Buddhist Ethics - Introduction Vocabulary

Historical Context and Life of the Buddha

  • Personal Identity and Lineage:
    • Personal Name: Siddhartha.
    • Family Name: Gotama.
    • Royal Lineage: Son of the ruler of the kingdom of the Sakyas in North India.
  • Socio-Intellectual Environment (Sixth Century BCE):
    • Lived during a period of intense intellectual ferment in Northern India.
    • Surrounding intellectual climate included ascetics, seers, and philosophers of diverse schools, including materialists, sceptics, nihilists, determinists, and theists.
    • Deeply disturbed by societal rigidities and practices, specifically:
    • Rigidities of the caste system.
    • Animal sacrifices in religious rituals.
    • Uncritical attitudes of rulers regarding social and moral issues.
    • Deeply troubled by universal human existential issues:
    • Sickness, anguish, and suffering.
    • The riddle of life and death.
  • Renunciation and Meditative Quest:
    • Left the royal palace at the age of 29 to become a wandering ascetic, embodying the traits of both a rebel and a philosopher.
    • Experimented with various lifestyles and existing meditation techniques.
    • Learned techniques from contemporary meditation masters leading to deep states of meditative absorption known as jhānas.
    • Expanded beyond current practices to develop a comprehensive system of meditation combining two complementary paths:
    • Tranquillity Meditation: Aimed at attaining a state of deep calmness.
    • Insight Meditation: Focused on understanding the three core realities of existence: impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha), and egolessness (anattā).
  • Enlightenment and Public Teaching:
    • Attained enlightenment at the age of 35 through his comprehensive meditation system.
    • Preached for 45 years following his enlightenment to all sectors of society, including peasants, carpenters, Brahmins, outcastes, kings, criminals, ascetics, and philosophers.

Preservation and Textual Sources of Buddhist Teachings

  • Transmission of the Pali Canon:
    • Teachings were initially handed down through oral tradition.
    • Recorded in written form on palm leaves (ola leaves) by monks in the first century BCE.
    • Modern editions were edited and printed by the Pali Text Society.
  • The Three Baskets (Tipiṭaka):
    • Vinaya Piṭaka: Contains the discourses dealing with the rules of discipline for monks.
    • Sutta Piṭaka: Contains the foundational discourses and core teachings of the Buddha.
    • Abhidhamma Piṭaka: Comprises a systematic analysis and commentary on the doctrine compiled by later scholars.
    • Together, these three collections constitute the primary sources for studying Buddhist ethics and codes of practical conduct.
  • Major Traditions of Buddhism:
    • Theravāda Tradition:
    • Represents the early Buddhist tradition.
    • Established strong roots in South East Asia, specifically Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia.
    • Mahāyāna Tradition:
    • Translates to "The Greater Vehicle."
    • Developed in Nepal, China, Korea, and Japan.
    • Mahāyāna practitioners historically referred to the early Buddhist tradition as Hīnayāna ("The Lesser Vehicle").
    • Tantrayāna Tradition:
    • Translates to "The Esoteric Vehicle."
    • Emerged in Tibet and Mongolia.

Doctrinal Core and the Nature of Buddhist Ethics

  • Integration of Theory and Practice:
    • Ethical teachings are dispersed across the discourses rather than compiled into a single systematic treatise on philosophical ethics.
    • Discourses provide a common doctrinal core for analyzing ethical issues across all Buddhist traditions.
    • Combines rational scrutiny with an abiding concern for practical living, offering a structured path toward liberation from suffering.
    • Integrates four dimensions:
    • Rational engagement through analysis and argument.
    • Normative conduct as a recommended way of life.
    • Social expression and interpersonal relationships.
    • Personal quest for character development and virtue.
  • Role of Meditation in Character Development:
    • Mindful practice emphasizes paying continuous attention to present actions without the intrusion of distracting thoughts.
    • Mindfulness lays the foundation for concentration on specific meditative objects.
    • Meditative awareness expands into daily mundane activities, directly elevating individual morality.
  • The Diagnosis of Human Suffering (Dukkha):
    • Summarized in the Four Noble Truths, centered on the core concept of dukkha.
    • Dukkha encompasses unsatisfactoriness, physical pain, sickness, psychological conflict, anxiety, anguish, and insubstantiality.
    • Insubstantiality is tied directly to egolessness (anattā) and impermanence (anicca).
    • What is perceived as an "individual" or "I" is a composite of constantly changing physical and psychological factors.
    • Suffering arises when an individual projects a false sense of permanence onto a process in constant flux, leading to disappointment upon encountering change, destruction, and loss.

The Middle Path and Levels of Happiness

  • Critique of Sensuality and Self-Mortification:
    • Rejects both pure sensuality (hedonism) and extreme self-mortification.
    • Identifies the optimal moral lifestyle as the Middle Path.
    • Condemns pure hedonism on psychological and ethical grounds:
    • Unchecked pleasure naturally leads to boredom and inner dissonance.
    • Disrupts the healthy functioning of family and community life.
    • Rejects materialist philosophies that deny an afterlife to justify an unconstrained hedonistic lifestyle devoid of moral values.
  • Graded Notions of Well-Being:
    • Dukkha does not represent an exclusively pessimistic worldview; the ethical path leads to genuine happiness.
    • Nibbāna: The ideal of ultimate happiness and the supreme moral goal.
    • Happiness for the Householder:
    • Offers a qualified model of happiness for laypersons who lead righteous, harmonious lives.
    • Permits seeking wealth through lawful, honest means without greed or longing.
    • Encourages enjoying ease and pleasure while performing meritorious, charitable deeds.
    • Path of the Recluse:
    • Requires stringent control over bodily desires and personal wants.
    • Involves complete commitment to total release from all suffering (nibbāna).

The Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path

  • The Four Noble Truths:
    1. Truth of Suffering (dukkha).
    2. Truth of the Arising of Suffering.
    3. Truth of the Cessation of Suffering (nibbāna).
    4. Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering (Noble Eightfold Path).
  • The Threefold Division of the Eightfold Path:
    • Ethical Conduct (Sīla):
    • Right Speech (item 3).
    • Right Bodily Action (item 4).
    • Right Livelihood (item 5).
    • Mental Training / Concentration (Samādhi):
    • Right Effort (item 6).
    • Right Mindfulness (item 7).
    • Right Concentration (item 8).
    • Wisdom (Paññā):
    • Right Understanding (item 1).
    • Right Thought (item 2).
  • Function of the Path:
    • Serves as a complete three-part scheme of moral training consisting of practicing virtues, avoiding vices, practicing meditation, and developing wisdom to reach the ultimate moral ideal.

Philosophical Foundations of Action (Kamma)

  • Prerequisites for Buddhist Moral Philosophy:
    • Free Will: The capacity for genuine volitional choice.
    • Moral Distinction: Clear differentiation between good and bad actions.
    • Moral Causation: Causation governing moral action, tied to survival after death and future existences.
  • The Concept of Kamma:
    • Refers specifically to volitional acts expressed through three modes:
    • Thought.
    • Speech.
    • Bodily action.
    • Central defining maxim: "I call the motive to be the deed."
    • Volitional acts are categorized morally as good, bad, neutral, or mixed.
  • Roots of Action:
    • Unwholesome / Bad Roots: Greed, hatred, and delusion.
    • Wholesome / Good Roots: Liberality (generosity), compassionate love, and wisdom.
    • Action evaluation requires assessing both its underlying roots (genesis) and its consequences for oneself and others.

Intentionality (Cetanā) and Models of Causation

  • The Nature of Cetanā:
    • Translated as motive or intention; covers the original volition as well as subsequent consequences dependent on that motive.
    • Operates according to psychological laws (e.g., giving money to a needy person generates a good thought, which stabilizes and reinforces the internal tendency to repeat such thoughts).
    • Extends across multiple births, carrying character tendencies into future lives.
  • Dual Models of Moral Consequence:
    • Craftsmanship Model:
    • Focuses on internal character-building.
    • Good or bad actions systematically shape and construct the moral constitution of the agent.
    • Judicial Model:
    • Focuses on external rewards and punishments.
    • Charitable actions bring comfort in future lives, whereas miserliness or stealing leads to poverty.

Terminology of Action: Kusala/Akusala vs. Puñña/Pāpa

  • Nibbāna-Oriented Action (Kusala and Akusala):
    • Disinterested character-building aimed at eradicating greed, hatred, and delusion.
    • Good actions (kusala) shorten an individual's journey through the wheel of existence (saṃsāra) and accelerate progress toward nibbāna.
    • Bad actions in this context are designated as akusala.
  • Future Existence-Oriented Action (Puñña and Pāpa):
    • Driven by the desire for a better life, higher status, or favorable circumstances in future existences.
    • Good action is designated as merit (puñña), while bad action is designated as de-merit or evil (pāpa).
    • Paradoxically, collecting merit (puñña) accumulates fuel for a longer journey within saṃsāra, extending the duration of existence in the cycle of rebirth.

Consequentialism, Utilitarianism, and Meditative Absorption

  • Consequentialist and Teleological Stance:
    • Moral evaluation is not restricted to motive alone; execution, manner of performance, and practical consequences are vital.
    • Emphasizes active commitment to the material and spiritual welfare of humanity.
  • Non-Hedonistic Utilitarianism:
    • Expresses a utilitarian focus on general well-being without reducing human happiness to a hedonistic calculus.
    • Deep meditative absorption states (jhānas) yield non-mundane states of joy, zest, rapture, and spiritual pleasure.
    • Because jhānic states transcend ordinary sensory pleasures, Western ethical categories such as hedonism and eudaimonism do not directly apply.
  • Altruism and the Four Sublime Virtues:
    • Ethical practice incorporates a strong social and altruistic dimension embodied in four key virtues:
    1. Lovingkindness.
    2. Compassion.
    3. Sympathetic Joy.
    4. Equanimity.

Reciprocal Duties and Psychological Analysis of Wrongdoing

  • Reciprocal Relations (Sigālōvāda Sutta):
    • Outlines reciprocal duties and mutual obligations between specific social roles:
    • Parents and children.
    • Husband and wife.
    • Teachers and pupils.
    • Friends and associates.
    • Householders and recluses.
    • Presents a humanistic framework of mutual obligation rather than a legalistic concept of human rights or an absolute ethic of duty.
  • Rejection of Guilt and Sin Constructs:
    • Judeo-Christian notions of sin, moral guilt, and obsessive worry over past offenses are absent from Pali Buddhist analysis.
    • Wrongdoing is understood non-judgmatically as:
    • Unskilled action.
    • Unwholesome conduct.
    • Mental defilement.
    • Inner worry, restlessness, anxiety, and unhealthy fear regarding past misdeeds are viewed as psychological obstructions to leading a virtuous life.
    • Concepts of duty, obligation, justice, and righteousness are fully integrated within a broader humanistic and consequentialist framework.