| Precepts
Precepts IV : To Refrain from Stealing
During this week we will be looking at the second of the ten grave or fundamental precepts, “to refrain from stealing or taking what is not given”. As usual, please carefully and mindfully read the assigned essays and then discuss, if you feel inspired.
ASSIGNED READINGS:
A panel discussion between Norman Fischer Roshi, Lama Palden Drolma, and Vipassana Teacher Andrew Olendzki exploring the spirit, subtleties, and relevance of Buddhist ethics in modern times and western societies.
Forum: Sex, Lies, and Buddhism
One more interesting observation. something to consider, from a scholar who writes often about Dogen and ethics:
Dogen’s morality is ultimately not a rule-based ethics. True, for the new student of Buddhism, the precepts provide clear guidelines of right and wrong, and he/she is exhorted to follow them. But in the course of zazen/enlightenment, the precepts are less and less prescriptions for the practitioner and more and more descriptions of his/her actual moral becoming. From an ultimate standpoint, the Buddhist precepts do not tell us how to be moral, but explain to us what we look like when we are moral. Also, from an ultimate standpoint, the fulfillment of the Buddhist precepts is not a condition of zazen/enlightenment, but a natural function of zazen/enlightenment. As Dogen states, “When doing zazen, what precepts are not upheld, what merits not produced?” (Zuimonki 1.2)
from: The Cardinal Virtues of the Bodhisattva in Dogen’s Shobogenzo Zuimonki by Douglas K. Mikkelson
The wording for our Jukai Ceremony is:
II. To seek as you can, in this body and life, to live in generosity and refrain from taking that which is not given
All of the above links are available free to view online, so we are not stealing anything!