This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Ethical Sensitivity;Intro to Buddhist Ethics (5 of 5) Being Ethical. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Ethical Sensitivity; Dharmette: Intro to Buddhist Ethics (5 of 5) Being Ethical - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on May 31, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

Good morning and good day to all of you on this Friday, at least here in California. This is the last day on this five-part introduction to Buddhist ethics. In thinking about the meditation for today in relationship to that, people's ethics, how they behave ethically, or how they behave interpersonally, has a fair amount to do with their state of mind, their emotional state that they're in, the degree of stress or lack of stress people have. People who are stressed, people who are angry, people who are afraid, people who are greedy, tend towards a different ethical behavior than people who are calm, at ease, people who are filled with love or generosity or kindness, who feel safe and contented.

These different states are very radically different. They tap into different parts of who we are, and they can lead to different ways of thinking or different ways of seeing the world, seeing oneself. Because of all that, it can even lead to different ethical systems, ethical philosophies, and what gets justified and not justified and the basis for that. In Buddhism, we have meditation, we have guidelines for how to live a wise life that frees us from stress, frees us from fear, frees us from greed and hatred, hostility, and anger, and then opens up a deeper sensitivity inside. A sensitivity that we feel others more closely, we feel ourselves more closely, we track ourselves better. In particular, we tap into our capacity for positive social emotions.

For different times, different ones come into play. There's goodwill, metta¹, there's kindness, there's basic care and compassion. There's mudita², kind of a deep appreciative feeling and celebration of others' well-being. And there can come a greater sense of avoiding harm, a greater commit to being ethical, not because we think it's a good idea, but it emerges from this deeper sensitivity that can come from what we're developing here in meditation. So for this meditation, I'd like to suggest that you assume, you trust that you have the capacity to tap into a deep wellspring inside of sensitivity to yourself, to others, to calm, to a place of ease, maybe a place of safety, contentment that is the source of kindness, the source of compassion, the wellspring of ethical behavior. What is that place inside for you? And how is it in this sitting you might tap into the depths of your emotional, ethical sensitivity?

Guided Meditation: Ethical Sensitivity

So to assume a meditation posture. And if you're meditating for some time, then you begin appreciating the posture itself creates a context, creates a familiarity, it starts creating a deeper connection to being present here with oneself. For oneself. And where that connection to your body through this familiar posture, the act of closing your eyes or lowering your gaze, allows you to have a heightened sensitivity to your embodied experience. Closing your eyes and feeling the width and depth of your body, in whatever way the body shows itself to you, with the idea of becoming quiet. Like you're becoming quiet to listen to faint songs of birds in the forest, or quiet so you can allow a sleeping baby to keep sleeping, sensitive to the sweetness of a sleeping baby. So becoming quiet to feel and sense your embodied experience with an intimacy, a closeness, becoming sensitive to the body breathing. Not so much focusing on the breath or following the breath, as letting the body become quieter, stiller, so there's a heightened sensitivity to the body's experience of breathing.

With the idea that there's a partnership between breathing and your awareness. Breathing in sensitivity to your body. And in that partnership, the breathing is guiding you, leading you inward to a deeper and deeper, fuller and fuller sensitivity to your inner life.

Entering into this partnership with breathing, so that there's a letting up, a freeing up of the energy that goes to tension and stress in your thoughts, in your body. That as you feel the stress and agitations of the body-mind, there's room for them to relax and settle.

Chances are that whatever you're thinking about is not as valuable as the opportunity to settle into your breathing, into your body, gradually settling into a fuller, deeper sensitivity that becomes the source for kindness, compassion, care with each breath.

Kindness.

If you feel your way into whatever degree of calm or stillness you have, maybe behind or underneath whatever agitation there might be, how does that place of calm or stillness inform how you look upon others, how you see the world? Can it be a place, a source from which to gaze upon the world with kindness, with an orientation to avoid causing harm?

And then as we come to the end of this sitting, to consider how valuable it can be to not give ourselves over to ill will, to stress, to fear, greed. To not succumb to believing in these states as being states with which organizes how we understand and see and feel other people. But instead to stay close to the place, to stay close to being where there's no stress. The one inside who is not stressed and who can gaze upon the world with kindness. Being still and gazing outwards kindly unto all beings.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may each of us stay close to that inner sensitivity that is the source of goodwill, the source of non-harming. May we enter the world close to that place that wishes no harm to anyone.

Dharmette: Intro to Buddhist Ethics (5 of 5) Being Ethical

So then we come to this fifth theme in this introduction to Buddhist ethics, and that is that rather than doing ethics, and maybe rather than being ethical as the behavior we do, we are ethical. It's who we are. There's an understanding in Buddhist ethics and Buddhist practice that as people mature spiritually, they become ethical. They become someone, and the ethics, like the five precepts, are not things that people adhere to or do or think about. They are simply who the person is. The person is someone who does not intentionally harm others. A person is, their whole constitution is built in such a way that of course they're not going to take what is not given. They're not going to steal. They don't have to adhere to a precept. Their whole system has kind of been transformed in such a way that there's no tendency to the greed, to the fear, to the hatred that would lead a person to do unethical things.

And so ethics then doesn't become any kind of outward admonitions. It's all arising, in a sense, from the inside, but in such a way that it's not even, there's not even a rising of ethics. It's just the absence of being unethical. And so this pointing to how we are is really key to understanding the transformation that Buddhism leads to. And on the way there, one of the things we want to become increasingly attentive to is how the state of our mind, the state of our emotional state has a direct bearing on how we live, how we see the world, how we interpret events that are going on, and in that way, the ethics we live by.

There's a huge difference between the ethical orientation of someone who is stressed and someone who is not stressed. When we're stressed, we're much, much more likely to to cut corners ethically or to be uninterested in ethics because we're just trying to get what we want or survive or to manage ourselves. And that's too much to think about. You know, we're not oriented to have this ethical sensitivity. If we're consumed with anger, we see the world with different ways than if we're filled with love. And the kind of ethics we justify change varies dramatically whether we're angry or whether we're filled with love. If we're afraid or not afraid, if we feel safe or fearful, if we have a really strong, maybe biological drive, desire, that tends, that that will kind of obscure all kinds of ethical considerations or all kinds of heightened sensitivity for other people because the drive overrides, sometimes, real concern or care or recognition that there's a person there. It's all about, you know, this urge that has to be fulfilled.

And so my assumption is that each person lives within an ethical range, and maybe it's not the dramatically wide range, but simple things, like the kind of words we speak, changes based on our state of being. And so as we do Buddhist practice and Buddhist Meditation in particular, we start seeing how our mental state changes, how our physical sense of well-being can change, and we start seeing the range of how this can be and how meditation can step in and bring a sense of calm or dramatic difference in our basic mood and state of mind. One of the really important tasks when we start seeing this range that we live by and how meditation or spiritual practice gives us a positive end of that range more and more often, is to start seeing that, understanding how our words, our actions, the way we think are influenced by the state of our mind, by our emotional state. And in particular in terms of ethics, how our ethical sensitivity varies depending on the state that we're in.

There are times when there's no ethical sensitivity for anybody. It's all about me, myself, and mine. It's all about my concerns, my fears, my grief, my sadness, in such a way that we're not really attuned to others and their needs and what harms and doesn't harm them. And there are other times when we have this presence of mind, presence of heart enough that we actually feel attuned, we feel, we become sensitive to other people and sensitive to ourselves. There's a way in which, in Buddhist practice, there's a mutual, there's a double sensitivity that is a partnership that really lets the whole work better than the part. And that is we're set, deeper and deeper sensitivity to ourselves in such a way that we simultaneously then have a heightened sensitivity for others. We feel others more, we care for others more, we care for their well-being more.

And the deeper sensitivity here also can start giving a freedom where the deeper sensitivity in which there is a sense of freedom or independence or not being pushed around, not being caught, the situations in the world doesn't get blocked or stopped in us or activate something within us that's difficult. There's an ease, there's an openness, there's a spaciousness for that sensitivity to, in that sensitivity, for it to be wise, considered. And one of the wisest forms of wisdom is wisdom about how not to cause harm, how to do the opposite, how to benefit this world, how to come with kindness, with goodwill in such a way that we are bringing out the best in other people, that we're bringing out the best in ourselves, in such a way that people feel safe with us because they can feel that we have no intention to cause them harm. We're not saying anything mean or maybe even sarcastical, which is a little bit edgy in a way in terms of, is it really kind, is it really sensitive to the well-being of others? Is it seeing people with goodwill? Or are we cynical in such a way that there too we limit our capacity to bring forth the best in all of us? And the cynic is probably limiting themselves for the best of who they are to come forward.

And so this idea of kind of finding the best, being sensitive to the best with a good will, with love, with kindness, with the absence of any orientation to cause harm, this is not, as I said, it's not a admonition, it's not a commandment, it's not an idea that comes from outside. And it's no longer a training that we have to do. It more and more becomes our personality. It becomes our character. It becomes our very being. Maybe not so much because of of what we've cultivated in terms of love and good will, but because we've let go of those inner forces that are unwholesome. We've learned not to give in to the unwholesome, and the unwholesome begins to wither away, and they're not operating. And so the very tendencies to intentionally cause harm for others has evaporated.

And for the person who has that kind of ethical cleanliness or clarity or openness or freedom, in a sense, they're not going to be puritanical. They're not going to be moralistic, because that begins shutting down the ethical sensitivity, the openness. It begins to kind of bring in something unwholesome, something that divides, something that shuts out people from the openness of our hearts. There is another way. There always is a way, that maybe not always easy to find, but there is a way to change the world for the better by bringing forth the best of who we are. And may that be the the primary characteristic of of Buddhist ethics, that we're bringing out the best in the world through offering the best that's in in ourselves. And the Buddhist practice that we do is to make it possible that that comes out of us with integrity, with wholeness, so it's who we are, not something we're pretending or acting out or, but it's really, we've been changed in this way.

So that's the introduction to Buddhist ethics. And next week, there is a five-part talk on the five precepts, and these are the mirrors for developing this ethical life. These are the guidelines for really being careful not to cause harm in the world. And I'll be away teaching a retreat at Insight Retreat Center, and one of our wonderful new teachers at IMC, David Lory, will come and give those talks. And you'll be in very good hands with him. And he has not taught on this, on this 7 a.m. teachings until now, so he'll be new for many of you. And you're quite fortunate to have him come and and teach for you. And I'll be back the following week.

So thank you very much. And may all of us together contribute to the reduction of harm in this world. May we live a non-harming life. Thank you.