- If I’m doing ______ what would the world look like if everyone was doing this?
- If I _______ will it lead to (more) harm or non-harm? How will harm or not harm and why?
- If I don’t _______ will it lead to more harm or non-harm? How and why?
“Whenever you want to do [while you are doing, and having done] a bodily action [verbal action, mental action], you should reflect on it: ‘This bodily action [verbal action, mental action], I want to do [are doing, and have done] — would it [is it, was it] lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both? Would it be [is it, was it] an unskillful bodily action, [verbal action, mental action] with painful consequences, painful results?’ If, on reflection, you know that it would lead [is leading, has lead] to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it would be an unskillful bodily action [verbal action, mental action] with painful consequences, painful results, then any bodily action [verbal action, mental action] of that sort is absolutely unfit for you to do. But if on reflection you know that it would not cause self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it would be a skillful bodily action [verbal action, mental action] with pleasant consequences, pleasant results, then any bodily action [verbal action, mental action] of that sort is fit for you to do.”
Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta: Instructions to Rahula at Mango Stone (with my edits/additions in brackets in order to condense the text)
- If the whole universe is within, what is going on internally that leads to the perception of an external ill and/or external wholeness?
. . . it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.
selection from the Rohitassa Sutta: To Rohitassa
I, Kulla, went to a charnel ground
and saw a woman’s body abandoned there,
discarded in a cemetery,
full of worms that devoured.“See this bag of bones, Kulla—
diseased, filthy, rotten,
oozing and trickling,
a fool’s delight.”Taking the teaching as a mirror
for realizing knowledge and vision,
I examined this body,
hollow, inside and out.As this is, so is that;
as that is, so is this.
As below, so above;
as above, so below.As by day, so by night;
as by night, so by day.
As before, so after;
as after, so before.Even the music of a five-piece band
Verses of the Senior Monks
can never give such pleasure
as when, with unified mind,
you rightly discern the Dhamma.
The Book of the Sixes
Chapter One
6.4. Kulla
Sāriputta
With what kinds of conduct and morality,
growing in what sorts of karmas,
will a person well-established be
for attainment of the highest goal?Buddha
Let that one be an honourer of elders, never envious,
a knower of the right time for the teacher seeing,
and when Dharma’s being taught, a knower of that time
to listen precisely to those well-spoken words.And at the right time go to the teacher’s presence
in an unassuming way, discarding obstinacy,
with restraint and recollection of the way to practise,
remembering the Dharma for the life of purity.Dwelling in the Dharma, delighted in Dharma,
in Dharma established, and skilled in deciding Dharma,
never uttering words to the Dharma’s detriment,
Let such a one be guided by well-spoken truths.Disputatiousness, gossip, complaints and ill-will,
deception, hypocrisy, longing and pride,
aggressiveness, harshness, defilements-attached,
fare abandoning these, pride-free, of steady mind.Understanding’s the essence of well-spoken words,
while that and the learnt is the essence of calmness;
but wisdom and learning in one do not grow—
that person who’s hasty and negligent both.Delighting in Dharma by Noble Ones taught,
Sutta Nipāta
their mind, speech and body all unsurpassed—
in gentleness, peace, meditative-states firm,
attained to the essence of wisdom and learning.
Kiṁsīla Sutta
2.9. What is Good Conduct?
Integrating Presence 