But the 16 Bodhisattva precepts are not to be taken the same way as The Ten Commandments. Unlike in Judeo Christianity, if you do not uphold the precepts, Avalokitesvara won't whack you with a stick, and Manjushri will not strike you with a sword. But the more you deviate, the more likely you will experience your own form of hell, right here and now. The high level idea may be similar, and the basic principles behind each is pretty black and white from a high level - but you quickly get into the grey area when you start thinking about them. And we live in the grey area. hahaha
The bottom line is that no one can keep them even though we make our best effort to try. Further, while they provide a basic Buddhist ethical framework, so to speak, it is up to each practitioner to apply them in their own lives. Just like everything else with Zen that gets crazy
, from one perspective, it's common sense stuff which keeps our sangha - and human society viable and ordered - like don't kill people, don't lie to each other, don't talk down about others.
But then when you start digging into it, good luck trying to live and not kill or not lie. I mean frankly - and this gets into one of the koans we are studying right now, we only see reality through a filter by which we can construct it so it is useful for us to survive. For example, we don't see everything; we basically get the "least minimum dose" of reality so we can identify things for survival like food, water, etc etc. That is another crazy rabbit hole; albeit to say, if we don't really see all of reality from one perspective how could anything we say be fully true. We don't even know what we don't know in the universe.
And have even better luck with Right Livelihood. I mean we are part of an interconnected global society - conscious of it or not, we are all participants in things that happen good and bad.
But we should still do our best in our own small part of this place to not intentionally cause harm and not to have a job as a "hitman" as Jundo would say.
I apologize for going over, and I think this will be a great discussion during Jukai study, but imho the precepts should not be laws for people to follow. It may have made sense in Buddhas day to have a precept to not smoke cigarettes while meditating (making that up), but I think our 16 have us covered, and they probably all really boil down to a single one or at least the first three:
Do no harm
Do good
Do good for others
Or actually as the Bill and Ted Bodhisattvas say: "Be Excellent to Each Other".
I will sit extra and apologize for going over.
Gassho
Risho
-stlah