ETHICAL BASIS OF BUDDHISM
Buddhist ethics seems to rest upon several bases. One is
personal and another is more universal. One fundamental basis can be
depicted as non-harming.
‘In the vehicle of hearers [hinayana] the main
essence is not to harm others… non-violence or not harming is the
root.’ [Tenzin Gyatso, Opening The Eye of New Awareness, Wisdom, Lomdon,
1985, pp.19-20]
This means cultivating a non-harming attitude towards
self, other people and also to all living things. It means being kind,
gentle, considerate and respectful towards self and others. It means
moderation of behaviour. To state what is non-harming is the same as to
state what is construed as ‘good conduct’. Good conduct is construed as
conduct which either does no harm or which does good to all living things.
It is interpreted as good conduct, good thoughts and good words. This
includes love, compassion, kindness and giving, delight in the joy of
others and all acts of selflessness and generosity.
The opposite of good conduct is bad conduct and this
embraces all deeds which cause harm to self and others or which fail to do
good or which fail to challenge or resist bad. This includes acts rooted
in hatred, anger, pride, jealousy, envy, violence, hurting others in any
coarse or subtle way. On a subtle level it also includes all forms of
disrespect to others, bad words, even thinking bad thoughts about others.
In all cases, good deeds are construed as either neutral or as accruing
merit, which is then carried forward as a cause of good and happiness in
future lives. Likewise, bad deeds are construed as being bad and accruing
bad karma, which will carry forward and cause unhappiness in future lives.
Thus it follows that the fundamental incentive to do good, and to not do
bad, is the thought of the consequences of one’s actions, thoughts and
words. Through careful analysis of these consequences one is led into
leading a moral life which is either neutral or good in its overall
conduct. Mindfulness of good and bad and the consequences of both paths,
is the dominant thread which, on a practical level, guides the Buddhist
through the whole subject of ethics. Thus the Buddhist, through carefully
considering such facts, chooses the path which causes least harm to self
and others and which encourages good in all areas of one’s life.
Buddhists also guide themselves through the field of
ethics with knowledge of the Six Realms. Knowing that rebirth as a human
is by no means guaranteed, and that committing bad deeds will lead one to
suffer a bad rebirth in the Hell, Preta or Animal realms (for beings whose
mentality is strongly motivated by hate, envy/jealousy and ignorance/lust
respectively) can act as a strong deterrent to one’s decision to commit
any future bad actions. Vivid depictions of the nature and sufferings of
beings in these realms abound in Buddhist literature, presumably to shock
and horrify followers into improving their moral conduct. But the attitude
within Buddhism towards bad actions is more therapeutic than heavily
judgmental. No-one is ‘written off’ as damned beyond salvation or that
what one has done is irretrievably bad, sinful, wicked or evil. Nor is
there any attempt to condemn or render guilty those who commit bad
actions. In some respects they are viewed sympathetically, for they tread
a path we could all so easily follow. But the inevitability of the law of
karma is never questioned: we reap what we have sown.
While all the above is certainly correct and applicable,
yet on another level, we might also construe Buddhist ethics as being
wholly rooted in karma and rebirth, for without these two underpinning
concepts there could be no concept of right and wrong in Buddhism. This
follows, because right and wrong are only viewed as meaningful concepts in
relation to the effects of actions. And those effects would not exist were
it not for karma as a force and rebirth as a fact. Thus without a new life
to be born into and the karmic seeds carried forward from life to life,
there could be no concept of good and bad. Indeed, one can posit that
without any religious dimension to life, there can be no ethics of
universal application at all, because we would just be products of
molecular interactions from which could flow no moral consequences of any
kind. Thus in this scenario the only basis for ethics would be negotiable,
relative, subjectively shifting, basically social and based upon
biological survival.
Ultimately, all the Buddhist schools regard ethics as a
means of keeping one’s mind and life pure and free from negative
influences. Rather like the concept of keeping the blood and liver clean
and fresh to maintain and preserve good physical health, so the mind is
regarded as a stream or river, which must be kept clean and constantly
checked for pollution, which must be removed, if good spiritual health is
to be maintained. This view if often is presented in the old adage
ascribed to a Buddhist monk who was asked what a Buddhist does: ‘do good,
avoid evil and keep the mind pure.’ Everything we are is the result of our
past, and how we have dealt with or failed to deal with that determines
very much our state of mind. Buddhism views its own teachings as a form of
therapy for impure minds.
Ethics of the Three Schools
In the Hinayana school the simple moral code depicted
above applies to the self and is interpreted as relating solely to a
follower of Buddhism: it is focused upon the individual who seeks a refuge
away from the world. The Hinayana seems, in effect, to turn its back on
the world and the rest of living things, in an apparently indifferent and
almost uncaring form of self-centredness. Not hostile, but certainly
indifferent towards the world, they move through it rather like ghosts,
determined to minimise their contact with everything and everybody. Their
goal is a detached and serene form of selflessness or Arhatship.
But in the Mahayana, a much wider vision of ethical
conduct is established, with a very different tone, which embraces all
living things, and which seeks to create compassionate activity in the
world as a joyous end in itelf. It seeks to cherish, love and comfort
every living thing, apparently just for the sheer joy of doing so. Thus
the aim of the Mahayana appears to be much more centred in the world of
all living things than in a withdrawal from it. This also manifests in
their cultivation of the 4 immeasurables and the 6 perfections. The four
immeasurables are love, compassion, joy and equanimity. The six
perfections are the perfections of love, giving, meditation, enthusiasm,
patience and tranquillity.
Karma is interpreted such that good thoughts manifest in
future lives as good thoughts; good deeds as good deeds and good words as
good words; each staying within its own sphere or department. Good
thoughts cannot give rise to future good deeds or words; just as bad deeds
canot give rise to future bad thoughts or words, etc. Thus committing
murder of a person leads to shortening of one’s own future lives, while
speaking bad about someone will lead to bad being spoken about oneself in
future lives. Causes and their effects thus resonate strictly within their
own spheres. Essentially, therefore, karma is regarded as a law of action
and reaction, or of actions and their consequences; of causes and their
results.
While in the Hinayana the goal is a sort of detached
selflessness, in the Mahayana it is much more towards the cultivation of
love, joy and compassion. These latter are certainly emphasised above all
other qualities as being exceptionally important, both for spiritual
progress and in developing the causes for future good lives. The reasoning
is that solely through the cultivation of love, compassion, forgiveness
and tolerance, one’s mind becomes softened and made pliable. If you think
of others first and place yourself second, then automatically you become
increasingly centred in acts of kindness, giving and generosity. That
establishes positive karmic seeds in the mindstream such that one becomes
increasingly attracted in future lives towards kind and spiritual people
and one loses the hard and selfish attitudes of hatred, anger and
selfishness. One therefore becomes a force for good in the world.
However, there is a subtle difference within the
Mahayana schools because the Zen school depicts enlightenment as a state
of mind which is utterly beyond any rational comprehension and which is
essentially a state of pure wisdom, zany humour and lightning intuition.
In the Tibetan tradition, however, the wisdom aspect is not emphasised as
much as the compassion and love aspect. These might best be viewed as
complementary interpretations rather than being opposed to one another.
They are both aspects of the Mahayana and represent the union of wisdom
and method, or wisdom and compassion, which represent the essential nature
of a Buddha.
Thus in this way the underlying ethical basis of the
different forms of Buddhism reflects the varying spiritual goals of each
school. Perfection is possible, but only through religious practice is
change achieved. Doing nothing is not regarded as an option.. The idea is
that only through effort and ethical conduct will improvement occur. The
bad forces one has to work against are essentially deeply ingrained habits
of mind and conduct. But the good news of Buddhism is very much that
improvement is possible and will definitely ensue if effort is made. In
all forms of Buddhism an ethical code is established and followed.
Conduct, speech and thoughts are deemed to have power, value and
significance and to generate invisible seeds for good or bad, which are
carried forward from life to life.
The task of the good Buddhist is to ensure that bad
karma has been courageously faced and worked through and that no further
bad has been created in this life. Also, that only good has been created
in all spheres of one’s life. If in all honesty that is the case, then one
can die happy, knowing that one is making progress towards perfection,
knowing that one has left this world in a better condition than one was in
at birth. That is a sign of one’s spiritual betterment and gives hope for
a better future or better life to come. Viewed simplistically, the
Buddhist life is one of working through the bad and striving not to create
any more, while at the same time creating good in every department of
one’s life, through acts of kindness and love, and by replacing bad habits
with good ones. And so to transform a life that harms others into one that
only causes good. Such a life is a spiritual life, a religious life and
thus a force for good in the world.