..续本文上一页ch thrive and flourish when nourished by the rain pouring down from the cloud.
The fourth simile compares the Buddha to a lotus flower, the paragon of beauty and purity. Just as a lotus grows up in a muddy lake, but rises above the water and stands in full splendor unsoiled by the mud, so the Buddha, having grown up in the world, overcomes the world and abides in its midst untainted by its impurities. The Buddha”s teaching of the true Dhamma is like the sweet perfumed fragrance emitted by the lotus flower, giving delight to all. And the Sangha is like the host of bees who collect around the lotus, gather up the pollen, and fly off to their hives to transform it into honey.
Taking the Precepts
Going for refuge to the Triple Gem — the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha — is the door of entrance to the Buddha”s teaching. To enter the teaching we have to pass through this door, but once we have made the initial commitment by taking refuge it is necessary to go further and to put the teaching into actual practice. For the Buddha”s teaching is not a system of salvation by faith. It is essentially a path leading to nibbana, the end of suffering. At the outset we need a certain degree of faith as the incentive for entering the path, but progress towards the goal depends primarily upon our own energy and intelligence in following the path through each of its successive stages. The teaching takes the attainment of deliverance away from every external resort and places it into our own hands. We have to realize the goal for ourselves, within ourselves, by working upon ourselves with the guidance of the Buddha”s instructions.
The path of liberation that the Buddha points to is the threefold training in moral discipline (sila), concentration (samadhi), and wisdom (pañña). These three pisions of the path rise up each in dependence upon its predecessor — concentration upon moral discipline and wisdom upon concentration. The foundation for the entire path, it can be seen, is the training in moral discipline. Because this first section of the path plays such a pivotal role it is vitally important for the serious practitioner to obtain a clear understanding of its essential meaning and the way it is to be practiced. To aid the development of such an understanding we here present an explanation of the training in sila or moral discipline, giving special attention to its most basic form as the observance of the five precepts (pañcasila). The subject will be dealt with under the following headings: (I) the essential meaning of sila; (II) the five precepts inpidually explained; (III) the eight precepts; (IV) the benefits of sila; (V) the undertaking of sila; (VI) the breach of sila; and (VII) the similes for sila.
I. The Essential Meaning of Sila
The Pali word for moral discipline, sila, has three levels of meaning: (1) inner virtue, i.e., endowment with such qualities as kindness, contentment, simplicity, truthfulness, patience, etc.; (2) virtuous actions of body and speech which express those inner virtues outwardly; and (3) rules of conduct governing actions of body and speech designed to bring them into accord with the ethical ideals. These three levels are closely intertwined and not always distinguishable in inpidual cases. But if we isolate them, sila as inner virtue can be called the aim of the training in moral discipline, sila as purified actions of body and speech the manifestation of that aim, and sila as rules of conduct the systematic means of actualizing the aim. Thus sila as inner virtue is established by bringing our bodily and verbal actions into accord with the ethical ideals, and this is done by following the rules of conduct intended to give these ideals concrete form.
The Buddhist texts explain that…
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