In our discussion of Letter to a Friend that Nagarjuna wrote, we have been going into a detailed discussion of karma which, hopefully, we’ll finish today. We are expanding on Verse 5:
(5) Always entrust yourself, with body, speech, and mind to the ten pathways of constructive karma. Turn away from intoxicants, and likewise delight as well in livelihoods that are constructive.
This is speaking about constructive karma, which is to refrain from acting negatively. We had spoken sometime ago about whether there is an actual presentation of constructive actions that isn’t just a list of destructive actions that we refrain from. I actually found a reliable source that states them – at least, states them in terms of the opposite of the five precepts. This is a book – it’s a commentary, not a classical text – by the former Supreme Patriarch of Buddhism in Thailand. I don’t know when it was written because it gives the date in Thai years. Anyway, it was written by one of the patriarchs of Buddhism in Thailand. He is called the Vajirananavarorasa. The book was printed 1991, but I don’t know when he actually wrote it.
The Five Ennobling Dharmas – The Five Constructive Actions, which Correspond to the Five Precepts
In the commentary he points out the Panchen Dhamma (The Five Ennobling Dharmas), which, obviously, is a classical list because he gives the Pali names for them. It’s a list of positive actions corresponding to the five precepts of abstaining from killing, stealing, inappropriate sexual behavior, lying, and taking intoxicants. I must say that I haven’t read it completely. I just found this before class.
It indicates that actions corresponding to killing are acts of compassion and loving kindness, such as saving the lives of others. The Tibetans have that type of custom, the Chinese as well, in which people catch fish and birds and put them in cages and things like that, and the devout Buddhists come and give these people a little bit of money to free them – which is a bit of a business, but in any case, they say this is “freeing others.” Tibetans very often will save the life of a goat or a sheep that is going to be slaughtered. This is recommended when they have a serious sickness or something like that in order to extend their lives. Then they keep the sheep or goat. Usually, they pierce the ear of the animal and hang a certain type of ribbon from the ear, which indicates that it is an animal saved for that purpose.
Corresponding to abstaining from stealing is having patience in a right livelihood. This means being patient and dealing with the difficulties that are involved in earning a right livelihood, which is to come later in this verse here by Nagarjuna. Basically, this is to abstain from illegal and prohibited types of occupations and to earn a living honestly.
The third one, corresponding to abstaining from committing adultery, it says here is basically exercising self-restraint in sexual practices. He says that for the husband, it’s to be content with only one wife, never deserting her in times of sickness or good health, never looking for other women, enjoying only her companionship. He lives up to his vow “till death do us part.”
It’s interesting. We had this issue in terms of prostitution. According to the Thai patriarch at least, the classical text says that prostitution is perfectly OK if you are married as long as you pay the prostitute. However, he says that “a man who is not content with his own wife or wives and who goes to a prostitute may not be said to have committed adultery, but it is a shameful disgrace to himself.” First of all, he has to spend much of his income in doing so. And the money thus wasted cannot be called a form of assistance, as in the case of giving to people out of compassion: it’s a penalty of his own greedy lust. So, you can’t really say, “Well, I’ll go to a prostitute in order to help the prostitute earn money.” Then he says it is a source of disease and these sorts of things. So, obviously, this is a very modern view of it. But it’s interesting that someone traditionally very, very conservative like the patriarch in Thailand would not speak strictly in accordance with the scriptures. But then he goes to the completely conservative type of thing in terms of the woman. He says that the woman is required to do everything for the sake of the comfort of her husband and to serve him always. Then, when the husband has died, she should remain a widow for the rest of her life. This type of thing. So, it’s a little bit traditional.
The fourth one corresponding to abstaining from falsehood, he states is speaking the truth.
Corresponding to abstaining from intoxicating drinks –and this will be relevant to what we have coming next in the text – is watchfulness, awareness, or mindfulness in food, in work, in one’s behavior, and regarding the nature of life. The main objection with drinking alcohol is that you no longer pay attention to how you act. So, you don’t exercise any restraint; you basically don’t care what you do. The opposite of that would be to be very mindful and to really care how much you eat, when you eat, how we act, how you work, and how you regard and take care of your life – so, taking care of yourself in terms of health and so on.
This seems to be a traditional list, although he doesn’t give the scriptural source for it. But since some people had mentioned having come across teachings about that, I wanted to mention this. At least we found some fairly authentic authority on it.
In our discussion of karma, the only thing that we have left now is…
Participant: Lying and killing?
Dr Berzin: Corresponding to lying was speaking the truth, and corresponding to killing was protecting life. No, it was compassion – to have compassion and loving kindness, which included protecting life. To be compassionate toward others would fit into the bodhisattva vows of helping others, nursing people who are sick, feeding the hungry, etc. In other words, it’s doing things that helps to promote the lives of others rather than taking the lives of others. That would be the opposite here, just as speaking the truth is the opposite of lying. Then, being faithful in one’s sexual relationship with one’s partner is the opposite of committing adultery.
Twelve Factors that Affect the Strength of Ripening
What we have left in our discussion of karma are the factors that affect the strength of the ripening. This is quite interesting because I think it fits in very well with the description that I have been using of the aftermath of the karma – at least one aspect of it – being a force, or a potential, that, even after it has been, in a sense, collected on the mental continuum, can still be further affected by other things in our behavior to get stronger or weaker.
There are many things that can affect the intensity of the unhappiness or suffering that ripens from karmic potentials. One aspect that we had discussed last time had to do with whether or not the karmic impulse for an action and the karmic potential it builds up was reinforced by thinking over the action for a long time beforehand and deciding to do it. These types of things certainly affect the strength of the ripening, but other factors can affect it too. There are a number of different lists that we find in the different texts by Vasubandhu and Asanga, as well as by the Tibetan commentators. So, I’ve basically put together all the various points that are mentioned into one large list of twelve things that are discussed.
First is:
[1] The strength of the disturbing emotions that causally and contemporaneously motivate the action as well as bring it to its finale.
Remember, last time, we discussed motivation as being part of the motivating mental framework, one of the four factors that makes a pathway of karma complete. The three components of the motivating mental framework are a distinguishing, a motivating intention, or aim, and a motivating emotion. The motivating intention is what we mean to accomplish by doing the action – what we aim to do. For instance, we aim to kill somebody or aim to hurt them or whatever. Also of importance is the accompanying motivating emotion, the emotional component that moves us to do it.
Vasubandhu is the one who made the distinction not only between the causal motivating emotion that draws us into thinking to do an action and the contemporaneous one that draws us into actually doing it; he also distinguishes the emotion with which we actually complete the action. For instance, if we are beating somebody to death or smashing some insect, our emotional state can change during each phase of the action, including the phase of the action reaching its finale. The strength of these disturbing emotion (here I’m speaking just about destructive ones) will affect the result, the resulting intensity of suffering or unhappiness that we will experience as a result. So, the important point of learning about these factors is to try to minimize them as much as possible so that the suffering will be less.
The second:
[2] The length of time the causal motivation has been held.
If we are really angry and plan to hurt somebody, and we hold that motivation for a long time before we actually do it – that is going to make it heavier. That goes with the factor we were discussing last time about thinking over the action for a long time beforehand, plotting to do it and deciding to do it. So, it’s really premeditated harm.
The third one:
[3] Whether or not a distorted outlook is part of the motivation.
Distorted outlook is, for instance, thinking “It is really stupid to always tell the truth. And these Buddhist teachings about not having affairs with somebody else’s partner – that’s really stupid. Buddha didn’t know what he was talking about, so the hell with that. I’m going to do it anyway.” This type of attitude is a distorted outlook.
Participant: But that’s always there, no?
Dr Berzin: Not necessarily. Let’s say if you’re a Buddhist, you could think, “I know that this is improper, but I really want to do it.” And then you feel guilty.
Participant: But the distorted outlook is that that’s going to make you happy. There is always distorted outlook behind a disturbing action.
Dr Berzin: There is always unawareness, ignorance, behind a disturbing action – naivety about cause and effect or unawareness about how I exist and how everything exists. But the distorted outlook is having a really negative and antagonistic view of the teachings of the Buddha. What would be relevant here, basically, are the laws of cause and effect – someone saying, “Ah! It is stupid to say that this is going to cause problems and so on. It’s not going to cause anything,” and then just being hedonistic about whatever it is that you are going to do. Or, “This is war,” (I’m thinking of the example of what’s going on now).“I can ignore the laws that government passes and so on because I am the leader, and it’s a time of war. I can do whatever I want in the name of fighting terrorism.”
Participant: It has no consequences.
Dr Berzin: And it has no consequences, right. Because it is a time of war, you can do anything – disregard the law, human rights and so on. I think that’s a good example.
Then the fourth one:
[4] The nature of the act.
This refers to how much suffering the action is capable of creating for the being who is the object of the action as compared to other types of destructive acts directed toward that being. This has to do with how much suffering the action is capable of inflicting on the other being as opposed to the actual amount of suffering that this being actually experiences.
The amount of suffering that somebody actually experiences comes from their side – whether they are happy that you stole their camera or they’re unhappy that you stole their camera. Here it’s referring to the fact that killing somebody can cause more suffering for them than stealing their camera. Stealing their camera can cause more suffering for them than idly gossiping to them, interrupting them, or lying to them. So, destructive physical and verbal actions are in decreasing order in terms of heaviness based on of how much suffering the nature of the act itself is capable of inflicting on the other person. Killing them causes the most suffering, and idly gossiping to them, idle chatter with them, causes the least amount of suffering.
Participant: Many people like idle gossiping. They really enjoy it.
Dr Berzin: Well, that’s why the factor here isn’t whether the other person that you do it to likes it or not, whether they are happy or unhappy. It’s not the amount of suffering that they actually experience; it’s the suffering that the nature of the act can cause them. The nature of the act of idle chatter is that it wastes the time that the other person could use for something more constructive. So, it’s damaging to them.
Participant: Yeah, but if they enjoy it?
Dr Berzin: If they enjoy it? Well, it could be the same thing. If you have sex with somebody else’s partner, they could also really enjoy it.
Participant: Yeah. But then it’s a third person…
Dr Berzin: Well, were you saying the person that you gossip with enjoys it or that you enjoy it?
Participant: When both enjoy it.
Dr Berzin: Well, these are other factors. Do you rejoice in your destructive action, or do you not feel happy about it? That’s another factor.
Participant: I think, maybe, one sees it as negative.
Dr Berzin: That’s right. That is in another thing, which are the causes for acting destructively. One of them is not knowing – here, not knowing that it is harmful. You could spend your whole life in idle chatter and waste a precious human life. So, it’s destructive. It’s not taking advantage of that opportunity. Now, of course, sometimes you have to relax. That’s something else. And when you are with somebody, as Shantideva says, if you happen to meet them, be polite and ask, “How are you?”; look up and say, “Good day,” but be like the bumblebee with a flower – in other words, just do what you need to do and fly off. Don’t get sucked up into a big, long conversation about football or the weather or something like that.
Participant: I think with ladies it’s not possible. They go together, have coffee, and chatter on and on.
Dr Berzin: Well, watch out Mariana. Your statement is a very sexist one that you will probably not be very happy about later. Well, one could say that’s part of the disadvantages of a female rebirth.
Participant: Why especially?
Dr Berzin: But as I say, I think that’s a bit of a sexist attitude because there are certainly a lot of men who like to get together, drink bear in the pub and talk about football. So, it’s not limited to women.
Participant: Maybe they’re sharing their perspectives. That’s when they share their experiences, lessons that they…
Dr Berzin: A lot of people like to go hunting.
Participant: But then you hurt the deer that is hunted. It’s really not the same.
Dr Berzin: Yes, the deer isn’t having a good time. “But who cares? The deer doesn’t have feelings. It was created for our exploitation.”
Participant: But there is one party who is really suffering. But when there is a party of chattering people…
Dr Berzin: When there is a party of chattering people, they are wasting their time.
Participant: Yeah, but there is no harm done.
Dr Berzin: Well, there is, from a certain point of view, some harm done. But it’s the lightest of the destructive actions. The disadvantage of it is that it wastes time. And one of the results of it is that you’ll constantly be interrupted by others when you are trying to do something. Also, nobody will take you seriously because you just chatter on and on and on.
Then we’re having a distorted outlook here, which is, “What Buddha said about this is stupid and wrong.” One has to look at the point. Just because there are certain destructive actions that we and other people like to do doesn’t mean that it doesn’t cause long-term disadvantages. It makes it more difficult to pay attention to because we enjoy it. This gets into an interesting thing because (and this, I must say, I don’t know a good answer to) our enjoyment of it, our feeling happy about it, is the result of positive actions we’ve done in the past. So, is feeling happy when we act negatively a result of a positive action? Where does that come from? We could understand that feeling unhappy when we’re doing something positive is a result of negative actions – not liking to do something, like, “I don’t like to wash the dishes.” But is enjoying being negative a result of positive karma?
Participant: I think it should be.
Dr Berzin: It is. But isn’t that a little weird?
Participant: But it fits in with the idea that these kinds of disturbing actions are what perpetuate the cycle, no?
Dr Berzin: That’s true. That’s true. Then we would want to stop doing karmically potent, positive actions as well. We want to get rid of karma completely so that our actions are untainted, as they say.
Participant: So, you want to get rid of confusion.
Dr Berzin: You want to get rid of confusion.
Participant: But you don’t want to get rid of the power of the positive things.
Dr Berzin: You don’t want to get rid of the positive things, but you want to get rid of the confusion. Anyway, it’s very complex. This is the nature of the act.
Then, the fifth one:
[5] The actual method used to carry the action out.
This has to do with the amount of suffering the method used is capable of inflicting on the being who’s the object of the action as compared to other ways of carrying out the same action. Whether they enjoy it or not is, again, something else. So, killing somebody by torturing them is heavier than just instantly killing them, like by chopping their head off or something like that where they die instantly.
These fourth and fifth ones are things that deal with the amount of suffering that the action and the method for carrying out is capable of causing. The example that I used when I wrote this was that raping a woman in front of her husband and children produces more suffering for her than raping her without any witnesses – this type of thing.
Participant: This is not totally related, but I was wondering if it’s said that if somebody kills an animal for you and so on, it’s not as heavy…
Dr Berzin: Oh, no. It is as heavy. Vasubandhu said that the general who sends out all the solders to kill in an army accumulates the same amount of negative karma as the individuals do. However, the negative potentials built up by his order to kill are from his destructive action of speech, not from the destructive action of body.
Participant: Then what’s the difference between saying “Kill this animal for me,” and just saying “Give me some meat”?
Dr Berzin: No. Saying to someone, “Give me some meat,” or buying meat in the store is not the same as telling somebody, “Go out to the barn, kill a chicken for me and cook it.” Creating a demand for something is different from specifically ordering somebody to do it for you. You can argue that creating a demand for it, in a sense, provides conditions for it to occur, but is less heavy. If we want to talk about the heaviness of results, it’s certainly less heavy than going to a restaurant, choosing the lobster that you want to eat and telling them to boil it alive. That’s different than buying a frozen lobster in the store, at least in terms of the heaviness. But is the action of eating meat destructive by nature? I don’t know that it’s a destructive action. That could be argued.
Participant: When you buy meat from a store, of course, the animal is already dead.
Dr Berzin: Right. But can you say that eating meat is naturally destructive if you eat animals that have died of old age?
Participant: That’s never actually the case.
Dr Berzin: It is the case, let’s say, of vultures, which eat animals that have died. They don’t do the killing them themselves. We are just discussing theoretically. Is the action of eating meat itself destructive if you have nothing to do with the animal being killed? I don’t think you could say that, by nature, it is destructive. The worms that eat dead bodies buried in the ground – is that a destructive action? I don’t think so.
Participant: I think the negative karma is not coming from the act of putting some muscle cells into your mouth. It’s coming from creating suffering for the animals.
Dr Berzin: Well, so then, would you create the same negative karma if you bought the meat and gave it to your dog to eat? Or if you buy dog food?
Participant: I guess so. Why not?
Dr Berzin: OK. So, then the negative action is buying the meat, not eating the meat.
Participant: OK. I can live with that.
Participant: If the dog dies because of starvation, then it’s your karma because you are responsible for your dog.
Participant: For the life of your dog.
Dr Berzin: The dog doesn’t want to eat salad.
[Participants discuss feeding non-animal food to a dog.]
Dr Berzin: Yeah. Try giving your dog tofu and see how much they enjoy it. Mind you, there are cereal things that dogs can eat, so let’s not get into a big argument about that. But you get my point: what actually is the destructive action here?
Participant: And what if, for example, Hitler says, “Go and kill all Jews.” He creates a demand, and people go to find Jews and kill them. But it’s the generals that find specific people and kill them.
Dr Berzin: But he ordered it, so he is responsible. So, is that different from ordering meat from the grocery store? The point is that people are already killing animals for food, whereas nobody was killing the Jews before. Obviously, there were pogroms. He started a new one, whereas, here, we are just perpetuating something that has been going on. So, again, that’s something different – whether you initiate something or you perpetuate it.
Participant: You contribute to people making their livelihood with killing.
Dr Berzin: Right. You contribute to people making a livelihood with killing. But then what is this issue – it’s a very difficult issue – where you have uncontrolled animal populations as a result of some sort of stupidity or naivety, such as humans introducing a certain animal into a given environments, which causes the environment to go completely out of balance. Didn’t they have something like a rabbit plague or something like that in Australia? So, do you let them just go wild,? Then the rabbits eat everything so that then nobody else has any food. Rabbits multiply unbelievably. So, what do you do in that situation? These are difficult ethical issues, aren’t they?
Participant: Well, it’s only now that you can react. But formerly all these plagues just ran their course. But those were the plagues that were in the Bible – the plagues of the Heueschrecke…
Dr Berzin: Right. The locusts. So, then you don’t do anything about the plague?
Participant: They didn’t do anything.
Dr Berzin: They couldn’t do anything. They couldn’t kill all the rats. They probably didn’t even know that the rats were spreading the black plague. But if there was a plague now and the rats were spreading it, what would you do? One has to choose what is going to be least harmful. That comes up later in this list – how much benefit others can derive from a being in this lifetime. Can rats do more than human beings to help everybody to reach enlightenment, or can human beings do more? You have to evaluate. It becomes legal questions, basically.
This issue about eating meat, though, obviously, it is a difficult one. In the Chinese Mahayana vows, they don’t eat meat. In the Jain vows, they don’t eat meat. In the Bon-po vows, they don’t eat meat.
In any case, let’s not continue to get hung up on this issue because there really is no clear statement in the Buddhist texts concerning that. It’s not listed.
Participant: It’s not listed in the vows?
Dr Berzin: It’s not listed in the vows. It’s not listed in any of the texts that I’ve ever come across that discuss karma. Chinese – I don’t know what their source is.
Participant: Can I lend you this book by Geshe Sopa?
Dr Berzin: I have the book. And, obviously, there are some scriptural sources, but they are not taken terribly seriously by many people. Anyway, let’s not stay on this topic, please.
The sixth one:
[6] The material item involved in carrying out the action – for instance, the value, whether financial and/or emotional, of an item stolen.
This refers to the value attributed to the item by its owner. To steal somebody’s expensive computer that they care very much about is heavier than stealing a pencil that they don’t care about. It’s also in terms of the emotional value that the person gives to the item.
The seventh one:
[7] The frequency with which the action has been committed in the past.
If you’ve done it frequently before, it’ll be heavier.
The eighth one:
[8] The frequency with which the action is committed again afterwards.
So, it’s how frequently you continue to lie, to steal, and these sorts of things.
The ninth one:
[9] The good qualities, accomplishments, situation of, and respect paid to the object of the action.
Killing an ant is obviously less heavy than killing Mahatma Gandhi. So, the good qualities, the accomplishments, the condition, and respect paid to the object of the action.
The tenth one:
[10] The amount of benefit the initiator of the action and/or others have derived from the being who is the object of the action.
So, it’s not just their good qualities, like somebody being very learned and these sorts of things; it’s also how much benefit that person has given or is capable of giving to others. Especially if they’ve benefited the initiator of the action very much, doing something destructive toward them is especially heavy.
Participant: This includes the potential benefit that a person could bring to others?
Dr Berzin: Well, this is the point in the analysis of: if you have to kill, who do you kill? For instance, you are with your family on a desert island where there is nothing to eat except fish. They are going to starve to death unless you kill the fish. What do you do? Your family – the people – are capable are bringing more benefit to others than the fish.
The eleventh factor:
[11] The strength of reliance of the initiator of the action.
In other words, does the initiator have vows and things like that? If you have taken vows not to act destructively, but then you do, obviously, the karmic consequences are going to be heavier than if you haven’t taken such vows.
Then, the last one:
[12] The number of constructive actions done by the initiator of the action that would counterbalance the destructive one.
So, if you are doing a lot of positive things – meditating, helping others, and things like that – and then you lie or something like that, it is less heavy than if you were not doing positive things. There is more of a balance of constructive things.
These are the twelve factors that affect the strength of the ripening.
Another thing that is mentioned in this discussion is that we have to weigh the short-term and long-term consequences of our actions on others. The long-term consequences take precedence in determining the heaviness of the karmic result. This has to do with the long-term suffering our action is capable of bringing the person who is the object of our action. But, of course, there is no certainty that it will bring suffering. For instance, if we have sex with an inappropriate person, it might bring them and us happiness at the moment. And even if it doesn’t cause any trouble for the other person or ourselves now because our own partner doesn’t find out about it, the long-term consequences will be heavier. So, we have to think in terms of that. Or, perhaps we yell at your child very harsh words because they are about to run into the road – that might cause the child to cry and be very unhappy in the short-term, but in the long-term it has a greater benefit.
So, this is the discussion of karma. Any other questions about it or can we move on?
Participant: The frequency of the act, before and after – that’s independent of the karmic habit? Or is that talking about the karmic…
Dr Berzin: You can have a karmic tendency to act in a certain way. The point is how frequently does it actually manifest or ripen, I should say, into a repetition of the action? This depends, of course, on many things, like the circumstances, the company that you keep, your own set of disturbing emotions – all sorts of things. But you do have a choice of whether to act it out or not, even if the circumstances are there. You can have a lot of friends who say, “Come on, let’s get stoned; let’s get drunk.” It’s your choice whether you go with them or not. And even if you go with them, it is your choice whether you drink or smoke or not.
Turning Away from Intoxicants
The next thing in the verse is, again, not a very easy point, which is turning away from intoxicants. Turning away from intoxicants – this is listed as one of the five lay precepts in the Anguttara Nikaya in the Pali tradition. When they recite the five precepts, they say, “I undertake training to abstain from fermented and distilled liquor, which leads to heedlessness.” That’s the usual way in which it is translated. And heedlessness is this term that we discussed so much in the sensitivity training, which is not caring. You don’t care. You don’t have a caring attitude. And this is what drinking leads to: you don’t care what you say; you don’t care what you do; you don’t care what the effect is going to be. That is the main disadvantage of drinking alcohol. Because you don’t care, you don’t keep any sort of discipline. And that’s why it could lead to committing all sorts of other destructive actions.
It is quite clear in the way that the vow is stated that what we are abstaining from is the substance, not the state of being drunk. There are a lot of people that would like to interpret this as saying, “It’s okay to drink as long as you don’t get drunk.” But the way in which the vow is stated, it is quite clear that one abstains from the substance that would lead to not caring.
This gets into a whole discussion of what is known as naturally destructive actions and proscribed destructive actions. Proscribed destructive actions, Buddha said, are for certain people who have certain aims and for whom these actions are detrimental. So, he said, “Don’t do this if you want to achieve liberation. Don’t drink alcohol, if you are a follower of me.” This means that if you are aiming for liberation, it’s very clear that not even a drop of alcohol that would fit on the tip of a blade of grass is not allowed. It’s not a banana leaf that he’s talking about; he’s talking about a blade of grass!
So, if you want liberation, you have to exercise discipline and self-control, which means, as Shantideva pointed out so strongly, that you need to care about the effect of your actions. And alcohol causes you not to care about the effect of your actions. If you are not aiming for liberation, then you can’t say that drinking alcohol is a naturally destructive action. It would probably be in the area of an unspecified action, neither destructive nor constructive. I don’t know. That could be argued. Is it proscribed destructive action or a naturally destructive action? I don’t think that it is necessarily a naturally destructive action. Does it lead to suffering? That’s an interesting question.
In the Sigolovada Sutta, which is in the Digha Nikaya, the Longer Sayings Collection – again, these are Pali sources, so it really going back to old times – Buddha speaks of basically four precepts for the layperson. He doesn’t talk about five precepts; he talks about four precepts here, which are not to kill, not to steal, not to lie, and not to indulge in inappropriate sexual behavior.
Six Ways to Waste Your Life
Then there is a list of six ways of wasting your life. I don’t have the Pali original, but wasting your “substance,” is the way it is translated, which I guess means wasting your energy, your life, your situation.
The first one is:
[1] Being attached to strong drinks and sloth-producing drugs.
Participant: Sloth?
Dr Berzin: “Sloth” means lazy – that you don’t care, that you’re stoned and just sort of sit there doing nothing.
The second:
[2] Roaming around in the streets at unfit times.
This is dangerous because there are robbers and things like that that go around. So you could get hurt.
The third:
[3] Attending fairs and festivals.
This is because, it says, all the time you’re looking, “Where’s there another party? Where’s there another place for dancing? Where is there other music?” and so on. So, you waste time.
[4] Being attached to gambling.
Gambling causes enemies. If you win, other people don’t like you. If you lose, then you get angry, waste your money, and so on.
[5] Keeping bad company.
You’re under the negative influences of other people.
[6] Habitual idleness.
This basically refers to complaining so that one doesn’t act: “Oh, it’s too hot. I don’t feel like working.” “Oh, I have a little headache” – so, you don’t come to class. “Oh, it’s too cold” – so, you don’t come then either. Apart from the one of the headache, these are the examples in the text.
Six Negative Consequences from Drinking Alcohol
In this same text, Buddha also mentions six dangers, the negative consequences, that come from drinking. He says that:
[1] First of all, there is an actual loss of wealth. You lose your money. You spend an awful lot of money on alcohol.
[2] Second, it increases quarrels. When people drink, they tend to argue with each other.
[3] Third, you become susceptible to disease. If you drink a lot, it can damage your liver.
[4] Fourth, there is loss of good character. You speak indecent words, quarrel with people, beat them, and do all sorts of improper things.
[5] Fifth, is indecent exposure (it’s is an interesting one). You don’t dress properly, or you go without your clothes, or you go out in the cold without a coat on – this type of thing.
[6] Sixth is that it impairs your intelligence, your ability to discriminate between what’s correct and incorrect, what’s proper and improper.
These are the disadvantages according to the Pali tradition. Obviously, there are lots and lots of accounts that we find in the literature that say that if you drink alcohol, it can lead to committing all the other types of destructive actions as well. So, if one wants to gain liberation, this is something to avoid.
As I say, is it naturally destructive? Certainly, according to the Sigalovada Sutta, the advice to the layman, there are dangers, disadvantages, that come about in the short term – you waste your money, get into fights, and stuff like that. Whether or not you have karmic consequences – suffering in the long term or problems like that – is not so clear. But, usually, it’s listed as a proscribed action.
Most of the proscribed actions have exceptions to them. For instance, a monk is not supposed to touch a woman. But if a woman is drowning, the monk is not just going to stand there and watch the woman drown and say, “I can’t give you a hand.” So, there are exceptions to a monk not being allowed to touch a woman. Or not eating after noon for monks – if they are sick, they are allowed to eat after noon. If they eat after noon just because they are greedy and attached to food – that’s breaking their vows; that’s a downfall.
What’s interesting is that for all the other proscribed actions, there are always exceptions, but there are no exceptions for alcohol. That’s according to some sources. However, according to some Pali sources that I looked at – this is in the actual Pali vinaya – it says that, although there is an absolute prohibition of alcohol, when a monk prepares a medicinal drink for a fellow monk who is ill, he is allowed to add a few drops of alcohol if it is necessary. However, if he puts in too much alcohol, it is no longer allowed for the sick monk to drink it. In that case, it has to be used as an ointment to rub on the monk. This is in the monk’s vinaya, in the Theravadin vinaya. So, that seems to be a slight exception. I would imagine, then, that homeopathic medicine, which has a little bit of alcohol in it, or other things like that would be OK. But it is quite explicit that if you are going to follow this precept, then you follow it. Nobody is forcing anybody to follow it.
The lay vows and those for either full or provisional monks and nuns – what are they called? They are called the vows for the first liberation – pratimoksha vows. That’s what “pratimoksha” means. Vasubandhu explains that “prati” means “first,” and “moksha” means liberation. If you are aiming for liberation, Buddha said, these are the first things to avoid. If you are not aiming for liberation, as His Holiness says, nobody is forcing you to take these vows. So, I think this thing about inappropriate sexual behavior also needs to be looked at in terms of what you are aiming for. Are you aiming for liberation, or are you just aiming for worldly pleasure?
Within those vows about inappropriate sexual behavior, there are still some pretty weird things, I must say, like saying that doing it five times in a row is excessive but four times is OK. This is pretty weird. Or that going with a prostitute is OK. This is pretty weird also. So, the intent of these various vows is to minimize the disturbing emotions and to refrain from acting them out so that you can work toward liberation. That’s why they are called vows for individual liberation.
What Constitutes “Intoxicants”?
There’s a whole list of the types of things that constitute an intoxicating drink. It comes from a root text, Compendium of Conduct, that was written in 250 CE by Shrighana and a commentary that was written around 500 CE by Jayarakshita. In this, it speaks an awful lot about alcohol and lists the different types of distilled alcohol and the grains that they’re made from, as well as the liquids that it can be made from and all that sort of stuff.
It is also negative to prepare alcohol, intoxicating things, and to sell and serve them to others. That’s there as well. It’s unclear whether it includes drugs. Certainly in the more modern sources that I have looked at from Thailand and Burma, drugs are included because, obviously, they are quite prevalent in their societies and quite available. Where do you draw the line? The Tibetans never really spoke about it. So, where you draw the line is, of course, difficult to say. Do you draw the line with tobacco?
What about tobacco? Monks in Burma and Cambodia smoke cigars, although it looks pretty weird to people from other Buddhist traditions. They smoke because it is not specifically stated in the sutras – “no tobacco.” But certainly, His Holiness speaks quite strongly against smoking tobacco. And I have never come across a Tibetan monk who smoked. So, do you include that or not? Do you include caffeine? What are you going to include as intoxicants? Certainly, there are things that are quite obviously in the category of intoxicants – heroin, cocaine, hashish, marijuana, LSD, and all of these mind-altering drugs. What is stated quite specifically are drugs that make you lazy, like downers, barbiturates, opium, and so on that make you into a bit of a zombie. These types of things would be prohibited. “Prohibited” is better than the word “proscribed.” I didn’t think of that.
So, just to repeat, it is difficult to draw the line in terms of what substances are included as intoxicants because the monks in Burma and Cambodia smoke cigarettes. But certainly, one would include mind-altering drugs and heavy drugs like heroin, cocaine, marijuana, hashish, particularly downers like barbiturates and opium that make you into a zombie.
So, there is this type of discussion. In fact, there are some grains that are alcoholic that alcoholic drinks are made from. It says in this text and commentary that I was looking at that you can’t even eat the grain or sleep on the straw from these grains because they have the smell and taste of the intoxicant. There are obviously some texts that look at all of this very, very strictly. I think those are the main things that I have about it.
In the Pali recitation, they say “no distilled intoxicants and no fermented ones.” Distilled alcohol come from any type of grain, flour, rice, etc. or a combination of ingredients. Fermented alcohol comes from flowers, fruit, honey, sugarcane or a combination of ingredients. So, they did try to list what the common forms of intoxicants were in those days. Therefore, one could presume from this that if there were other varieties of intoxicants that were widely used at the time, they would have included them as well.
Now, you have a big problem with alcohol in that, for instance, the Japanese master called Shinran, who started the Jodo Shinsu School in Japan, which is a Japanese form of Pure Land Buddhism, was very revolutionary. He said that it wasn’t necessary for monks and nuns to be celibate – that it was OK for them to marry. He started this tradition of married priests, so-called married priests, in Japan. He also said that it was OK to drink rice wine (sake) because, in the teachings of Jodo Shinshu, if you recite the name of Amitabha Buddha (or Amida Butsu, as they say in Japanese) just once, you get rid of all negativities, and also because it was better to follow the norms of Japanese society. Now, that sets a very difficult precedent because Shinran wasn’t saying that it’s OK for everybody to get married and completely abolish the monastic celibate scene or that it was OK for everybody to go out and drink. He was just saying that, in some situations, it’s not so necessary to abstain.
Now, there are many Western people who would like to interpret the vows, particularly those concerning sexuality and, certainly, alcohol, in the same way, saying that we should have the same type of thing – that it is necessary to fit into the norms of our Western society. I don’t know. It’s not appropriate to speak negatively about a Buddhist tradition like Jodo Shinshu with this drinking of wine and so on. But again, I think that it depends on how you define it. I’m not that familiar with Japan, but the little bit I know is that there are monks and nuns, particularly nuns, who do follow the vows of celibacy, although they also have married priests and these sorts of people that do drink sake. But as long as you make a distinction that these are the monks and nuns and that they don’t have vows against this, then, because these actions are in the area of a prohibited destructive action rather than a naturally destructive action, it’s OK. But I think it is important to have everything clear. Alles klar.
If you are going to take a vow of not drinking, then you don’t drink. Period. You also don’t smoke marijuana and do these various other things. If you don’t take the vow, then you don’t take the vow. You can still be a good Buddhist. But then you have to look at what Buddha said: “If you follow me and you want liberation, this is going to make you not care.” If you develop that attitude of not caring, which I think is certainly a major effect of smoking marijuana even more so than drinking alcohol, it can be very difficult to gain liberation. You don’t care about your behavior. You don’t care about meditating. You don’t care about doing anything. You just sort of sit there and lose your initiative, your energy. And this seems to be a prevalent phenomenon.
I was speaking with a good friend of mine who is a psychiatrist who deals with young people, particularly those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. They are not in the children’s category, and they are not in the adults’ category. They sort of fall in between. There are an awful lot of kids around that age that are into crime, prostitution, and drugs. And she deals with the heaviest cases. She points out that, from her clinical point of view, the thing that is most damaging about marijuana, which is not what I have observed – that you have no concentration and tend to just sit in the back of your head and not really get involved with people – was this attitude of not caring. They don’t care about anything. And if you don’t care about anything, it becomes really quite difficult to ever do anything with your life. This she sees as the long-term, most destructive effect of marijuana.
Ultimately, it’s one’s choice, but I think that it’s improper to compromise the vows and to change the vows. Those are the vows. That’s it. You can follow them or not follow them. And if you take a personal vow of, “I’m going to drink, but I’m not going to get drunk,” well, that’s very difficult to…
Participant: Whatever that means.
Dr Berzin: Whatever that means. Because, obviously, it’s a subjective judgment as to when you are getting drunk and when you are not getting drunk.
Participant: Depends on how much you ate.
Dr Berzin: Depends on how much you ate, depends on the strength of the alcohol, depends on so many different things. Also, one could, without having the intention of getting drunk, get drunk anyway. “I didn’t intend to, but it turned out to have stronger effect on me than I had anticipated.” This is the problem with drinking alcohol. So, this precedent with Japan is not an easy one, I must say. Not easy at all.
Participant: And this Chogyam Trungpa?
Dr Berzin: Well, this was the next topic that I was going to speak about. What about in so-called tantra where, first of all, in the tsog offering, you have the alcohol and the meat, which is supposed to represent the… well, there are many levels of what it represents, but it basically represents a transformation of normally dirty, harmful substances or substances that are seen as detrimental, I should say, into something positive.
So, we speak about the five types of meat and the five types of liquid. The meat represents the five types of meat: elephant meat, horse meat, dog meat, human meat and cow meat. The five types of substances are urine, feces, blood, semen, and bone marrow or brain, depending on which tradition one follows. In one system, these represent the aggregates and the elements of the body that we want to transform. So, rather than them being the usual aggregates and elements, which are in a sense contaminated or dirty – tainted – and which just fall apart, we could transform and use them for reaching enlightenment. In the Kalachakra system, they stand for the ten winds, or the energy-winds, of the body that normally cause a lot of problems but that we could channel and use for reaching enlightenment.
So, the meat and the alcohol stand for transformation. It’s interesting – the relation of that to the Catholic mass, to the wafer and wine that is used in the mass. But who knows what the relationship of that really is. But it never was intended that you got drunk at the tsog puja – that you just drink as much alcohol as you want. It’s just transformation.
Now, there are discussions of stages of tantric practice that say that, just as practice with the consort can be helpful for getting the final, most difficult winds of the body, the ones that flow by the skin, to go into the central channel, alcohol can facilitate this process as well. But that is speaking about a very, very advanced stage when you have control over your energy-winds. It’s certainly not for lay people, ordinary people who just go to a tsog puja.
What Trungpa was doing… I mean, he was clearly an alcoholic. To say that he was a great master who had “crazy wisdom” and that he was allowed to do all these things is, I think, making excuses. One doesn’t know what his attainment was, but certainly, other people from his organization who tried to imitate him caused a lot of problems. I think it was only on one occasion that I was invited to teach at one of their groups. It was just an ordinary group, and they were trying to imitate his thing of drinking a lot after the teachings. That, obviously, was inappropriate.
Participant: I also heard from the same groups that they do retreat. Then, when they finish the weekend sessions, they go and drink afterwards.
Dr Berzin: Right. I’m sure there are many people from different Buddhist traditions who are into drinking. But Buddha said very clearly, “Not even the amount on a tip of a blade of grass, if you are following me and my advice of how to gain liberation.” If you don’t want liberation, you do whatever you want. This is what His Holiness says about the guidelines concerning inappropriate sexual behavior. Nobody is forcing anybody to follow these. As I said, that has to be analyzed more and more carefully. But if you really want liberation, then celibacy is what it says to observe. This is because one wants to overcome rebirth with these types of aggregates – which means to overcome biology, which from our Western point of view is pretty strange. But that’s there.
So, we have this discussion of alcohol.
Delighting in Constructive Livelihoods
Then, the last point of this verse is “Delight as well in livelihoods that are constructive.” This is, again, stated in a positive way here, but it is usually understood in terms of refraining from incorrect livelihoods. The incorrect livelihoods are usually defined as avoiding the five types of inappropriate ways to make a living. It’s usually for the monks who need to beg for alms – not to beg in these ways. But it could also be for anybody – not to behave in these ways.
Five Types of Incorrect Livelihoods
[1] The first is flattery – flattering a person in order that they give you something.
[2] The second is pressuring someone – like saying, “I could really use a new this or that,” or “I’m all out of sugar,” and giving a strong hint. “Oh, what you gave me last time was so helpful.” So, you indirectly pressure them to give you something more.
[3] The next one is extortion – so, it’s like the mafia: if you give protection money, then you will be safe. So, you extort gifts or things from them.
[4] The next one is bribery – giving something small so that you’ll get something big in return. For instance, you visit somebody, and you bring a little something because you think that it will please the person and that they will give you something big in return.
[5] Pretense is the last one – pretending to be so virtuous and such a good meditator and so on to impress your patron so that they will give you more things.
Where you find this list is certainly in the eightfold noble path in terms of avoiding these things in order to really perfect ethical discipline. But it’s also listed in the discussion of the point that making offerings of things that are obtained in any of these five ways is inappropriate. When this is discussed just in general, in terms of daily life, it is discussed in terms of making an honest living – in other words, not cheating, not trying to pressure people to buy things from you by pretense, pretending that, “Oh, this is the best in the world.” Also giving little gifts – “If you buy this box of cereal, you will get this little plastic toy,” or something like that. There are many ways of looking at this – for instance, flattering the person: “If you buy this car, you’ll be sexy, and all the girls will like you,” and this kind of thing.
Also, in other contexts, this is described as avoiding any type of livelihood that is harmful. This includes making and selling weapons, slaughtering animals, etc. From the traditional point of view, a butcher doesn’t just cut up animals that are dead already; a butcher kills the animals as well. Also, on the list is making, selling, and serving intoxicants – so, working in a bar is out. And working in a gambling casino – this also is listed as something that causes a lot of people to lose money and to argue with each other. It’s an inappropriate way of making a living.
So, this is Verse 5.
I think I once mentioned Khenzur Rinpoche Uden Tseden, the retired abbot of Gyume Tantric College. I translated for him once in Melbourne, Australia, and people asked questions about this wrong livelihood saying, “We come from way in the countryside, and the only industry in our area is raising sheep for meat” – obviously, for wool as well, but they are sold for meat – “What should we do?” He answered, “Well, of course, the ideal would be to move somewhere else where you can make a living in a different way. But if that is not really possible, then at least be honest in the work that you do and treat the animals nicely.”
So, again, one needs to look in terms of variables of karma. Then, when we are in difficult situations in which we have to do some sort of destructive action and there doesn’t seem to be any way around it or in which circumstances just compel us to do it, then, either internally or externally, try to make it as least heavy as possible. The way we can do that is by studying and really learning and keeping in mind all of these various factors that can lessen the heaviness of karmic results. OK? Good.
That finally finishes Verse 5. Let’s see if we can go through the rest of the text a little bit more quickly and efficiently.