A Moral Code
Friday 02 Jan 2015
This blog started as a letter written to comment on an item in Geraldine Doogue’s Saturday Extra program on the ABC’s Radio National. A link to the item is here:
One of Geraldine’s premises for examining this topic was that Religion is losing relevance around this subject and this did seem to be born out in the session. The speakers did come with their own agenda’s, and certainly did present good and well considered commentary, however I feel the main reason that morality is important for religion, (certainly the Buddhist religion,) was missed. My purpose in writing to Geraldine was to highlight a Buddhist perspective. I wanted to flag the importance of a good moral code in understanding truth. A reasonable moral code is essential for the mind to have an access level to understanding what the Buddha taught.
A Buddhist perspective of morality is a fine religious viewpoint that was developed by the Buddha to illuminate the truth of this life, a life that we are all involved in. The Buddha gave us 5 precepts to practice in order to give our mind a minimum platform from which to go on and develop a quest for enlightenment. The Buddha noted that the human condition is one of the few conditions with a potential to realise this truth. The precepts are:
Practice to refrain from killing any living being.
Practice to refrain from stealing.
Practice to refrain from wrong speech and lies.
Practice to refrain from sexual misconduct.
Practice to refrain from alcohol and drugs that befuddle the mind.
Of course all these precepts are on a spectrum from coarse and obvious through to refined and debateable, but they do give the mind certain clarity into our human condition.
From this point, the Buddha recommended the self-reflective practice of meditation, in order to deepen our viewpoint and become aware of ourselves as we exist in the world around us. This practice develops wisdom and knowing in the present moment. Any cursory investigation, either scientific or psychological will confirm that this present moment is the only place where absolute truth can be found. The meditation practice can then deepen as we develop techniques to get in closer and uncover the moment.
As the elements of practice mature we can eventually develop our energy and insight to be so refined that we will see a phase transition. This Phase Transition takes the developed refined mind state beyond identifying with the more coarse body. Here the mind can know the mind stream of conditioned consciousness that animates the conditions that create us and drives what we do. This is the place of stillness where pure consciousness can be seen and identified. One notices that pure consciousness is fungible. Every element of it is interchangeable with each other element. It is here that we can truly see the interconnectedness of everything in the Universe. This stillness can then be developed and used as a first filter to see through (as it were) before we go on to identify, develop and “use” the conditioning that makes our Universe, including the perceptions of me and my
This truthful view of things is of course very subtle and generally does demand practice. The Buddha went on further to see consciousness finish into what he called the unconditioned or enlightenment. This is a place where birth and death along with karma (action) has all finished. The Buddhist precepts were developed as a baseline of minimum standards; so that ordinary people could develop and go on to know what he knew. It is very difficult to do this without at least this minimal level of morality. The five precepts can be discovered from first principles by anyone who wishes to use peace as a benchmark to reflect from.
As can be seen, this perspective of morality is somewhat different to what was discussed in your program today, but this view of morality is essential to understand by anyone who wishes to realise the truth of our existence. It is a recipe for anyone seeking to be free. It is a freedom from desires, not freedom of desires. I have written a poem to illustrate this here. http://www.dennissheppardhypnosis.com.au/poetry#Freedom
