Gate Seventy-eight
Read the following, place it in your heart and sleep on it. Then, tomorrow, live it until evening when you can leave a brief comment on what you may have received during the process.
Right action is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] there is no karma and no retribution.
Right Action : acting in accord with the Buddhist Precepts.
By “Dharma Gate”, We mean a teaching or practice that can lead to spiritual growth: some kind of positive outcome in terms of our practice. A way to approach the truth.
Koan:
"Right action – specifically, right “bodily” action. This is defined as “abstaining from taking life, abstaining from stealing, and abstaining from unchastity.” For a monastic, chastity entails complete celibacy, while for a lay person it means maintaining appropriate sexual relationships.
Once again, the Cunda Kammaraputta Sutta gives us a more detailed description of right bodily action. In abstaining from taking life, a virtuous person dwells with her “knife laid down, scrupulous, merciful, [and] compassionate for the welfare of all beings.” When refraining from stealing, someone carefully abstains from “taking what is not [explicitly] given.” And in abstaining from “sensual misconduct,” someone doesn’t get sexually involved with anyone who is “protected by their mothers… fathers… brothers… sisters… relatives, or their Dharma” (those protected by the Dharma would be monks and nuns). In addition, one abstains from sex with those who have spouses, those who are the object of romantic attention from someone else, and anyone with whom sexual relations would “entail punishment” of some kind.
Clearly, right action is more subtle and positive than simple abstention from overt killing, stealing, or engaging in illicit sex. Keep in mind that the purpose of ethical conduct is freedom from remorse, and that even as you work to literally refrain from bodily and verbal misconduct, you’re also supposed to be working on purifying and liberating your mind. "
Most note worthy replies :
合掌 仁道 生開 - gassho, Jindo Shokai
stlah
Read the following, place it in your heart and sleep on it. Then, tomorrow, live it until evening when you can leave a brief comment on what you may have received during the process.
Right action is a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with it] there is no karma and no retribution.
Right Action : acting in accord with the Buddhist Precepts.
By “Dharma Gate”, We mean a teaching or practice that can lead to spiritual growth: some kind of positive outcome in terms of our practice. A way to approach the truth.
Koan:
"Right action – specifically, right “bodily” action. This is defined as “abstaining from taking life, abstaining from stealing, and abstaining from unchastity.” For a monastic, chastity entails complete celibacy, while for a lay person it means maintaining appropriate sexual relationships.
Once again, the Cunda Kammaraputta Sutta gives us a more detailed description of right bodily action. In abstaining from taking life, a virtuous person dwells with her “knife laid down, scrupulous, merciful, [and] compassionate for the welfare of all beings.” When refraining from stealing, someone carefully abstains from “taking what is not [explicitly] given.” And in abstaining from “sensual misconduct,” someone doesn’t get sexually involved with anyone who is “protected by their mothers… fathers… brothers… sisters… relatives, or their Dharma” (those protected by the Dharma would be monks and nuns). In addition, one abstains from sex with those who have spouses, those who are the object of romantic attention from someone else, and anyone with whom sexual relations would “entail punishment” of some kind.
Clearly, right action is more subtle and positive than simple abstention from overt killing, stealing, or engaging in illicit sex. Keep in mind that the purpose of ethical conduct is freedom from remorse, and that even as you work to literally refrain from bodily and verbal misconduct, you’re also supposed to be working on purifying and liberating your mind. "
-Domyo Burke's Zen Studies Podcast; link here
Most note worthy replies :
There is one way to know
That your course is unshakable
Keep your eye on the donut
Not on the hole.
Walking on firm ground
We don't sink
And leave no footprints
合掌 仁道 生開 - gassho, Jindo Shokai
stlah
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