This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Knowing Experience As It Is; Step-By-Step into the Dharma 2/5:Ethical Sensitivity. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Knowing Experience As It Is; Dharmette: Step by Step Into the Dharma (2 of 5) Ethical Sensitivity - Shelley Gault

The following talk was given by Shelley Gault at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 18, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Knowing Experience As It Is

It is the top of the hour now, the second day of this week, and I'm really happy to be with this group. It's a really special Sangha¹. This 7:00 a.m. Sangha—even though we know it's not 7:00 a.m. everywhere you are—has developed over these last five years. Since the pandemic in 2020, when Gil began giving these morning sits and Dharmettes, it has become really valuable for a lot of people I know. So I feel really privileged to be asked to participate from time to time.

This week I'm talking about the way the Buddha introduced the Dharma to people who were not familiar with it, who hadn't been "trained," as they say in the texts. He would give what has come to be called a "graduated talk" or a "step-by-step talk." He introduced the teachings bit by bit, beginning with foundational steps and then gradually coming to the more subtle teachings as people's minds and hearts were ready for that.

This gradual introduction is a kind of Bhāvanā². Bhāvanā is a word that means a cultivation of mind. Often we use that word to describe the cultivation of the meditation practice, but all of our practice really is a Bhāvanā—a cultivation of mind and heart. It is a cultivation of beautiful qualities in hearts and minds, qualities that are expressed in daily life, in relationship to the world, to everything.

I mentioned yesterday that the path is sometimes described as having three parts. One list being a training in Dāna³ (giving), Sīla⁴ (ethical development), and Bhāvanā (mental cultivation). I just wanted to make it clear that this cultivation is also happening in the cultivation of Dāna and Sīla. The whole of the practice, the whole of the path, is a gradual cultivation of wholesome qualities along with a gradual letting go of unwholesome tendencies until there's nothing left really except what's wholesome.

Yesterday I talked about Dāna, giving, which is the first thing the Buddha is said to have introduced these listeners to. It was something that was easily recognized and undoubtedly known as something good to develop; something they were familiar with. Today's topic is Sīla, ethical development. It seems like quite a logical expansion of Dāna really. When we practice ethical sensitivity based in the intention not to do harm, it's a gift to others and it's a gift to ourselves. It's a form of generosity in action.

So that'll be our topic today: the cultivation of ethics, virtue, morality—whichever word for this movement toward the wholesome is most resonant for you.

And before we do that, let's meditate formally.

Taking your meditation posture, find uprightness and ease, that lovely balance with no straining and no collapsing.

Maybe briefly scanning through the body, just looking for any areas where you might habitually hold tension. Breathing into those areas, and then as you exhale, seeing if they can just let go a little bit.

Ease the eyes. Relax the forehead. [Laughter] Relax the jaw.

Check the shoulders, the trapezius area. Let the shoulders drop. Sometimes it's good to raise them up, scrunch them up, bring them back, and just let them drop.

Chest and belly, just let them be open. Just inviting ease.

And allowing the breath to come into the forefront of your awareness, your attention. A constant companion.

Just knowing the breath as it comes in and as it goes out, however it is right now. Not trying to make it any different. Just knowing it in a really simple, direct way. Sensing the sensations that let you know that breathing is happening.

Sensations that are never the same. No two breaths are exactly alike. Nothing static.

This is our life right now. Just unfolding moment by moment, breath by breath. Be present for it. Know it.

May we be present for our lives as we go about our days today. And may we bring that sense of presence to all our activities and all our interactions.

Dharmette: Step by Step Into the Dharma (2 of 5) Ethical Sensitivity

So during this week's Dharmettes, I'm sharing some thoughts about the way that the Buddha introduced the Dharma to people who were untrained—lay people who were just coming in contact with the path. As I said yesterday, giving was the first thing he would teach. After he'd spoken to people about giving and generosity—and I imagine that he'd want to be sure that they'd really taken that in before anything else—the next thing he would introduce is this topic of Sīla, of ethical behavior, ethical cultivation.

This seems like a very natural progression. Cultivating the intention to give something specific—food, clothing, financial support, attention, time—we can then move on to train in a way to include more of our behavior. Including our interactions with those we meet, our interactions with the world, as a kind of gift. It's a logical progression, a sensible next step, and it's a continuing support as we grow on this path.

Probably the first thing that comes to mind when I mention, or anyone mentions, ethics in the Buddhist context is the precepts. Especially the Five Precepts which so many Buddhists all over the world try to adhere to, or at least keep as a model that they'd like to adhere to: not killing, not stealing, not misusing our sexual energy, not lying, and not clouding the mind with intoxicants.

The precepts are trainings in refraining from the most obvious ways that people harm each other and other living beings. But ethical sensitivity goes way beyond the precepts. One way that liberation can be spoken of is in terms of harmlessness. To become a person who does not harm. [Laughter]

To become a person who does not harm, from one perspective, can seem kind of mundane. "Oh yeah, harmlessness." It just seems sort of wussy or something. But imagine a world in which no one harmed others. Or even a world in which everyone aspired to not harm others, made it a central intention of their lives. It would certainly be a different world. So I think we're moving in that direction individually.

An important concept in Buddhist thought is represented by the Pali word Kusala⁵. It's usually translated as "wholesome" or "skillful." I like both of those translations. It's action that arises from wise intention. Action that's motivated by a desire to be of benefit, to be kind, to move in the direction of freedom from Dukkha⁶, from suffering. It's pretty unlikely that any action that moves in that direction is going to be unethical.

The whole path tends in the direction of increasing ethical sensitivity which is rooted in this distinction between what is skillful or wholesome and what is not. in the Sutta on Wise View in the middle length discourses of the Buddha, the Majjhima Nikāya⁷, the first definition given for what it means to have Right View or Wise View is to be skillful. To be engaged in what is Kusala. To be engaged in action that is skillful, wholesome.

Right View, Wise View, is part of the wisdom leg of the three-legged stool. So right there in this Sutta, ethical cultivation is defined as part of the wisdom leg. It's both a preparation for wisdom—in this introduction that the Buddha gives to new people—and it's an inherent aspect of being wise, having Wise View.

There are several Suttas in the early texts where the Buddha gives instruction to his son Rāhula⁸, who was a monk under his training. In the first one, which some say reports the Buddha's teaching to his son when the boy was only seven years old—quite young—the topic is ethical development. The Buddha first gives a teaching on the dangers of lying, which is probably the result of hearing that his son had told a lie. He really emphasizes the dangers of lying.

Then he goes on to generalize about ways to discern the difference between what is wholesome and what is not, what is Kusala and what is not. So he's training the boy in developing ethical sensitivity. This teaching is pretty well known. The Buddha instructs Rāhula to contemplate his actions before he does them, as he's doing them, and then afterward.

First, to reflect when he's planning an action: "Is it likely to lead to harm or is it likely to lead to a pleasant outcome, a beneficial outcome?" If we see that it's an unwholesome action leading to harm, we don't do it.

Then, reflect on the same quality as you do the action. Stop doing it if it feels like it's leading to harm. Continue if it's leading to a good outcome.

And then afterward, if on reflection you see that didn't turn out very well, that it had done harm, then you refrain from doing it in future. The Buddha goes through the same set of instructions for actions of body, of speech, and of mind. So he covers the whole gamut of how we act in the world.

Of course, it's pretty sensible advice. Following it depends on the ability to discern between what is leading to benefit and what is not leading to benefit. That's really the essence of Buddhist ethical teaching: the distinction between what is unwholesome—arising out of greed, hatred, or delusion, those unskillful roots, the "Three Poisons," the defilements which are the source of suffering—or on the other hand, arising out of what is Kusala, wholesome, skillful—arising out of the opposites of those three unwholesome roots.

So developing sensitivity to the difference between these based on their results—is there harm or is there its opposite?—this is the path in a large way.

And of course, the driver of our actions of speech and body is very often, if not always, what is going on in the mind. The actions of mind are precursor to actions of speech and body. So there's another famous teaching which refers to this. The Buddha says: "Whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of that person's mind."

You've probably heard that before. It's a hugely important teaching. Whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of that person's mind. So it just points us directly to the need to pay good attention to our thoughts, knowing that thoughts give rise to action.

Gradually, as we mature in practice, the sensitivity that we develop to the results of our thinking, to the results of our speech and our physical actions, inclines the mind in the direction of the wholesome, of the Kusala. We begin to feel—and we gradually feel more—the pain, sometimes really subtle and sometimes really obvious, of thinking in unkind, greedy ways, or of acting out of those impulses in our speech and in our physical actions.

We feel the goodness of the mind inclining in the direction of what's beneficial, what tends toward more peace, more ease, more goodwill. Those "ouches" and "ahs" in the mind that Gil speaks of. Gil often talks about the difference between mental activity that comes with an "ouch" or comes with an "ah." As we become more sensitive ethically, we feel those ouches and ahs so much more clearly. They become signposts letting us know if we're on the path or maybe straying off into the weeds a little bit.

So benefit, harmlessness, generosity, simplicity—they move our minds and hearts in the direction of ease and wisdom. As we feel into the effects of these skillful states, these beneficial, ethical states, they begin to get embedded in our psyches in a really lovely way.

Of course, we go off track sometimes because we are in training. But that's how we learn, just as the Buddha suggested that Rāhula should do. We see, "Well, that didn't have a very good outcome." And noticing that, acknowledging that without a bunch of self-blame—which wouldn't be beneficial, wouldn't be generous—that's how we learn. Recognizing and acknowledging our mistakes is also skillful, Kusala. Blaming ourselves? Not so much.

First the Buddha would talk about giving and then he would talk about ethics. I barely scratched the surface about either of those. These topics aren't a "one and done." They're foundational for the whole path. They're good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end.

Our motivations for giving are likely to change as we mature in the Dharma. Maybe in the beginning we just wanted to be good people. But as we give more, in the middle, we feel the "ah"—we feel the openness in the heart, the warmth of contentment. And maybe the same way for acting ethically. You know, we began acting ethically for the same reason: to be good, or maybe even to be seen as good. But as we develop more sensitivity to the effects on our inner life of living a life that harms less and less, in the middle, we feel the goodness of it, the satisfaction, the "bliss of blamelessness" we talk about sometimes.

As our Dharma practice deepens further, these two ways of approaching the world can become expressions of freedom of the heart, evidence of how much we've let go. Letting go is the topic for Thursday, not today. And tomorrow we'll be looking at action and its results a bit more, as that was the third step in the Buddha's progressive talks: the operations of karma really.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. I encourage you today to think about the ethical behavior that you engage in as a kind of a gift to the world. As a way of offering benefit to those you meet. See what the effect is in your own heart.

Have a good day. I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.