An Introduction
The Bodhisattva Precepts are skillful means to guide us in our engagement with the world. Our everyday life is a great, multifaceted koan that we resolve at every moment and yet never completely resolve. The Precepts transcend ordinary reality and are beyond both action and non-action. The Precepts point to our essential nature.
Living in this world, we sometimes experience a split or gap between “Me” and “Other” or “Inner” and “Outer.” Seen in that light, the Precepts act as a reminder of our Oneness with all creation, a marker of our interrelatedness with all Beings, and a signpost to our place as a jewel in the Net of Indra.
To me, the most important and overriding principle behind the Precepts is the principle of Oneness, which unites all ten Precepts into a single whole, taking as its base life itself. Seeing with the eyes of others, feeling with others’ hands, and experiencing the lack of the gap between “Me” and “Other” brings me to inquire how it is possible to lie, cheat or steal.
We are all swimming in the river of life; we are one with life; we cannot drown. This Oneness is the buoyancy that keeps us afloat.
Going down with a swirl
Coming up with a whirl
2 comments:
Mushin, I always read any comments I find on the preceps. It seems that I can never find enough explanation about these core teachings of Buddhism and of life in general. When I read them, and the commetaries usually attached to them, they mostly seem a personal guide for individuals searching for the Ox, a how-to manual to subdue the beast. They are that, but in your comment here another vast meaning and outlook calls my attention: the universal co-arising of all consciousness and its energising of all reachable life here and now. We are all tied together, and our personal defenitions are almost meaningless in contrast to our common bond. More, no defenition and no bond just us.
Gassho,
Seido Ed Blanco
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