Into the Heart of Life (14 page)

When we take the vow not to harm others, we are saying to the world and to all beings, “You have nothing to fear from me; in my presence, you are safe.” It is this basic appreciation for all other beings on this planet which is so fundamental. Even if we don’t actually benefit anyone else, at least we don’t harm them. Of course, we try to benefit also, but here we are dealing with the question of not harming, not hurting anything. We human beings are really a problem for this planet. Imagine: some insect comes by, and if we don’t like it we just squish it with no thought that this being has its own life with its joys and sorrows. We don’t know what kind of world it is experiencing. What right have we to just terminate its life?

In this imperfect world, we may not always keep this precept perfectly because as the Buddha himself said, this world is covered with much dust. It is a very dusty world, and dust is falling continually. There are always compromises which we have to make, but we must be very careful with our compromises and not justify them easily. As much as we possibly can we should really try to become whole by conducting ourselves with integrity. Most of the time, we can do that. We can learn not to see situations solely from the angle of our own convenience if we make the effort. Other creatures have their point of view. I am not going into the whole field of animal rights, but animals
do
have rights. Insects have rights. We all have rights and we should think about that. We should think about living in this world so as not to keep trampling on everything all the time. Let us tread a little more gently. When I was first with my lama, he said, “I want you to take just one precept. Consider that you have all the others, but take just one first.” I chose this one, not taking life, and he said that was the right thing to do. Because this precept is fundamental to all the others.

The second ethical precept concerns not taking that which is not given. It’s a little bit more specific than not stealing, which is what it means, of course. In the monastic sangha, they take this very seriously. For example, there was a Catholic nun who once brought me several tins of processed cheese from Delhi. This was in the mid-1960s, and in those days processed cheese was very rare in India. I decided to offer the cheese to my lama, Khamtrul Rinpoche, but as he didn’t happen to be there, I put the tins on his desk, right in front of where he sat, so he could see that they were for him. He came back, days went by, and the tins of cheese were still sitting there, stacked up like the Tower of Pisa. Eventually I said to him, “Rinpoche, why don’t you take that cheese? Don’t you like it?” And he replied, “Well, I thought they were for me because they’re sitting there, but you haven’t offered them.” So I picked up the tins of cheese and handed them to him and said, “They are yours.” But that’s the point. Integrity here is also linked with this question of harmlessness—people know that their property is safe with us.

Books—who has ever lent a book and waved it goodbye? And what about videos, CDs, and DVDs? Returning something we’ve borrowed, and in as good a condition as when we got it, is a matter of integrity. Why? Because at our level of realization, we still identify ourselves with what we own, and we don’t like it when people simply take what is ours.

During the hippie period in the 1960s and early 1970s there were those who felt that “everybody’s property is my property.” They didn’t believe in private ownership, but what happened? Maybe in the early days there really was a sense of free-flowing ownership. But in the end they held to the attitude of “what you own is mine and what I own is mine too.” It was not an especially open-hearted attitude. They would stay on somebody else’s property, and when the owners wanted to evict them, they didn’t say, “Well, that’s fair enough, because everything belongs to everybody.” They said, “No, now it’s mine.” We have to be careful of this grasping quality of mind. This precept of not taking what is not given respects these boundaries. Obviously, not killing and not stealing are fundamental to a well-ordered society.

Another ethical precept, not engaging in sexual misconduct, basically refers to any kind of sexual activity which could bring harm to oneself or to another. This is an especially relevant question nowadays because people are often extremely irresponsible sexually; sex has often been used merely as a means for self-gratification, and with no thought of either the physical or the emotional consequences. But sex is not like having an ice-cream when we are feeling greedy. It is a dialogue. It is a relationship, even if it is only a one-night stand. Yet we deal with such fundamental energy in irresponsible ways.

We are often very immature when it comes to sexual relationships. We act like fifteen-year-olds even if we are fifty, or even seventy. We have all seen it. Look at the politicians or the big celebrities. They have so much to lose, so much at stake, but yet they act like school kids. It’s pathetic, and it reflects the real state of inner immaturity and their lack of responsibility to themselves, their families, and society. We have to ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this? Is it just because—right now—I want this gratification?” We should ask ourselves about possible repercussions this action could have on ourselves and on others. Could it cause unwanted pregnancies? How many abortions are caused by irresponsible sexuality? It’s not like this isn’t a problem anymore. It’s not as though we have solved this through contraception, because so many abortions are still performed. And what about the big problem of rampant sexually transmitted diseases?

It is not just the physical side. There is also the emotional aspect to be considered. Any kind of sexual activity which causes damage in any way to anyone is not wholesome. Sexual activity should be an expression of caring, of love, and not just an outlet for lust, greed, and exploitation. Recently I went to visit a women’s prison and I was told that at least eighty percent of the women who come into this prison had suffered sexual abuse as children, most of it incestuous. So this is not an irrelevant issue. Our irresponsibility in sexual areas destroys life. These women were inwardly mutilated and they later indulged in a lot of very harmful and self-destructive behavior because of their hatred of themselves due to the abuse in childhood. So many women I meet out in the world, and not just in prison, have exactly the same problems. So we must be very careful to not merely utilize the other person for our pleasure and gratification, but use love-making as an expression of genuine care.

The next precept for us to contemplate is lying. And lying doesn’t just mean telling untruths: it actually includes all unwholesome speech. Wholesome skillful speech should be truthful, kind, and helpful. There are many people who pride themselves on their honest speech and claim to say what is on their mind. But it is surprising how often this approach is just a channel or vent for their negativities—the anger, the ill-will, and the jealousy in their minds. We must be very careful because our speech really influences others. We have a saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me.” But that is very idealistic. The Tibetans have a saying, too: “Swords can only harm the flesh, but harsh words can tear a man’s heart to pieces.” That is so true.

We as human beings have this very rare gift of communication through speech, but we tend to use it too casually. Often we say certain things in a moment of irritation; we don’t really mean it, but it just comes out. People hold that in their hearts, and they remember.

But it is not only a question of not harming—it is also a matter of growing up. The Buddha called unliberated people like us “the children.” In English, this is sometimes translated as “fools.” The actual word means “childish” or “immature,” and that’s what we are regardless of what age we may be. Some children are much wiser than their parents, though not always. But our level of childishness is also a mark of irresponsibility, and we have to grow up and take responsibility for our lives. A mature person is someone who is integrated and whose thoughts are centered not on themselves but on others.

The fifth ethical precept concerns alcohol. Why was that included in the list? Presumably any thinking person knows the answer to that. Under the influence of alcohol, our negative impulses emerge. When someone gets drunk, they don’t go out and join Mother Teresa. They are more likely to go home and beat up their wives and children or get in their cars and drive irresponsibly and crash or run someone over. Alcohol not only destroys our minds, it destroys our bodies. I know it is difficult in society for many of you to give up all alcohol and so one cannot ask that. But I can say, at least try to reduce your intake of drinks, and never get to the point where your mind is seriously affected. It would benefit you and those around you. It would benefit society.

Nothing is more boring than someone who is drunk. They may think they are brilliant, but a person who is sober just thinks, “Get me out of here.” Being inebriated is pathetic. It’s not clever, and it’s not sophisticated, no matter what the advertising tries to tell us. Of course, alcohol companies want us to think that alcohol is very stylish and classy, but that’s just because they want us to buy their product. People who are addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs are slaves. We can be enslaved through terror or we can be enslaved through pleasure, but it is still enslavement.

Actions which in our ordinary sober mind we would never consider often become feasible and seem desirable when we are in this other state of consciousness brought on by alcohol or drugs. People do things which they would never dream of doing if they were sober. If inebriation brought out really good, positive qualities, it might be okay, but it does not. So much of the violence and the abuse in society occur because people are drunk or they are stoned on drugs. The World Health Organization says that more than one-third of the disease burden in the world has its basis in alcohol consumption. So this is not a minor precept which we can forget. All I can say is, please, if you are trying to live a life which is spiritually based, then take it seriously.

The Buddhist path is the way of increasing clarity of mind and increasing inward control so that we are not enslaved by our thoughts and our feelings but are masters of our interior world. Alcohol goes in the opposite direction. It is totally counterproductive. If one cannot abstain completely, at least one should try to cut one’s consumption down to acceptable levels. A glass of wine at dinner, okay. Maybe one glass of beer with someone you meet at the pub. But three or four or five glasses is not all right.

Kshanti paramita, or patience

In ancient India there was a kind of austerity known in Sanskrit as
tapasya,
and we can see this at work in many other spiritual traditions.
Tapasya
often took the form of very severe fasting. For example, the Buddha himself fasted until he was only eating a single grain of rice a day. Other forms of austerity would include standing for years with one arm in the air, or never sitting down at all, or standing on one foot, or standing out in the Indian summer in the midst of four fires with the sun above as the fifth fire. These are things which people do, even today. But the Buddha said to forget them all except for the greatest austerity,
kshanti paramita,
which is patience. Now, this sense of austerity means having patience and tolerance toward difficult people, trying circumstances, and adverse conditions. Patience expresses a mind that is very open and spacious.

Consider how each one of us is just one person. There is one “me” while in this whole world there are billions of “non-me”s. Are we going to spend our lives trying to make everybody say and do exactly what we want them to say and do in order that we may be peaceful? This is not feasible. As Shantideva reminds us in the
Bodhicharyavatara (Way of the Bodhisattva),
the earth is full of stones and thorns, and as we walk around we are bound to stub our toes on the sharp flints. So what are we going to do? he asks. Are we going to carpet the whole world so that it will be soft underfoot? This is not possible, even with all the money in the world. But there is no need to go to such extremes. All we require is a piece of leather beneath our soles in the form of sandals or shoes and then we can walk anywhere. Likewise, we cannot create a world in which all circumstances and all beings act in accordance with our wishes. It’s exhausting to even think about it! But if we arm our own mind with patience and tolerance, then we can deal with everyone and every situation.

Anger is a very interesting emotion. Going around from east to west and north to south in whatever country in the world, I am asked two main questions. One question is, “How do I find a spiritual master?” People generally ask this out of a need for guidance. But there are some who ask out of the fantasy that if they could only meet a certain spiritual master, somehow or other all their problems would be solved. They don’t understand that that’s probably when their problems actually begin! And the second question which is asked again and again is, “How do I deal with anger?” Because anger is an unpleasant feeling. We don’t like to be angry—it makes us feel uncomfortable. People don’t like us; they don’t admire us when we are angry. So we want to rid ourselves of it. In a way, we much prefer to indulge an emotion we enjoy. We don’t want to be rid of clinging and greed, provided that our greed is sometimes fulfilled. We like desiring things as long as we sometimes get the objects of our desire. Desire is a much harder emotion to transform because we like it, and we don’t really want to get rid of it. Anger, on the whole, is universally understood to be negative. The Buddha said that while karmically anger was at least eight times heavier than attachment, it is much easier to eradicate because we don’t like it. We are happy to be rid of it.