Exploring the Path - Pāli Course

Avoiding harmful action, performing supportive, helpful action:

One would feel that being at peace and in harmony with one’s fellow beings is a natural desire of everyone, a wish for amity and freedom alike. Living in harmony seems much easier than violating aspirations for harmony.

One would further imagine that performing any heinous act goes against natural human instincts, and such an unwholesome disposition is encountered seldomly. Furthermore, it seems apparent that harmful acts—especially breaking the first of the five sikkhāpada, the act of killing—should be quite difficult to perform.

But conflicts on a personal level are common, and follow suit on national and international levels, turning into battles and wars using whatever weaponry the period develops, ensuring vast destruction, interminable agony and inconceivable suffering.

At one time, Sakka, the king of gods, approached the Buddha and pointed out an obvious contradiction: even though all beings desire to live in peace and harmony, the opposite seems to be true in the world. Thus Sakka addressed the Buddha in the following way:

Kiṃ saṃyojanā nu kho, mārisa,¹ devā manussā asurā nāgā gandhabbā ye caññe santi puthukāyā,² te – ‘averā adaṇḍā asapattā³ abyāpajjā viharemu averino’ti iti ca nesaṃ hoti, atha ca pana saverā sadaṇḍā sasapattā sabyāpajjā viharanti saverino’’ti?⁴

What, Sir, are the bondages that bind devas, humans, asuras, nagas, gandhabbas, and other beings of various kinds — even so they wish ‘may we live without enmity, without violence, without hostility and without malevolence, may we live in peace’ but it is not so, they live filled with enmity, violent, hostile, malign in a state of hostility.

The Buddha replied:

Issāmacchariyasaṃyojanā⁵ kho, devānaminda, devā manussā asurā nāgā gandhabbā ye caññe santi puthukāyā, te – ‘averā adaṇḍā asapattā abyāpajjā viharemu averino’ti iti ca nesaṃ hoti, atha ca pana saverā sadaṇḍā sasapattā sabyāpajjā viharanti saverino’ti.

Ruler of devas, it is the bondage of envy and avarice that binds devas, humans, asuras, nagas, gandhabbas, and other beings of various kinds. Even so they wish ‘may we live without enmity, without violence, without hostility and without malevolence, may we live in peace’ but it is not so, they do live filled with enmity, violent, hostile, malign in a state of hostility.

Satisfied with this answer, which confirmed his own observation and comprehension, Sakka continued to ask the Buddha about the sources of envy and avarice and follows up all replies by requesting more details. The Buddha then elaborates further by pointing out that it was the origination, the arising, formation and development of the ‘liked and disliked’, the ‘dear and not dear’ that causes envy and avarice.⁶ Again being asked by Sakka for that cause, the Buddha replied that the base for this is desire, wishing,⁷ and the reason for this is thinking about, rolling in thoughts⁸ which lastly is grounded in fixed ideas, mental obsession and illusion.⁹

Purimāni cettha pañca ekantaakusalacittasamuṭṭhānattā¹⁰ pāṇātipātādīnaṃ pakativajjato¹¹ veramaṇiyā. …¹²

The first five abstentions are what is considered blameable by natural disposition since killing living beings and the rest always originate in unwholesome states of mind.

A meditator is fortunate enough to detect, by looking honestly within oneself, that the outside world cannot be made responsible as the sole source of unhappiness and distress. In spite of firm determination to avoid unwholesomeness, one constantly faces an ongoing surge of attacks by minor or major impurities that may, if neglected, easily turn into mild or stronger breakage of the moral precepts. Therefore constant alertness is demanded:

Idheva kittiṃ labhati, pecca sagge ca summano;
Sabbattha sumano dhīro, sīlesu susamāhito.
Sīlameva idha aggaṃ, paññavā pana uttamo;
Manussesu ca devesu, sīlapaññāṇato jaya’nti.¹³

A wise man who attains good rapport here in this world,
Then heavenly fields give happiness to him in the next,
Such the wise is happy everywhere, with one’s sīla well protected.
Being established in sīla is foremost,
but it is wisdom that makes him supreme,
And amongst mankind and gods it is sīla and wisdom that make one victorious.