THE FIVE PRECEPTS

The Five Precepts: A Householder’s Guide to Daily Practice

Gotama Buddha gave us guidance to conduct life without harm to other beings or ourselves. In his Teaching titled “The Five Precepts”, he provides some basic guidance that when learned and practiced, will significantly reduce the harm you are causing in the world.

These are not commandments nor rules to follow, rather how to ensure you are not causing harm to others or yourself. By causing harm to others, we cause harm to ourselves by The Natural Law of Kamma. Through practice of these precepts, you will drastically eliminate unwholesome Kamma production and, thus, experience a more peaceful and content existence. (More on “Kamma” in a later Chapter.)

It is The Eight Fold Path that completely and fully extinguishes all unwholesome Kamma through the production of only wholesome Kamma, but here in The Five Precepts, we gain more insight into Right Speech and Right Action to further help us understand The Eight Fold Path. Through making wholesome choices in our life, we will experience wholesome outcomes. Through making unwholesome choices in our life, we will experience unwholesome outcomes. It is always our choice of whether we choose to make decisions based on wholesome or unwholesome teachings and then we experience the results according to our choices.

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1.) Abandoning the taking of life, refraining from taking life, without stick or sword, diligent, compassionate, trembling for the welfare of all living beings.

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2.) Abandoning the taking of what is not given, living purely, accepting what is given, awaiting what is given, without stealing.

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3.) Abandoning un-chastity. Abandoning sexual relations with women [men] who are protected by their mother, father, mother and father, brother, sister, or relatives; who are protected by their Teachings; who have a husband [wife or partner]; whose violation entails a penalty; or even with one who has been garlanded by a man [woman or partner] as a sign of engagement.

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4.) Abandoning false speech, refraining from false speech, a truth-speaker, one to be relied on, trustworthy, dependable, not a deceiver of the world.

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5.) Refraining from strong drink and sloth-producing drugs (substances that cause heedlessness), the basis for heedlessness