Our Dharmabyte today continues on the theme of Ethics with Parami sharing her thoughts on and#8220;Ethics and Compassion.and#8221; Parami explores this theme of the Buddhaand#8217;s compassionate action and how ultimately it came from beyond self, beyond other and#8211; it emerged from his realisation of and#8216;Emptinessand#8217;.
and#8220;Out of Compassion for the Worldand#8221; was given at FWBO [Triratna] International Retreat at Taraloka, May 2008
[music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. [music] I'm just going to say that Buddhist ethics tends to be praxis rather than theory. In the Buddhist tradition, the Buddhist tradition very much has the taste and sea attitude to many things. And ethics are also, in that sense, taste and sea, which doesn't mean just do anything you like and see what happens. It doesn't mean just do anything. That caused a lot of harm, odia. Obviously we can apply it a little bit more intelligently than that. But it does have the sense of we can very definitely feel pretty immediately the effects of our actions if we have a sensibility to that. And Buddhist ethics you could see is roughly a Viptoe based ethics rather than some of the other styles of ethics that we have in Western model philosophy. And a Viptoe ethics is an ethics based on the development of character. It can be seen as the transformation of character through the development of good habits through time, so that our negative patterns become replaced by positive patterns. So a transformation of personality through the development of good habits over time, so that our negative patterns are replaced by positive patterns. So Buddhist ethics are a mind based ethics. So what we're actually doing is working in such a way that our mind states become more and more positive, more and more skillful to use that term, that they're more and more based on clarity, care, kindness, understanding, solidarity. And that our actions and our mind states are always less and less based in greed, and craving, hatred, delusion, competitiveness, one-upmanship, fear, envy, resentment, et cetera, et cetera. So we can see from that that the precepts give us a way of working with that. The precepts state very clearly in their negative form, the actions that we will try to disassociate with, that we will undertake to not do acts of cruelty, acts of, yeah, you know the precepts. And they also, in their positive counterpart, state quite clearly actions of loving kindness, of generosity, contentment, truthfulness, mindfulness. Ways of actually acting in the world that will have an effect on our mental state, will have an effect on our heart. So in that sense, Buddhist ethics, although a mixture of different kinds, is probably closest to virtue ethics. And the virtue that we could say that it's at the heart of this ethical practice is the virtue of love and compassion. And there are many different ways of thinking about compassion. There are many different levels of compassion. In its most basic sense, there's a level of compassion known as situational or episodic compassion. Situational compassion is when our heart is full of matter, full of love, full of kindness, full of care, and we meet suffering. And our heartfelt response to that suffering is an appropriate response of compassion. And we act in accordance with that appropriate response of compassion. But it's coming in response to something seen externally. And it's a wonderful level of compassion, and it's the level of compassion at which most of us, most of the time, will act. However, there's a deeper level of compassion, and it's important to be open in ourselves to that deeper level of compassion. And that great compassion comes from a very deep understanding, a very deep level in which we're able to feel compassion beyond polarization. We're able to feel compassion not only to those who perhaps are suffering, but more challengingly, more radically. We're able to open our hearts in compassion to those who might be causing suffering. This level of compassion is the level of compassion of the Bodhisattva. It's the level of compassion of the being who is dedicated to going beyond the separation of self and other. It's a level of compassion which completely transcends polarities, a compassion in which we're able to resonate and feel with not only the victim to use that term, but the perpetrator. And we all live at times of victims, at times of perpetrators, in small and larger ways. This level of compassion is very beautifully and poetically reflected in a poem by Tigna Han, where he's able to identify imaginatively and compassionately a child, a 12-year-old girl who's been raped by a sea pirate and who throws herself off the boat. But he's also able to open his heart to the pirate who raped, and he's able to identify with that pirate, and he's able to see what I, too, under certain conditions and circumstances under different formation of character might, too, have ended up in that place. So it's a level of compassion where the heart can open not only to can open beyond polarity, and just briefly share a little dream that I had once, which is quite a good illustration of this, years ago I was doing a solitary retreat, and I had a dream in this retreat. And in this dream, it seems to have the megalomaniac when I share it, but anyway, it was a dream. You're allowed to be a megalomaniac in your dreams. And my dream was that my task was to sing songs to help the dying, okay? So then I was in some way hovering above the world, singing songs, and, you know, spirits of the dying would arise, and I would sing to them, and they would go off to their next rebirth. Anyway, there I was that night over Nicaragua. Now, this was at some point in the 1980s, and as I was there hovering, and the spirits were coming towards me, I was saying, "Okay, are you a Sandinista or a Construm?" (Laughter) And if they said they were from the Sandinistas, I would say, "Okay, lalalalalala," and if they could go to their next rebirth. However, if they were unfortunate enough to admit to be in Constras, and probably funded by the CIA, I'm afraid my voice just stopped, and I didn't sing for them. Well, I was horrified when I woke up. I was totally shocked by the fact that my compassion, and matter, and singing was so conditioned and limited, because I had my own prejudices. It doesn't matter if you don't understand or know the reference to that particular conflict. The point was that I had taken sides. Now, it might well be that I could make an objective analysis and decide that I felt one side had, as it were, or anyway, I'll shut up. The point was that I had, in fact, taken sides, and I realized my compassion was so limited and my matter and my loving kindness was so limited by my opinions and my points of view. And I made a vote to myself when I woke up and I meditated that morning that I would really try to learn to feel compassion and matter beyond my limited points of view. I haven't always managed it, but I have tried to keep that. And I have some examples of where I've managed to sometimes feel meta for certain personalities, but I'm not, in fact, going to share that with you today. But in all seriousness, this demand in a heartfelt sense to go beyond our opinions and polarities is a massively radical challenge. And yet it seems to me that given the world that we live in, it is the challenge for the 21st century. It's the challenge that really could make such a massive difference that the problems that we face, whether they're environmental, whether they're world poverty, whether they're domestic violence, whether they're all those problems, come when we do not manage to identify in solidarity with those with whom we have differences. And where we arm ourselves, whether that armament is simply words or why that it's armament to the extent that nation-states arm themselves against their competitors, that all of those things come from a lack of ability to go beyond the polarization of self and other. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [music fades out] [music fades out] [music fades out] You You
