Family and Society
July 2005
When I began to think about the theme for this issue of the magazine, family and society, I found myself hesitating for a moment. The issues involved are so complex that it seemed almost impossible to say anything meaningful in the space of a few hundred words. But then the answer came to me. Why not just go back to the basics? After all, there’s nothing more likely to yield positive answers when you are lost, and we, most of us anyway, are lost when it comes to finding answers to the problems of family and society in the twenty-first century.
Those of us who are Buddhist are probably familiar with the five or even the eight precepts. We may even occasionally “take the five or eight precepts” at our favourite temple or Buddhist centre, but, do we really appreciate what we are doing? When we repeat the pledges not to kill, steal, commit adultery, lie or indulge in intoxicants, do we really understand why we do so?
The basics of Buddhist ethics are really quite simple. They include the recognition that all living beings are basically alike. No matter who or what we are, we all want safety and happiness, and we all fear insecurity and unhappiness. Understanding that we are all alike, we ought to behave towards other living beings in the same way we would like them to behave towards us. These two ideas form the bed rock of Buddhist ethics.
The basics of Buddhist ethics imply several positive values - respect for: life, property, truth and personal relationships. These values are expressed in the practices of perfect action, perfect communication and perfect livelihood. If we could adopt these practices, then social problems would disappear.
If we value life, property and personal relationships, then we ought to practice perfect action and avoid killing, stealing, adultery, inflicting harsh punishments, cheating and exploitation.
If we value truth, we ought to practice perfect communication and avoid lying, turning people against each other, abuse and diverting ourselves at others expense. If we adopt these practices, we will be able to live in harmony with all that lives. No one will have to be afraid of us, be wary or suspicious of us. The whole world will be able to live in the certainty that no harm will come from us. Isn’t that a marvellous thing? - to be perfectly peaceful! If we could all be like that, there would be no wars, no social injustice and no conflicts.
And what about perfect livelihood? If we avoided trade in animals for slaughter, people, arms, poisons and intoxicants, wouldn’t the world be a better place? Isn’t violence, slavery, war, toxic pollution, alcoholism and drug addiction too high a price to pay for wealth and power? We judge drug barons, war lords and traffickers in women and children harshly, but what about those who are responsible for the factory farming of animals for human consumption, the production and promotion of alcohol and the manufacture and sale of deadly weapons of all types: conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear? Do we really believe that all this industry of exploitation, pain and death is necessary to sustain “our way of life?” And if it is, then perhaps it’s time to think about changing “our way of life”.
At this point many of us may be thinking, “It is all to much! It is all too big a job! There isn’t really anything we can do about it anyway!” But is that really true? Is there really nothing we can do about it?
There’s a little story that’s I’ve always enjoyed. There was a hunter. One day while looking for game in the forest, he came across a Buddhist monk. He stopped to talk with the monk who told him about the five precepts. “But,” said the hunter, “I’m a hunter. I can’t even observe the first precept.” “Then,” said the monk, “Observe one of them. If you are married, avoid adultery.”
Some time later, the hunter caught a fine deer which he took to the market to sell. There, the deer was bought by the beautiful wife of a very wealthy business man. She asked the hunter to bring it home as it was very heavy. The hunter did as he was told, but when he got there, he found out that the woman really wanted him and not the deer at all. Now the woman’s husband was supposed to be away on business, so the way was open, but the hunter remembered his promise to avoid adultery, and so he declined. Now the husband suspected his wife and hadn’t gone away at all. When the hunter refused the woman’s offer, the husband came out of his hiding place, and to show his appreciation of the hunter’s conduct, he offered him a position in his company. So the hunter was able to give up killing after all. The moral of the story is: no matter how small a step it may be, we need to start somewhere, and then one thing will lead to another.