Someone asked, “ What is the importance of morality in awakening? Since getting into buddhism, it seems to place a lot of emphasis on correct moral conduct”
Soh replied
“ see https://app.box.com/file/854808236976?s=nxby5606lbaei9oudiz6xsyrdasacqph which i recommend reading in full
excerpt:
Ethical Conduct (Sīla)
The avoidance of all wrongdoing,
The undertaking of what is skillful,
The cleansing of one’s own mind—
This is the teaching of the buddhas.
— Dhammapada 183
Ethical conduct is one of the three main lines of development of the noble eightfold path.
Skillful ethical conduct is considered to be a necessary prerequisite for the other two lines
of development, which are meditative stabilization and discernment. This consideration of
ethics is functional and straightforward: if we are engaging in unethical conduct the mind
will be conflicted and unable to develop the mental qualities needed for steady
mindfulness, full awareness, and mental composure. And without the stability of
meditative composure the mind cannot develop discernment. This is the case regardless
of whether or not we are aware of any conflicted defilements.
The integral role of ethical conduct as foundational for the subsequent development of all
of the productive affective and cognitive qualities of the path and fruition is explained in
AN 11.1 Kimatthiya Sutta:
“What is the purpose of skillful ethical conduct, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Skillful ethical conduct has freedom from remorse as its purpose, Ānanda, and freedom
from remorse as its reward.”
“And what is the purpose of freedom from remorse, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Freedom from remorse has gladness as its purpose, Ānanda, and gladness as its reward.”
“And what is the purpose of gladness, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Gladness has joy as its purpose, Ānanda, and joy as its reward.
“And what is the purpose of joy, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Joy has tranquility as its purpose, Ānanda, and tranquility as its reward.”
“And what is the purpose of tranquility, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Tranquility has pleasure as its purpose, Ānanda, and pleasure as its reward.”
“And what is the purpose of pleasure, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Pleasure has meditative composure as its purpose, Ānanda, and meditative composure as
its reward.”
“And what is the purpose of meditative composure, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Meditative composure has gnosis and vision of things as they are as its purpose, Ānanda,
and gnosis and vision of things as they are as its reward.”
“And what is the purpose of gnosis and vision of things as they are, venerable sir? What is
its reward?”
“Gnosis and vision of things as they are has disenchantment as its purpose, Ānanda, and
disenchantment as its reward.”
“And what is the purpose of disenchantment, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Disenchantment has dispassion as its purpose, Ānanda, and dispassion as its reward.”
“And what is the purpose of dispassion, venerable sir? What is its reward?”
“Dispassion has gnosis and vision of liberation as its purpose, Ānanda, and gnosis and
vision of liberation as its reward.”
Suttanipāta 5.11 offers the following explanation of the importance of ethical conduct in
terms of its relationship with the eventual fruition of the path:
Dispel greed for sensual pleasures,
Having seen renunciation as safety,
May there be nothing
Grasped or rejected by you.
Dry up what was before.
May there be nothing after.
If you do not grasp anything in the middle,
You will wander calmed.
One completely without greed
For name and form, brāhmaṇa,
Has no mental outflows by which
He would go under the sway of death.
And so ethical conduct isn’t to be understood as an end in and of itself. It’s
a means skillfully employed to bring the re-becoming process of saṃsāra to an end. It’s a
line of development oriented towards the goal of ending birth and death. Therefore this
contemplative conduct actually transcends conventional norms of “goodness.”
There are repeated injunctions in the discourses — most notably in the fourth chapter of
the Suttanipāta — stating that the practitioner should not even grasp onto notions of
goodness, because it’s understood that such clinging only reinforces identification with a
view of self. Such identification can all too easily lead to views of moral superiority and
self-righteous indignation. And there is nothing skillful in looking down upon others.
In practice, ethical conduct begins as the support (a somewhat shaky support for most of
us) for the practice of meditation. And then over time, the calm (samatha) and full
awareness (sampajañña) developed through meditation begins to reciprocally support and
strengthen our ethical conduct. This makes it easier to see unskillful thoughts as they are
manifesting, allowing us to abandon such thoughts, replacing them with productive,
skillful applications of contemplation before they can manifest as unskillful speech or
actions. In this way all aspects of the eightfold path are integrated, and progress along
the path is understood to depend upon the refinement of the various aspects of ethics,
meditation, and discernment.
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Also see
Totally agree with Anzan Hoshin Roshi and Dogen on this matter.
Excerpt from https://wwzc.org/dharma-text/cutting-cat-one-practice-bodhisattva-precepts
Beyond this is the fact that, no matter how much we like or dislike, or are hurt or maimed by a thought, action or event, our attitudes do not colour the event itself, only our relationship to it. As this is so, no matter how much we stomp or shout or cajole or whine, reality is what it is. In this is sacredness and dignity.
This can extend into territory we might not be comfortable with. Our personal ambitions and dreams and hopes and fears are meaningless, just sounds that don't even find an echo in a universe that extends forever, in all directions. An earthquake that kills ten thousand people is not evil; it is just plates of rock shifting. A bullet is not evil. The universe is simply not conditioned towards our personal convenience. The person who pulls the trigger that kills the mother of three is original purity. But at the same time, we recognize that person as being evil, as being tainted or deranged. There is horror at the memory of Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz and Hiroshima , of the fact that the molestation of a child is probably occurring somewhere at this moment. Yet even there, there is intrinsic purity. This is how it is. No one said (at least among the enlightened) that purity is necessarily what is pleasant. The fact that everything, every event, is intrinsically pure does not eliminate the fact of our responsibility. We can't just say. "Oh it's all Buddha Nature", and kick the cat. The fact is Buddha Nature, complete freedom from birth and death; the opposites of samsara and nirvana can both be transcended right here, now, but without that realization and in fact even more so after a good glimpse of it, the issue at point is meaning , and living in a way that honours this fact.
There is a famous koan about a Chinese Chan master called Nanquan or Nanzan, who cut a cat in two in order to teach his students about grasping. It appears in many different koan collections and is the ninth case of the "Shoyoroku" :
"One day the monks of the western and eastern halls of Nanquan's monastery were squabbling over a cat. When Nanquan saw this going on he seized the cat and held it up before them and said, 'Say one true word or I'll cut it.'
"No one could say anything. Nanquan cut the cat in two."
Dogen zenji saw this as an immense failure; he saw it as a Teacher with bloody hands standing before embarrassed, horrified, and confused students. He said that Nanzan may have been able to cut the cat into two, but had no realization at all of being able to cut the cat into one. Bringing together body and mind, self and other, time and space, bringing everything back into its original wholeness and bringing all that we are aware of into Awareness itself through cutting away separateness with the sword of insight, the thin blade of this moment, is cutting the cat into one.
At first kensho, the student sees into Ordinary Mind. So what? If you can't live here, there is no point in standing outside in the flower bed, peering in between the window blinds. It is not a matter of taking some particular moment of practice and setting that up as the entirety of the path. Realization must be embodied and unfolded completely. If you refuse to take responsibility for your body, breath, speech and mind, and unfold each moment as this Original Nature itself, then get the hell out or I'll throw you out. We can't excuse ourselves from true wholehearted practice just because we have a note from our Teacher saying: "Congratulations. Here's inka-shomei, you're a Sensei." How much more so if we have only had one or two satoris and have read too much Alan Watts, or D. T. Suzuki out of context, or buji zen ("doesn't matter zen").
Great Faith is abiding in True Nature as the root of practice so that practice acts to expose us to this True Nature always and in every moment. No experiences, no attainments define or limit this Way. Everything is this Way. Great Doubt shows us the outflows in our practice clearly. Great Practice is coming back to just this, again and again.
The Ten Grave Precepts reflect this. "There is no wrong action" is followed not by "nothing matters", but by "There is only the arising of benefit". Acting fully and responsibly from Awakened Mind, from that which sees tracelessness, is the Buddhaway. From such a mind, not only can wrong action not arise, all that is becomes of benefit to all beings.
Having taken your suffering and delusion seriously, opened it to see what's inside it, you work thoroughly with everything that arises as the world in which you live. As this is so, you recognize that this suffering is true for others, that this dignity and clarity are true for others. Thus, the bodhisattva brings forth benefit clearly and with open hands. A thousand eyes and hands are one's whole body. Free from the klesas of passion, aggression, and ignorance, one's action is clear and truly spontaneous -- not governed by impulse (which the usual mind likes to believe is spontaneity). There is only the benefit of all beings
. The universe in which the bodhisattva lives is "all beings", he or she is "all beings", rocks and air and nostril hair are "all beings". Kannon's "thousand eyes and hands" are the whole universe itself.
This benefit is not a matter of self-congratulatory goody-two-shoed-ness, or deprecation of another's essential dignity through pity. It is simply a raw and open heart that does what needs to be done. It does not force others to be what it wants -- it is only a heart, it doesn't want anything. It does not seduce or console or convert. It is simply a raw and open heart.
Traditionally, there are said to be four ways in which the Bodhisattva manifests dana paramita: material benefit; giving what each needs to promote well-being; giving freedom from fear; giving the Teachings. Actually there is no number or limit to this benefit. There is only the benefit of all beings.