadhamma:
Sacca: truthfulness; he adheres to truth, integrity, honesty, sincerity; he is as good as his word; he ensures that his actions are trustworthy and reliable.
Dama: training; he disciplines and restrains himself; he adjusts himself to conditions and corrects and improves himself so as to be constantly progressing.
Khanti: endurance; he applies himself to doing his work with diligence and effort; he is tenacious and endures without wavering; he is firm in his aim and does not become discouraged.
Caga: sacrifice; he is thoughtful and generous; he helps others and performs good works; he relinquishes greed and pride and is able to work with others without being narrow-minded, selfish, or insisting on having things his own way.

(Sn.189)

D. Accepting responsibility for one's dependents: he has good and harmonious relations within the family, among relatives, friends, work associates and all of his dependents, by not only seeing to their material needs but also bringing mental benefit into their lives, by being an example to them and encouraging them in growth with the virtues known as the five qualities leading to noble growth (ariya-vaddhi):
Growth in faith: encouraging them to have firm belief and faith in the Triple Gem [Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha; the Teacher, the Teaching and the Community of Noble Disciples] and in performing good deeds, to have a solid object of faith in their hearts.
Growth in morality: encouraging them to have good conduct, to be honest and maintain good livelihood and to be disciplined and well-mannered.
Growth in learning: encouraging them to acquire knowledge through learning and hearing, by advising them or encouraging them to learn those things that will revive and improve their lives and minds.
Growth in giving: encouraging them to be generous, to be thoughtful to one another and to derive satisfaction in helping their fellow man.
Growth in wisdom: encouraging them to be reflective, to understand reason, to know good from evil, benefit from harm, what is useful from what is not; to see things as they really are; to be judicious, and to use their wisdom to investigate causes and conditions, solve problems and perform and carry out their tasks effectively.

(A.III.80)

E. Conducting oneself as a good citizen: leading oneself and one's family to prosperity and happiness, and being a constructive member of the society, by practicing the following:
Na sadharanadarassa: not being promiscuous or preoccupied with sex.
Na bhunje sadhumekako: not selfishly taking all the tasty morsels for oneself.
Na seve lokayatikam: not wasting time arguing about worthless things.
Silava: having good conduct and discipline; being established in the five precepts.
Vattasampanno: performing one's duties regularly and completely.
Appamatto: not being heedless, but energetic at all times.
Vicakkhano: being judicious, doing things with wisdom.
Nivatavutti atthaddho: being polite, not stubborn or arrogant; being open to the opinions of others.
Surato: being modest; possessing a love of refinement, cleanliness and orderliness.
Sakhilo mudu: having pleasant speech; being gentle in both deeds and thoughts.
Sangaheta ca mittanam: being kind and generous to one's friends.
Samvibhagi: sharing with and helping people in general.
Vidhanava: managing one's duties efficiently and effectively.
Tappeyya: supporting the learned and virtuous monks.
Dhammakamo: loving truth; esteeming virtue.
Sutadharo: having read and heard much; thoroughly knowing one's field.
Paripucchako: possessing an inquiring mind, seeking ever more knowledge.

(J.VI.287)


12. THE UNBEGUILED ONE
(A life that does not err)


A person who is not heedless or so enraptured by life and the world that he is enslaved by them-"deceived by the world, drunk on life," as it were-is one who is mindful, who knows how to look and investigate, and knows the right attitude to adopt to the truths that exist inherently in life and this world as the natural course of things, as follows:

A. Knowing the ways of the world: he reflects on, understands and establishes mindfulness properly in relation to the ever-changing conditions in life within the world known as the eight loka-dhamma (norms of the world, or normal conditions which repeatedly visit worldly beings, and by which worldly beings are constantly being spun around):
Sweet Bitter
1. Gain 2. Loss
3. Repute 4. Disrepute
5. Praise 6. Blame
7. Happiness 8. Suffering


These eight worldly conditions are divided into two sides, those that are pleasant, desirable and generally aspired to, known as ittharammana, and those that are distressing, undesirable, and generally abhorred, known as anittharammana. Regardless of whether they are liked or not, these eight worldly conditions can arise for everyone, be they unlearned and unenlightened or learned and enlightened, the only difference lying in the way each person responds to and acts on them. That is to say:
Unlearned, unenlightened beings do not know or understand the true nature of worldly conditions and so they mindlessly rejoice and lament over them: whenever they win they become indulgent and vainglorious, and whenever they lose they become sad and despondent, or even deranged. They let worldly conditions control their lives and overwhelm their minds, so that they are forever experiencing ups and downs and do not transcend sorrow.
Learned noble disciples know how to reflect on worldly conditions and see their true nature: that all things that arise, whatever they may be, are without exception unstable, impermanent, imperfect and naturally subject to change. Thus they do not mindlessly indulge in pleasant experiences (ittharammana) or become saddened or depressed on account of unpleasant experiences (anittharammana); they abide with mindfulness and equilibrium, neither indulging in happiness nor being overwhelmed by suffering.

Moreover, the noble disciple may make use of worldly conditions. For example, he may use undesirable experiences as lessons, tests or exercises for training in his own self-development, or use desirable experiences as opportunities or tools for constructive action and the furtherance of beneficial activities.

(A.IV.157)

B. Ignoring no divine messengers: he reflects on the states that always arise among humankind, which are reminders of the natural course of life, something not to be heedlessly indulged in. These states are known as the five deva-duta (the harbingers or heralds of the Lord of Death):
A newborn baby: [reminds us] that when we are born this is all we are.
An old person: [reminds us] that all people, if they live long enough, will have to experience this.
A sick or injured person: [reminds us] that this condition may arise for any of us.
A prisoner: [reminds us] that bad deeds cause misery and suffering even in this very life, let alone after death.
A dead person: [reminds us] that death awaits all of us; no one can escape it, and no one knows for certain where and when it will happen.

Whenever we see these phenomena-as when we enter a cemetery, a prison or a hospital-we should not become depressed over or afraid of them, but establish mindfulness, and reflect on them with wisdom so that we are roused to bring forth wholesome actions and lead lives that are free of intoxication and heedlessness.

(M.III.179)



C. Reflecting on the formula of life: even when he does not see the "divine messengers," he should constantly reflect according to the five subjects that all people, male or female, lay followers or monastics, should constantly bear in mind (abhinha-paccavekkhana):
Jaradhammata: we are subject to aging and cannot escape it.
Byadhidhammata: we are subject to pain and illness and cannot escape them.
Maranadhammata: we are subject to death and cannot escape it.
Piyavinabhavata: we must inevitably be separated from all people and things that we love.
Kammassakata: we have kamma as our own; whatever deeds we do, be they good or evil, of those we will surely be the heirs.

Regularly reflecting in this way helps to prevent infatuation with youth, possessions and life, alleviating heedlessness and attachment, preventing evil actions and inspiring us to quickly work for goodness and benefit.

(A.III.71)







SECTION THREE
PEOPLE AND PEOPLE

13. THE PARTNER
(A good spouse)


To be partners in life, good spouses should not only have pleasant sensual attributes, but also possess the qualities and observe the principles of conduct listed below:

A. The compatible couple: there are principles for partners in life to ensure their compatibility, providing a firm foundation for a long married life, called the four qualities for a good match (samajivi-dhamma):
Sama-saddha: having compatible faith; they uphold the same religion, revere the same objects of worship, concepts, beliefs or principles, and share the same lines of interest-they are equally firm in all these or can reach agreement on them.
Sama-sila: having compatible morality; they have conduct, morality, ethics, manners and upbringing which are harmonious or compatible.
Sama-caga: having compatible generosity; they are in accord, not conflict, with each other in their generosity, hospitality, munificence, sacrifice, and readiness to help others.
Sama-panna: having compatible intelligence; they are sensible and can understand each other; they can at least reason with each other.

(A.II.60)

B. Sweet couples and bitter couples: or "blessed couples and doomed couples," are partners who have qualities, tendencies, conduct and responses to each other that make their lives either, on the positive side, mutually supportive or compatible, or, on the negative side, barely endurable or downright miserable. In this regard, there is the teaching on the seven kinds of wives, as follows:
Vadhaka-bhariya: the murderous wife; a wife who does not live happily with her husband, who disparages him and thinks of destroying him.
Cori-bhariya: the thieving wife; a wife who squanders all her husband's wealth.
Ayya-bhariya: the domineering wife; a wife who is lazy and doesn't attend to her duties; she is foul-mouthed and vulgar, and likes to dominate her husband.
Mata-bhariya: the motherly wife; a wife who looks to her husband's well-being and attends to his needs, taking care of the money that he acquires and seeing that it is not squandered.
Bhagini-bhariya: the sisterly wife; a wife who respects and loves her husband as a younger sister loves her brother; she is gentle and deferential, and tends to agree with her husband.
Sakhi-bhariya: the comradely wife; a wife who is like a friend, loyal to her husband; when she greets her husband she is happy; she deports and conducts herself well; she has fine manners and is a friend who readily shares her husband's thoughts and feelings.
Dasi-bhariya: the servile wife; a wife who lives under her husband's thumb, and who passively endures his beatings and abuse.

(A.IV.91)

According to the teachings, a wife should look at herself and ask herself what kind of wife she is now and what kind of wife she should be. For a man, this teaching might be used as a principle for exploring his own character to see which kind of wife he is most suited to, and to examine a potential partner to see whether or not she is suited to him.

There are also many different kinds of husbands, in regard to which a parallel can be drawn to the seven kinds of wives.

C. The couple sharing in goodness: the four principles for leading the household life (gharavasa-dhamma) can be used by a couple in the following ways:
Sacca: truthfulness; being truthful and faithful to each other in thoughts, speech and deeds.
Dama: training; exercising restraint, training themselves to correct faults, resolve differences, adapt to each other and improve themselves.
Khanti: patience; being firm, stable and patient; not reacting impulsively to each other's affronts; enduring difficulties and hardships and overcoming obstacles together.
Caga: sacrifice; being thoughtful, able to give up personal comfort for the sake of one's partner by, for example, foregoing sleep in order to nurse him or her in sickness; also being kind and generous, not uncharitable, to the relatives and friends of one's partner.

(S.I.215)

D. The couple sharing responsibility help and serve each other according to the teachings given on the rearward of the six directions as follows:

A husband serves his wife by:
Honoring her in accordance with her status as his wife.
Not disparaging her.
Not committing adultery.
Giving her control of household concerns.
Giving her occasional gifts of ornaments and clothing.

A wife honors her husband by:

Keeping the household tidy.
Being helpful to the relations and friends of both sides of the family.
Not committing adultery.
Safeguarding any wealth that has been acquired.
Being diligent in all her work.

(D.III.192)

E. A sympathetic husband: There are a number of conditions peculiar to a woman about which a husband should be considerate and to which he should respond with care and sympathy. They are:
She must be parted from her kin despite her young age to live with her husband's family: the husband should make her feel at home.
She has a monthly period, which sometimes causes vacillations in her physical and mental states: the husband needs to understand this.
She may be with child, at which times she needs special care and attention, both physical and mental.
She may give birth, which is an extremely painful and even life-threatening time: the husband should look after his wife as if her suffering were his own.
She must submit to the wants of her husband: the husband should not do just as he pleases, but appreciate her attention and respond to it thoughtfully.

(After S.IV.239)
14. THE KEEPER OF THE LINEAGE
(A good head of family)


A head of family, in addition to practicing in accordance with the qualities and principles already mentioned, for example by knowing how to make a living, should also abide by certain principles concerning responsibility for his family in the following ways:

A. Ensuring the stability of the family line by practicing according to the principles for sustaining family prosperity, or causes for a family's prosperity and longevity, known as the four kula-cira hiti-dhamma:
Nattha-gavesana: when things are lost or used up, he replenishes them.
Jinna-patisankharana: when things are old and damaged, he restores and repairs them.
Parimita-panabhojana: he knows moderation in eating and using.
Adhipacca-silavanta-thapana: he places a moral and virtuous woman or man in charge of the household.

(A.II.249)

B. Honoring the people who are like fire: the following people are like fire-if one behaves toward them properly, great benefit can arise, but if one relates to them wrongly great harm can result, like burning oneself with fire. Thus one should act [toward them] as the ancient fire worshippers who took pains to tend the fires they worshipped caringly, cautiously, attentively and properly, out of respect and awe. These people are called aggi-paricariya (fires to be tended: people who must be worshipped by giving them attentive care and the respect proper to their position, like the fire of a fire worshipper):
Ahuneyyaggi-"the fire deserving of offerings": father and mother.
Gahapataggi-"the fire of the householder": wife, children and dependents.
Dakkhineyyaggi-"the fire worthy of gifts": virtuous priests or monks, who teach and uphold righteousness, who practice rightly, and who are not heedless or deluded.

(D.III.217)

C. Attending to one's children: as a parent, one should be aware of the three kinds of children, and arrange education and training for them in order to ensure that they develop in the best way. They are:
Abhijata-putta: the child who excels his or her parents, and is superior to them.
Anujata-putta: the child who follows his or her parents, and is equal to them.
Avajata-putta: the child who falls short of his or her parents, who drags the family down into ruin.

(It.62)

D. Maintaining the duties of a parent: helping children according to the principles of conduct for parents, who are described as the "forward direction," by:
Cautioning and protecting them from evil.
Nurturing and training them in goodness.
Providing an education.
Seeing to it that they obtain suitable spouses.
Providing allowances and bequeathing the inheritance to them at the proper time.

(D.III.191)

E. Being a good citizen: the family is the basic social unit and is a factor for social and national prosperity and security. Thus, a good head of family should also be a good citizen by conducting himself according to the principles outlined in Chapter 12, point E.
15. THE FAMILY SUCCESSOR
(A worthy heir)


A family's successor, in addition to inheriting the wealth and family name, must also take over various duties and adopt certain virtuous qualities which are related to preserving the family lineage. In the first place, as a good heir, he should abide by the following principles:

A. Opening the doorway to growth and progress: practicing according to the six conditions that are a doorway to benefit and happiness or the practices that are like a gateway of victory opening onto advancement in life (vaddhana-mukha), as follows:
Arogya: maintaining good health; having the greatest wealth, which is the absence of illness in both mind and body.
Sila: being possessed of discipline; conducting oneself well and properly, creating no trouble in the community.
Buddhanumata: having a good example; studying and emulating great, enlightened beings.
Suta: learning to be really learned; learning and seeking knowledge so as to be truly versed in one's subject; taking an interest in keeping updated.
Dhammanuvatti: doing only what is right and good; firmly establishing oneself in righteousness; conducting both one's personal life and work with rectitude.
Alinata: being energetic and diligent; being ardent, not given to discouragement or sluggishness; constantly striving forward.

(J.I.366)

B. Shutting off the channels of ruin: steering clear of the practices that are channels to ruin and destruction, and which lead to the dissipation of wealth, known as the six pathways to ruin (apaya-mukha):

1. To be addicted to drink and drugs, which has six hazards:
Wealth visibly dissipates.
Brawls are caused.
Health is impaired.
Reputation is harmed.
Indecent exposure and shamelessness result.
Intelligence is reduced.

2. To be always revelling in nightlife, which has six hazards:
One's self is not protected.
Wife and children are not protected.
Wealth is not protected.
One is susceptible to suspicion and doubt.
One is exposed to slander and rumor.
It leads to trouble of many a kind.

3. To be bent on entertainment, which has a harmful effect on work because one is always preoccupied with forms of entertainment and wasting time frequenting them: where there is dancing, singing or music, there one goes.

4. To be addicted to gambling, which has six hazards:
When one wins, one gains enemies.
When one loses, one bemoans one's lost wealth.
Wealth visibly dissipates.
One's word is not respected in meetings.
One is an object of contempt for one's friends
One is not favored as a potential partner in life because one could not be trusted to raise a family

5. To consort with evil people, which has the harmful effect of turning one into an evil person just like any of the six kinds of evil persons one associates with: that is, having friends that lead one into becoming a gambler, a womanizer, a drunkard, a forger, a trickster or a hood.

6. To be chronically lazy, which has the harmful effect of causing one to give all kinds of excuses for putting off the work that should be done; new wealth does not arise, and old wealth dissipates. The six excuses for not working are "too cold," "too hot," "too late," "too early," "too hungry," and "too full."

(D.III.182)

C. Cementing relationships with one's parents: as a son or daughter, one should honor one's parents, who are compared to the "forward direction," in the following ways:
Having been raised by them, one looks after them in return.
One helps them in their work.
One continues the family line and tradition.
One behaves as is proper for an heir.
When they have passed away, one performs meritorious acts and dedicates the merits to them.

(D .III.191)

D. Having the guarantee of a life that will progress: The Buddha stated that children are the foundations of the human race. The sons and daughters of a family are the children of a society. They should be given training which provides them with a basic capital for preparing them to advance in their education and life development to become valuable members of society. This can be achieved by instilling in them the qualities known as the auroras of a good life, or the dawn of education, of which there are seven, as follows:
Seeking out sources of wisdom and good examples.
Having discipline as a foundation for life development.
Having a heart that aspires to learning and constructive action.
Dedicating oneself to training for the realization of one's full human potential.
Adhering to the principle of conditionality; seeing things according to cause and effect.
Establishing oneself in heedfulness.
Thinking wisely so as to realize benefit and see the truth.

For explanations, see Introductory Section: Human Beings and Being Human, 1. Man, the Noble Being.
16. THE COMPANY ONE KEEPS
(True friends and false friends)


Our association with friends is important, having a great influence on our advancement and regression in life. Thus we should be aware of the main teachings on friends. Listed here are the teachings on those who should be associated with and those who should not, and the principles through which friends should relate to each other:

A. False friends: one should know the four kinds of false friends, or enemies in the guise of friends (mitta-patirupaka), as follows:

1. The out-and-out robber, one who only takes from his friend (harajana), has four main features:
He thinks only of getting.
He gives little in the hope of getting much.
Only when he is in danger does he help his friend.
He is a friend only for his own profit.

2. The smooth talker (vaciparama) has four main features:
He is only good at talking about that which is done and gone.
He is only good at talking about that which has not yet come.
He offers help that is ineffectual.
When his friend needs help, he makes excuses.

3. The flatterer (anupiyabhani) has four main features:
He consents to [his friend's] doing wrong.
He consents to his doing right.
He sings his praises to his face.
He runs him down behind his back.

4. The leader to ruin (apayasahaya) has four main features:
He is a companion in drinking.
He is a companion in night life.
He is a companion in frequenting shows and fairs.
He is a companion in gambling.

B. True friends: one should know the four kinds of true friends, or friends at heart (suhada-mitta), as follows:

1. The helping friend (upakaraka) has four main features:
When his friend is off guard, he guards him.
When his friend is off guard, he guards his property.
In times of danger, he can be a refuge.
In times of need, he gives more than asked for.

2. The friend through thick and thin (samanasukhadukkha) has four main features:
He confides in his friend.
He keeps his friend's secrets.
He does not desert his friend in times of danger.
He will give even his life for his friend's sake.

3. The good counselor (atthakkhayi) has four main features:
He restrains his friend from doing evil or harm.
He encourages his friend in goodness.
He makes known to his friend what he has not heard before.
He points out the way to prosperity and happiness.

4. The loving friend (anukampi) has four main features:
When his friend is unhappy, he commiserates.
When his friend is happy, he is happy for him.
When others criticize his friend, he comes to his defense.
When others praise his friend, he joins in their praise.

(D.III.185)

C. Reciprocal friendship: friends should support each other according to the practices in the teachings on the "left direction" listed below:

One should treat friends as follows:
Share with them.
Speak kindly to them.
Help them.
Be constant through their ups and downs.
Be faithful and sincere.

Friends reciprocate as follows:
When their friend is off guard, they protect him.
When their friend is off guard, they protect his property.
In times of danger, they can be a refuge.
They do not desert their friend in times of need.
They respect their friend's family and relations.

(D.III.189)
17. THE WORKER AND THE BOSS
(Employee and employer)


People who work together in the capacity of employee and employer should relate to each other properly in accordance with their duties, so that good relations are maintained and the work proceeds smoothly, by abiding by the principles of conduct outlined in the teachings on the "lower of the six directions" as follows:

A. An employer should support his servants and employees by:
Assigning them work in accordance with their strength, sex, age, and abilities.
Paying them wages commensurate with their work and adequate for their livelihood.
Granting them fringe benefits by, for example, providing medical care in times of sickness.
Sharing with them a portion of any special profits that may accrue.
Giving them appropriate holidays and time to rest.

B. An employee helps his employer by:
Starting work before him.
Stopping work after him.
Taking only what is given by the employer.
Doing his job well and seeking ways to improve on it.
Spreading a good reputation about his employer and his business.

(D.III.189)
















SECTION FOUR
PEOPLE AND THE WAY

18. THE EDUCATOR
(A teacher, mentor or preacher)


One whose duty it is to teach and provide others with learning, especially a teacher, should possess the qualities and observe the principles of conduct outlined below:

A. He is a good friend: [a teacher] should be endowed with the seven qualities of the good friend (kalyanamitta-dhamma), as follows:
Piyo: endearing; he is endowed with kindness and compassion, taking an interest in his students and their well-being; he has rapport; he creates a familiar and casual atmosphere, encouraging students to approach him with queries and doubts.
Garu: worthy of respect; he is firm, adhering to principle; he has conduct that befits his position, inspiring feelings of reassurance, refuge and safety.
Bhavaniyo: inspiring; he is truly learned and wise, and is one who constantly trains and improves himself; he is praiseworthy and exemplary, so that his students speak and think of him appreciatively, confidently and proudly.
Vatta: capable of speaking effectively; he knows how to explain things clearly, and knows when to speak what and how; he gives counsel and caution and is an able advisor.
Vacanakkhamo: patient with words; he willingly listens to questions and queries, no matter how petty, and can bear even improprieties, admonishments and criticisms without becoming dejected or offended.
Gambhiranca katham katta: capable of expounding on the profound; he can explain difficult and profound subjects clearly and can teach his students even profounder subjects.
No catthane niyojaye: not leading in wrongful ways; he does not lead his students in ways that are detrimental or in matters that are worthless or improper.

(A.IV.31)

B. He is dedicated to giving knowledge by establishing himself in the five qualities of one who gives teachings, known as the dhammadesaka-dhamma:
Anupubbikatha: teaching step-by-step, in proper sequence; he teaches the principles or subject matter in order, from easy to abstruse, shallow to profound, in logical progression.
Pariyayadassavi: expanding on and clarifying the main points; he explains; he brings forth reasons to clarify the meaning of each aspect and point; he varies his explanations to enable his listeners to clearly see his points in the light of reason.
Anudayata: teaching with a heart of goodwill; he teaches with a mind imbued with goodwill and a sincere desire for his listeners' benefit.
Anamisantara: aiming not for material gain; he does not teach out of a desire for any material reward, payment or personal benefit.
Anupahacca: speaking impartially and unabrasively; he teaches according to the principles, according to the content, with the intention of revealing the truth and the meaning, neither exalting himself nor satirizing or belittling others.

(A.III.184)

C. He maintains the fourfold grace of a teacher: a capable teacher has the following techniques of teaching:
Sandassana: making clear; no matter what he teaches, he explains the reasons behind it and analyzes it so that his listeners understand it clearly, as if leading them by the hand to see it for themselves.
Samadapana: inviting practice; he teaches in such a way that [his listeners] see the importance of doing what needs to be done, appreciate its value, become convinced, accept it and are motivated to implement it or put it into practice.
Samuttejana: arousing courage; he rouses his listeners to zeal, interest, fortitude and firm resolve to consummate the practice, to fear no difficulty or hardship.
Sampahamsana: inspiring joy; he creates an atmosphere of fun, cheerfulness, joyousness and delight; he inspires his listeners with hope and vision of a good result and the way to success.

In brief, this can be summarized as: teaching to clarify, motivate, rouse and delight.

(As in D.I.126)

D. He uses the three gauges: briefly speaking, a teacher may examine himself with the three kinds of manner that characterized how the Buddha taught:
He teaches with true knowledge: having first himself acquired true knowledge and accomplished his goal, he teaches others.
He teaches logically, so that his listeners can clearly see the meaning with their own wisdom.
He teaches pragmatically, accomplishing the objective of the teaching by, for example, guiding his listeners to truly understand, to see the truth, to actualize the practice and to attain the results of the practice.

(A.I.276)

E. He performs the duties of a teacher to a student: he conducts himself toward his students by helping them according to the teachings compared to the "right direction," as follows:
He trains them to be good.
He guides them to thorough understanding.
He teaches the subject in full.
He encourages and praises his students' goodness and abilities and allows their full expression.
He provides a protection for all directions; that is, teaching and training them so that they can actually use their learning to make a living and know how to conduct themselves well, having a guarantee for smoothly leading a good life and attaining happiness and prosperity.

(D.III.189)


19. THE LEARNER
(A pupil, student or researcher)


For one who is learning, whether a pupil, a student or a researcher, the teachings for one who is to be successful, namely the four wheels (cakka) and the four pathways to success (iddhipada) are not the only thing to bear in mind. There are also the following principles to learn and practices to observe:

A. Knowing the heralds of learning: he understands the two factors for Right View, which are:
Good external factor: having good friends, which refers to associating with teachers, advisors, friends, and [other vehicles of learning such as] books. It also includes having general social conditions that are wholesome and helpful. All of these will encourage or arouse the arising of wisdom, through the processes of listening, discussing, seeking advice, querying, reading, and researching. This also entails being selective about the use of mass media.
Good internal factor: yonisomanasikara, which is the proper use of thinking, knowing how to think, or being skilled in thinking; that is, seeing things with critical reflection, tracing their causes and effects; analyzing an object or problem in order to see it as it is and in terms of its causal conditions until one sees its true nature and can solve the problem or bring about benefit.

In short:
Knowing how to rely beneficially on the people and things around one.
Knowing how to be self-reliant and also make oneself a refuge to others.

(M.I.294)

B. Having the guarantee of a life that is progressing: Having learned of the two heralds of learning, one must put them into practice in one's own life and also develop another five qualities, bringing the total to seven, which are known as the auroras of a good life, or the dawn of education. The Buddha compared them to the light of the dawn, which always precedes sunrise, because these qualities are the capital foundation which guarantees that learning will advance and life will progress to virtue and success that are exalted and noble. They are as follows:
Seeking out sources of wisdom and good examples.
Having discipline as a foundation for one's life development.
Having a heart that aspires to learning and constructive action.
Dedicating oneself to training for the realization of one's full human potential.
Adhering to the principle of conditionality; seeing things according to cause and effect.
Establishing oneself in heedfulness.
Thinking wisely so as to realize benefit and see the truth.

For explanations, see Introductory Section: Human Beings and Being Human, 1. Man, The Noble Being.

C. Practicing according to the principles for encouraging wisdom: in practice, he may bring about the two conditions for Right View mentioned above by following the principles known as the four vuddhi-dhamma (conditions conducive to the development of wisdom):
Sappurisasamseva: associating with the wise; he knows how to select sources of knowledge, and associates with learned people who are virtuous, wise and worthy of respect.
Saddhammassavana: harkening to the teaching; he listens attentively to teachings and advice; he searches for knowledge from people and from books or mass media; he applies himself to learning and researching, seeks advice and makes queries so that he attains real knowledge.
Yonisomanasikara: thinking wisely; having learned, seen, read or heard about something, he reflects on it for himself, analyzes it to see its true nature and looks into it to see the what, when, where, why and how of it; he sees its merits and demerits, benefit and harm, etc.
Dhammanudhammapa ipatti: practicing in accordance with principles; the things he has learned, heard and thoroughly considered he puts into practice correctly in accordance with the principles and their objectives, so that the minor principles accord with the major ones and the minor practices are harmonious with the overall objective; he practices the teaching with its objective in mind; for example, contentment as a support for effort, but not leading to laziness.

(A.II.245)

D. Learning to be learned: whatever he learns or studies, he makes himself well versed in that field by increasing and clarifying his knowledge and understanding until he is endowed with the five qualities of a learned one (bahussuta):
Bahussuta: hearing much; he learns, hears, sees, experiences, reads and amasses a large and extensive amount of knowledge in his field.
Dhata: retaining; he grasps the gist or essence and remembers the subject matter accurately.
Vacasa paricita: becoming fluent; he recites or speaks about the subject often so that he is fluent in and clear about it, and can answer any queries about it.
Manasanupekkhita: becoming thoroughly familiarized; he thinks about the subject so often that he is thoroughly familiar with it; whenever he calls it to mind the content is vivid to him, and he perceives it clearly and thoroughly.
Ditthiya supatividdha: having penetrated; he clearly understands the overall meaning and rationale of the subject; he thoroughly and penetratingly knows its source, its logic and the relationship of the content and details within the subject itself and in relation to other subjects within that field or theory.

(A.III.112)

E. Honoring the "lighter of the lamp": in terms of their relations with the teacher, students should show respect to him as the "right direction" according to the teachings on the six directions:
Rising to greet the teacher and showing respect to him.
Approaching the teacher to care for and attend him, to consult, query and receive advice from him.
Hearkening well so as to gain wisdom.
Serving the teacher and running errands for him.
Learning the subject respectfully and earnestly; giving the task of learning its due importance.

(D.III.189)


20. THE DEVOTEE
(A lay follower)


Buddhists express their relationship to their religion through the following principles of conduct:

A. Supporting the monks: treating the monks as the "upper direction," by:
Acting toward them with goodwill.
Speaking to them with goodwill.
Thinking of them with goodwill.
Receiving them willingly.
Supporting them with the four requisites [almsfood, robes, shelter and medicine].

(D. III. 192)

B. Making merit: performing good deeds through the various means known as the three punnakiriya-vatthu (bases of meritorious action):
Dana-maya: making merit through sharing out material things.
Sila-maya: making merit through virtuous conduct or moral behavior.
Bhavana-maya: making merit through mind training, i.e., developing mental qualities and wisdom.

Buddhists should also make an effort to perform these seven more specific kinds of merit, bringing the total to ten:
Apacayana-maya: making merit through polite and modest conduct.
Veyyavacca-maya: making merit through efforts to give practical help, offer service or do the common good.
Pattidana-maya: making merit through involving others in doing good deeds.
Pattanumodana-maya: making merit through rejoicing in the good deeds of others.
Dhammassavana-maya: making merit through listening to the teachings and acquiring knowledge that is free of harm.
Dhammadesana-maya: making merit through explaining the teachings and imparting knowledge that is beneficial.
Ditthujukamma: making merit through correcting one's views, learning to see all things as they really are so that one attains Right View.

(D.III.218; D.A.III.999)

C. Familiarizing oneself with the religion: if one wishes to practice more strictly, to be a male lay follower (upasaka) or female lay follower (upasika), one should establish oneself in the conditions leading to prosperity for a lay follower known as the seven upasaka-dhamma, as follows:
Not failing to visit or meet with the monks.
Not neglecting to hear the teachings.
Training oneself to progress in higher levels of morality.
Being imbued with faith in the monks, be they elders, newly ordained or of intermediate status.
Listening to the teaching not for finding fault or flaws to criticize.
Not seeking the gift-worthy, or a field of merit, outside Buddhist principles.
Giving first service to this religion; that is, applying oneself to supporting Buddhist activities.

(A.IV.25, 26)

D. Being a leading lay follower: good Buddhist lay followers (upasaka, upasika) should be endowed with the qualities known as the five upasaka-dhamma:
They have faith, rational belief and confidence in the attributes of the Triple Gem.
They have morality, at least maintaining themselves in the five precepts.
They reject superstition; they believe in deeds, not in luck; they aspire to results through their own actions, not through lucky charms or things wildly rumored to be magical.
They do not seek the gift-worthy outside of this teaching.
They apply themselves to supporting and helping with Buddhist activities.

(A.III.206)

E. Regularly monitoring one's progress: this is in brief to uphold the qualities for measuring progress in the Buddha's teachings known as the five ariya-vaddhi:
Saddha: having belief that accords with the principles of Buddhism, not being credulous or easily led astray.
Sila: having honest and exemplary conduct and livelihood.
Suta: having sufficient knowledge of the principles of Buddhism to be able to practice them and teach them to others.
Caga: sharing and giving, being ready to help those deserving of help.
Panna: understanding the true nature of life and the world so that one's mind is not bound by them.

(A.III.80)


21. THE PERPETUATOR OF THE RELIGION
(A Buddhist monk)


The Order of monks (Sangha), who are the ordained members of the Buddhist religion, have the responsibility of studying, practicing and teaching the Dhamma, thereby perpetuating the religion. Monks have many rules of conduct to observe. Here only some of their duties in relation to lay people and some of the admonishments for practice will be given:

A. Helping householders: a monk helps lay people through the principles of practice for the "upper direction" as follows:
Enjoining them from evil actions.
Encouraging them in goodness.
Assisting them with kind intentions.
Making known to them things not heard before.
Explaining and clarifying those things they have already heard.
Pointing out the way to heaven, teaching them the way to happiness and prosperity.

(D.III.192)

B. Regularly examining oneself: a monk must be constantly cautioning himself in accordance with the ten themes to be frequently reflected on by a monk (pabbajita-abhinha-paccavekkhana):
My standing is not the same as that of a layman. I have renounced all statuses; I should live simply, and not try to get things my own way.
My livelihood depends on others as I rely on them for my sustenance; I should make myself easily looked after and use the four requisites reflectively, not out of craving.
The manner expected of me differs from that of a lay person; whatever is the manner of a monk I must adopt; I must also constantly improve myself.
In regard to moral conduct, am I still beyond self-reproach?
In regard to moral conduct, am I still beyond the reproach of my friends in the higher life (brahmacariya) who are wise?
I will have to be separated from all that is loved and dear.
My kamma is my own; whatever kamma I do, whether good or evil, of that I will surely be the heir.
The days and nights are passing: how am I using my time?
Am I content with a secluded dwelling?
Are there any of those supernormal attainments within me that will save me from embarrassment when later questioned by my fellow monks?

(A.V.87)
22. THE ATTAINER OF THE DHAMMA (A liberated one)


Just as a drop of water does not cleave to the lotus leaf, or water to the lotus flower, a sage does not cleave to sights seen, sounds heard or experiences cognized.

(Sn.812)

Attainers of the Dhamma do not pine over things done and gone or dream about things not yet come. They attend to the present; thus are they radiant.
Those who are still weak in wisdom spend their time day-dreaming about things not yet come and pining over things done and gone, so they become haggard, like fresh reeds uprooted and left in the sun.

(S.I.5)

One without the defilements which cause the concern of "mine" and "theirs" does not have to contend with the notion of "mine" and is thus without the sorrow of not having. He is not agitated by longing, he has no obsessions, he is not perturbed; he is constant in all situations. Since he is unperturbed, his insight is clear and he is free from all kinds of mental concoctions; he has abandoned brooding and bemoaning and sees only ease in all places.

(Sn.951-953)


He who has attained the Dhamma and extinguished the defilements is always at ease; he who is not attached to sensuality is cool and at peace; within him no foothold for the defilements can be found.
When all attachments are cut off, all anxiety driven from the heart, and the heart is at rest, peace and happiness are attained.

(A.I.138)

Question: Monk, don't you have any suffering, don't you have any fun, aren't you bored sitting by yourself?
Answer: Great One, I do not have any suffering and neither do I have fun; even though I sit all alone, I am not bored.
Question: Monk, how is it that you do not have any suffering, how is it that you do not have any fun, and how is it that you are not bored sitting on your own?
Answer: Only those who suffer have fun, and only those who have fun suffer. The monk is free of both fun and suffering. This is how it is; understand it thus.

(S.I.54)

Irritation does not exist in the mind of the noble one who has transcended [the concern with] being or not being this or that; he is free of fear and has only happiness, no sorrow. Even the devas cannot perceive his mind.

(Ud.20)

He who has attained the Dhamma has no task to do, as his task has been accomplished. As long as he has not obtained a foothold, the swimmer must strive to his utmost, but when he has found a place to rest his feet and gone up to dry land, his striving is over because he has crossed to the further shore.

(S.I.48)

While alive he is untroubled, and when he dies he is not sorrowful; a sage who has seen the goal lives unsorrowfully even in a sorrowful world.

(Ud.46)

Wherever I go I am unafraid; wherever I sleep, I am unalarmed. The nights and days do not burn me. I see nothing in this world that is to be lost; therefore my heart dwells in goodwill and kindness to all beings until I fall to sleep.

(S.I.110)

Game va yadi varanne ninne va yadi va thale
Yattha arahanto viharanti tam bhumiramaneyyakam
Be it a village or forest, in lands low or high,
wherever enlightened ones dwell, that is a place of delight. (Dh.98)