The Positive

Overcome the anger by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth.

~The Buddha

Do Not Waste - Anything

We do not inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our children. Words to help with this practice come from Ruth Rowen, a woman who was a child during the Great Depression. Ruth says, "We prided ourselves on our economy. You never threw anything away."

The Mother

All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.

~Chief Seattle

The Starting Point

In the Samyutta Nikaya we read of the time when a young monk asked the Buddha for the training in brief. The Buddha told the young monk: "First establish yourself in the starting point of wholesome states, that is, in purified moral discipline and in right view. Then, when your moral discipline is purified and your view straight, you should practice the four foundations of mindfulness."

Ethics

Right speech, right action, and right livelihood—may be treated together, as collectively they make up the first of the three divisions of the path [The Noble Eightfold Path], the division of moral discipline. Though the principles laid down in this section restrain immoral actions and promote good conduct, their ultimate purpose is not so much ethical as spiritual. They are not prescribed merely as guides to action, but primarily as aids to mental purification. As a necessary measure for human well-being, ethics has its own justification in the Buddha's teaching and its importance cannot be underrated. But in the special context of the Noble Eightfold Path ethical principles are subordinate to the path's governing goal, final deliverance from suffering. Thus for the moral training to become a proper part of the path, it has to be taken up under the tutelage of the first two factors, right view and right intention, and to lead beyond to the trainings in concentration and wisdom.

~Bhikkhu Bodhi, in The Noble Eightfold Path

Abstaining From Taking Life

"Abstaining from taking life" has wider application than simply refraining from killing other human beings. The precept enjoins abstaining from killing any sentient being. A "sentient being" (pani, satta) is a living being endowed with mind or consciousness; for practical purposes, this means human beings, animals, and insects. Plants are not considered sentient beings; though they exhibit some degree of sensitivity, they lack full-fledged consciousness, the defining attribute of a sentient being.

The "taking of life" that is to be avoided is intentional killing, the deliberate destruction of life of a being endowed with consciousness. The principle is grounded in the consideration that all beings love life and fear death, that all seek happiness and are averse to pain.

~Bhikkhu, in The Noble Eightfold Path

Cultivating the Mind

The practice of, the training in, the Five Moral Precepts is the cultivation of the mind.

Sila = Proper Speech, Proper Action, Proper Livelihood

The English word "morality" and its derivatives suggest a sense of obligation and constraint quite foreign to the Buddhist conception of sila; this connotation probably enters from the theistic background to Western ethics. Buddhism, with its non-theistic framework, grounds its ethics, not on the notion of obedience, but on that of harmony. In fact, the commentaries explain the word sila by another word, samadhana, meaning "harmony" or "coordination."

~Bhikkhu Bodhi, in The Noble Eightfold Path

The Market

When Buddhist values are introduced into the arena of economics one begins to encounter difficulties in reconciling those values with capitalism and consumerism. 

The Four Comforts

With his heart thus unhostile and unafflicted by ill will, thus undefiled and unified, a noble disciple here and now acquires these four comforts.

He thinks: "If there is another world and there is fruit and ripening of actions well done and ill done, then it is possible that on the dissolution of the body, after death, I might be reborn in a heavenly world."

This is the first comfort acquired.

"But if there is no other world and there is no fruit and ripening of actions well done and ill done, then here and now in this life I shall be free from hostility, affliction and anxiety, and I shall live happily."

This is the second comfort acquired.

"If evil befalls one who does evil, then since I have no evil thought of anyone, how shall evil deeds bring suffering to me, doing no evil?"

This is the third comfort acquired.

"But if no evil befalls one who does evil, then I know myself to be pure in this life on both counts."

This is the fourth comfort acquired.

~The Buddha, in The Anguttara Nikaya

Ethics

Ethics are shown by thoughts.

Ethics

Ethics are shown by words.

Ethics

Ethics are shown by deeds.

The Precepts

Ethics and morality are practical matters. People get wrapped up in the words used to describe ethical action. But being ethical is just doing what's right and not doing what's not right. Simple as that. Of course, sometimes it's hard to know what's right. That's when we rely on the precepts.

~Brad Warner, in Don't Be Jerk

1.	I undertake the training rule to abstain from killing.
2.	I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking what is not given.
3.	I undertake the training rule to avoid sexual misconduct.
4.	I undertake the training rule to abstain from false speech.
5.	I undertake the training rule to abstain from fermented drink that causes heedlessness.

Good Friendship

Strong communities depend on the personal relations between their members, and the most basic relation between people outside family connections is that of friendship.

The Buddha placed special emphasis on one's choice of friends, which he saw as having a profound influence on one's individual development as well as on the creation of a harmonious and ethically upright community.

Good friendship is essential not only because it benefits us in times of trouble, satisfies our social instincts, and enlarges our sphere of concern from the self to others.

It is critical because good friendship plants in us the sense of discretion, the ability to distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong, and to choose the honorable over the expedient.

Therefore the Buddha says that all other good qualities unfold from good friendship.

~Bhikkhu Bodhi

Karma

Wickedness is action guided by ignorance,

virtue is action guided by knowledge.

The Perfection of Human Life

Rather than attaining nirvana, I see the aim of Buddhist practice to be the moment-to-moment flourishing of human life within the ethical framework of the eightfold path here on earth.

~Stephen Sampson, in Secular Buddhism

Life Is Dear To All

All tremble at punishment.
Life is dear to all.
Put yourself in the place of others;
kill none nor have another killed.

                                         ~The Dhammapada, verse 130