The First Day of Summer (inspiring verses)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Acharya Buddharakkhita (trans.), Maggavagga: Verses on the Path (Dhammapada XX)

Sun (Surya, Sol) in hand on the Ganges in India (Immortal Technique, Point of No Return)

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Sol, European gate (Bryan1974/flickr)

273. Of all the paths the Noble Eightfold Path is best; of all the truths the Four Noble Truths are best; of all things passionlessness [freedom from craving] is best: of all humans the One Who Sees (the Buddha) is best.

• What is Eightfold Path to noble attainments (stages of enlightenment)? It is the cultivation of virtue (precepts, restraints), concentration (mental collectedness, absorption), and wisdom (right view, insight).
• What are the  Four Ennobling Truths? Meditative contemplation of the causal links of Dependent Origination for the direct realization of disappointment, its cause, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation, which is the Noble Eightfold Path.

274. This is the straight path without deviation for the purification of liberating-insight. Tread this path and you will bewilder Mara [the Corrupter, Death personified, the Killer, the Obstructer of liberation].

275. Traveling this path you will make an end of all suffering. Having discovered how to pull out the thorn of lust [craving], I make known the path [to deathlessness].

276. You yourselves must strive [to win the stream]; the buddhas only point the way. Those meditative ones who tread the path are released from the bonds of Mara.

Radiant golden Buddha, blue aura (WQ)

277. "All conditioned things are impermanent" -- when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

278. "All conditioned things are disappointing [unsatisfactory]" -- when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

279. "All things are impersonal [not-self]" -- when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

280. The idle person who does not exert when one should, who although young and strong is full of sloth, with a mind full of vain thoughts -- such an indolent person does not find the path to wisdom.

281. Let a person be watchful of speech, well controlled in mind, and not commit harm in bodily action. Let one purify these three courses of action and win the path made known by the Great Sage.

282. Wisdom springs from meditation; without meditation wisdom wanes. Having known these two paths of progress and decline, let a person so conduct oneself that wisdom may increase.

283. Cut down the forest (lust) but not the tree; from the forest springs fear. Having cut down the forest and the underbrush (desire), be passionless, O meditators! ["Cut down the forest of lust, but do not mortify the body."]

284. For so long as the underbrush of desire, even the most subtle, of a man towards a woman [or a woman towards a man] is not cut down, one's mind is in bondage, like the sucking calf to its mother.

 

Golden Buddha with vast sky behind, track-free birds like arhats (mahabodhisociety.com)

285. Cut off this affection [attachment] in the manner of a person who plucks with hand an autumn lotus. Cultivate only the path to peace, nirvana, as made known by the Exalted One.

286. "Here shall I live during the rains, here in winter and summer" -- thus thinks the fool. One does not realize the danger (that death might intervene).

287. As a great flood sweeps away a sleeping village, so death seizes and carries away the person with a clinging mind/heart, doting on one's children and cattle [property, synonymous with "riches" in agrarian societies].

288. For one who is assailed by death there is no protection by one's kin. None there are to save one -- no sons[, nor daughters, nor mother], nor father, nor relatives.

289. Realizing this fact, let the wise person, restrained by virtue, hasten to clear the path leading to nirvana.

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The First Precept: abstain from killing (sutra)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Abbot Thanissaro, Metta Forest Monastery, San Diego, California, "Getting the Message" from Purity of Heart

Man viciously attacked by bull after lightly taunting the animal and gently inserting knives into its back while attempting to slaughter him for the crowd's blood lust and amusement (Gustavo Cuevas/i.cdn.turner.com)

 

You'd kill her, but would you -- y'know -- her?

"What is unskillful (unwholesome, karmically unprofitable)?

1. Taking life (killing) is unskillful,
2. taking what is not given... 
3. sexual misconduct... 
4. perjury...
5. abusive speech...
6. divisiveness... 
7. idle chatter is unskillful. 
8. Greed... 
9. ill will... 
10. wrong view is unskillful.

"These (ten) things are unskillful... What is skillful (wholesome, karmically profitable)? Refraining

1. from taking life...
2. from taking what is not given...
3. from sexual misconduct...
4. from perjury...
5. from abusive speech...
6. from divisiveness...
7. from idle chatter...
8. from covetousness... 
9. from ill will... 
10. from wrong view is skillful. 

"These things are skillful." — MN 9

• AUDIO: "I want to kill!" (This American Life)

The result of our cruelty rarely comes so quickly.

Killing is NEVER skillful. Stealing... holding a wrong view is never skillful. When asked if there were any killing he approved of, the Buddha answered that there was only one: anger.

[That is to say, one should destroy the root motivation, the underlying intention -- which is aversion -- to harm or destroy living beings.]

 

In no recorded instance did the Buddha approve of killing any living being. Once when a Buddhist monk went to an executioner and told the man to kill his victims compassionately -- that is, with one blow, rather than torturing them by multiple strikes -- the Buddha expelled that monk from the Order (Sangha) on the grounds that even the recommendation to kill compassionately is nevertheless a recommendation to kill -- something this Dharma never condones.

• [Similarly, according to the monastic rules (vinaya), if one eats meat from an animal one sees, hears, or so much as suspects was killed for one's benefit, or to make an offering to one, is a violation on the grounds that it is tacit approval of killing. Moreover, if one recommends or speaks in praise of abortion or suicide or euthanasia, and life is taken as a result, one is guilty of killing and expelled from the Order. Why? Killing is weighty karma, very bad karma, and the Buddha went to great lengths to make this known. In ancient India he was known as a karma-vadin, a teacher of the consequences of physical, verbal, and mental action.]

Kill. Kill. Kill. And make us rich (BBC).

If a monastic were ever physically attacked, the Buddha allowed for that person to strike back in self-defense, but never with the intention of killing an assailant. 

 

As the Buddha taught monastics, "Even if highway robbers were to dismember one savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, anyone who would allow one's heart to become hateful and angry on account of it would not be following my Teaching. Even then one should train oneself: 

Even reviled dictator could act kindly (iln).

"'Our minds will not be affected, and we will not give vent to hateful words. Instead, we will remain sympathetic, with a mind/heart full of compassion [perhaps for the results they will one day face for their karma], and free of hate. 

"'We will pervade even these bandits with a consciousness imbued with good will. And beginning with them we will continue to pervade the world in all quarters with a consciousness imbued with good will -- abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, and free from ill will.' That is how one should train oneself." — ("The Parable of the Saw," MN 21)

The Parable of the Saw

Acharya Buddharakkhita (Positive Response) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha, Gandhara/Afghanistan (Boonlieng/flickr)

"Meditators, even if bandits were to savagely sever you, limb by limb, with a double-handled saw, even then, whoever harbors ill will at heart would not be upholding my Teaching. 

"Meditators, even in such a situation, train yourselves: 'Neither shall our minds be affected by this, nor for this matter shall we give vent to hateful words, but we shall remain full of concern and pity (mudita, sympathy, compassion), with a mind of love (mettā, friendliness), and we shall not give in to hatred. On the contrary, we shall live projecting thoughts (feelings) of universal love to those very persons, making them as well as the whole world the objects of our thoughts of universal love -- thoughts that have grown great, exalted, and measureless. 

"We shall dwell radiating these thoughts void of hostility and ill will.' It is in this way, meditators, that one should train oneself.

 

"Meditators, if one should keep this instruction on the Parable of the Saw constantly in mind, do you see any mode of speech, subtle or gross, that you could not endure?"

 

"No, venerable sir."

 

"Therefore, meditators, one should keep this instruction on the Parable of the Saw constantly in mind. That will conduce to the well-being and happiness of all for long indeed."

 

That is what the Blessed One said. Delighted, those meditators acclaimed the Teaching (Dharma) of the Blessed One.

• COMMENTARY: How could the Buddha say such a pie-in-the-sky thing? First, when one realizes that ultimately there is no self, no ego, nothing to cling to, it is possible to behave in a universal way. But more down to earth, this instruction follows the Buddha's advice to his disciples to endure the abusive speech of others. Why should they endure it? The Buddha says one should even endure being painfully tortured and murdered without becoming angry -- which only harms the angry one. This being the case, keeping this instruction in mind, how hard would it be to endure mere words? It would be easy, the audience responds. Therefore, keep this instruction in mind.