3. The Buddhist vows not to appropriate property which is
not his own. This is the Precept against stealing.
Some people think that this Precept involves only cat-burglars and pickpockets. So long as they are not "breaking and entering" or purse-snatching, they think they needn't worry about this
Precept. And for this reason, they feel no twinge of remorse about
acts of petty theft or other misappropriations of property.
But what is an unpaid debt? Is this not stealing? What is
borrowing something and not returning it? Is this also not stealing?
What is using another person's property and damaging it without
compensating him for the damage? Is this not stealing?
Sometimes we act as if we are entitled to appropriate the
property of one person because another person has appropriated our
property. The Golden Rule says that we should do to others what
we would want them to do to us. It doesn't say that we may do to
others what others have done to us.
It is because we excuse or overlook our own larcenies that
we feel no need to repent of them.
According to ancient wisdom, "The thief is sorry he is to
be hanged - not that he is a thief."
If, before we committed any act, we examined its ethics
and its possible results, we would never need to worry about the
gallows.
4. The Buddhist vows to be sexually moral, modest, and
responsible.
In this one Precept we can see how easy it is to break all
the others. In the cause of his lust, a man will steal. In the cause of
his lust, he will ply the woman he desires with alcohol and deceive
her with false promises. And when he uses and abuses her body in
such a way, is he not harming her?
And as greatly as we condemn immorality, so greatly do
we praise morality. Much honor attends the virtuous person, the
person who is chaste in his single life or faithful to his sacred marriage vows!
It is in the failure to observe the Precept of morality that
we find the worst hypocrites. How often do we encounter a man
who ferociously guards his own daughters, while conniving to
debauch other men's daughters? Or, who strictly guards his own
wife, while casually seducing another man's wife? If he were to kill
a man who defiled his daughters or wife, he would expect the
Courts to see him as a victim and to absolve him of guilt. Yet, when
it is he who debauches and seduces, he regards himself as heroic. Is
this not a sad and terrible truth?
It is not easy for a man to overcome lust. The temptations
are ubiquitous and infinite in variety. Yet, if any man were to divert
some of the energy he squanders on sexual conquests into conquering his own lust, he would make true spiritual progress.
All honorable men concur on the struggle's severity. Even
the Buddha said, "If I had had another obstacle as difficult to overcome as my sexuality, I never would have made it."
The Buddha's good humor and self-deprecating candor
should give us all encouragement.
5. The Buddhist vows to abstain from the use of alcohol or
other intoxicants.
There are those who say, "An occasional drink won't hurt
anyone." But an occasional drinker is still a drinker. It is rather like
the state of being "a little pregnant." Either there is a pregnancy or
there isn't.
The description "occasional" is an unlocked door which
any thief can enter. Either sobriety's door is locked or it isn't. Experience tells us that the best way to solve a problem is to avoid it.
Complete abstention is the best way to observe and guard this Precept.
The occasional drinker can remain sober when he's not
beset by problems; but as soon as he's under serious stress, he may
easily succumb to the dead-end escape of alcohol. Once he is captured by drink, he discovers that one drink is too many and a hundred drinks are not enough.
Alcohol relaxes our inhibitions so that we may indulge
our egos. It allows us to override the rules of decorum and decency
and then to blame our misconduct on the drink - not on our having
taken the drink in the first place. Of course, we tell ourselves that
we took that drink in order to enjoy ourselves; but when we drink
and dull our senses, how can we enjoy a pleasure? And even if we
could, what value is there in experiencing a pleasure that we cannot
later remember or savor?
We often find that an intoxicated man who commits an
immoral act will afterwards, when sober, regard himself with disgust; but then this same man will use that self-disgust as an excuse
to drink again.
Let him instead become aware of his true nature, his Glorious Buddha Self. Let him instead learn that within himself he will
find truth, peace, joy and freedom. Assure him that if it were possible to grow these on a vine and put them in a bottle, we should all
be vintners and sots.
Dear friends, there is an old saying, "In Vino Veritas"
which means "In wine there is truth" providing we drink enough of
it. But the only truth we ever find when we overindulge in wine is
that life in Samsara is bitter and painful.
