..续本文上一页 the noble ones, abandoning the taking of life, abstains from taking life. In doing so, he gives freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to limitless numbers of beings. In giving freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to limitless numbers of beings, he gains a share in limitless freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, and freedom from oppression. This is the first gift, the first great gift—original, longstanding, traditional, ancient, unadulterated, unadulterated from the beginning— that is not open to suspicion, will never be open to suspicion, and is unfaulted by knowledgeable contemplatives & brahmans.”—AN VIII.39

　　If you make exceptions in your promise to yourself—trying to justify killing in cases where you feel endangered or inconvenienced by another being”s existence—your gift of freedom is limited, and you lose your share in limitless freedom. Thus the gift of freedom, to be fully effective, has to be unconditional, with no room for exceptions, no matter how noble they may sound, of any kind. The dynamic of this kind of gift, of course, depends on an important principle, the teaching of karma and rebirth: If you act on unskillful motivations, the act will result in your suffering, now or in lives to come; if you act on skillful intentions, the act will result in your pleasure now or in lives to come. If you don“t kill anyone, you are not creating the circumstances where anyone or anything will cut short your life span. Your past karma may still leave an opening for your murder or accidental death—you can”t go back and undo what you”ve already done—but once you make and follow through with the promise not to kill again, you are creating no new openings for having your life cut short. As the Dhammapada says,

　　If there”s no wound on the hand,

　　that hand can hold poison.

　　Poison won”t penetrate

　　where there”s no wound.

　　There”s no evil

　　for those who don”t do it.—Dhp 124

　　This is why the Buddha listed virtue as one of a person”s greatest treasures. Kings and thieves can steal your material belongings and even take your life, but they can”t take your virtue. If it”s uncompromising, your virtue protects you from any true danger from now until you reach nirvana.

　　Even if you”re not ready to accept the teaching on karma and rebirth, the Buddha still recommended an absolute standard of virtue. As he told the Kalamas, if you decide to act skillfully at all times, harming no one, then even if it turned out that there was no life after death, you”d still come out ahead, for you would have been able to live and die with a clear conscience—something that no amount of money or political influence can buy.

　　So the Buddha”s position on the precepts was uncompromising and clear. If you want to follow his teachings, there”s absolutely no room for killing, stealing, or lying, period. However, in our current climate of terrorism and counterterrorism— where governments have claimed that it”s their moral duty to lie, kill, and torture in order to prevent others from lying, killing, and torturing—a number of Buddhist teachers have joined in the effort, trying to find evidence that there were some occasions, at least, where the Buddha would condone killing or offer a rationale for a just war. Exactly why they would want to do this is up to them to say, but there”s a need to examine their arguments in order to set the record straight. The Buddha never taught a theory of just war; no decision to wage war can legitimately be traced to his teachings; no war veteran has ever had to agonize over memories of the people he killed because the Buddha said that war was okay. These facts are among the glories of the Buddhist tradition, and it”s important for the human race that they not be m…

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