So today, I want to continue an overview of the teachings. What I shared yesterday, a lot of my central compass and practice and teaching is to help people establish themselves and deepen themselves in the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path. It's this kind of list that really encompasses the whole of the Dharma. And the Eightfold Path is often broken down into three parts, sīla, samādhi, and paññā. which are usually translated as something like ethical conduct, meditation, and wisdom.

And these are considered trainings or practices. They're not things you just want to believe in or you learn once and you check off the list and move on to the next thing. They're life undertakings, things we practice to develop and beautify the mind and, by extension, the world.

So today I wanted to explore a bit more Sīla, ethical conduct, sometimes called virtue or morality, and it's talked about in a lot of different ways. In the Noble Eightfold Path, the three of the eight that correspond to Sīla are wise action, wise speech, and wise livelihood.

Sīla is sometimes also talked about in terms of the five precepts, these practices of abstaining from killing, abstaining from stealing, abstaining from sexual harm, abstaining from lying, and abstaining from intoxicating the mind. Another way Sīla could be talked about is as a practice of harmonious living, a practice of integrity, really following a moral compass. The teachings on the Brahmavihāras could also fit into Sīla. Having love, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity.

Even the teachings on generosity and giving could fit into Sīla. So when we add all of this together and we see all these ways it could go, I often think about Sīla as the practice of relationship. Because when we strip away all the jargon and all the lists and all the do's and the don'ts, what we really see is a whole section of the path devoted to how do we be in relationship with ourselves, with others, and with the world?

how do we do that in a way which cultivates well-being and reduces harm? And it's sometimes said the whole really Indian spiritual tradition that's bigger than Buddhism but includes Buddhism is based on the virtue or the principle of non-harming. And again, that comes back to relationship. So how do we really be in relationship in a harmonious, integrity-filled, kind, non-harming way. And that's what Sīla is about. There's a quote I've been really loving lately that also captures to me some of the spirit of Sīla.

And it's a story relayed from Jack Kornfield. So I'll read this quote from him. He says, a friend of mine visited the wonderful Zen master, Katagiri Roshi, shortly before he died. She asked Roshi if he could tell her the essence of Zen practice, which is the kind of question you ask a Zen teacher when they're dying. And so, he picked up the cup that was next to his bed and haphazardly tossed it down on the table and said, you can do things like this.

Or, he picked it up off the table again, held it in his two hands, and placed it down really beautifully in the gentle care. He continued, or, you can do them like that. And that was his teaching. So to me, the practice of sīla, this practice of relationship, is about learning how to live with that depth of care. To see every interaction with another person. The way that we talk to ourselves in the quiet moments.

Even the way I might interact with a tree or a comforter. Whatever it is, can I learn to live my life in relationship with all things with care and respect. And when we do that, what we tend to notice is, oh, I'm not really engaged in so much harmfulness. I'm actively applying myself towards cultivating well-being for myself, for others. And so my primary teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, what he most of all emphasized with sīla was the underlying principles, the things that just get us to naturally live with a sense of care and integrity.

And the primary one underlying principle that the Buddha lists in right view is of kamma or karma in Sanskrit. And so this teaching on kamma, I'm just going to not even address all the wrong understandings at the moment. And I'll just say the way I like to poetically translate it is what you do matters. And when we really understand that what we do matters, or more literally, that our actions have consequences, that we're subject to cause and effect, it can really start to change how much care we put into our actions, into our intentions.

And we see, oh, this counts. Like, I have the capacity to create suffering for someone or create well-being for them, most saliently myself. It can really start to change how much importance we put on on that one analogy i really love a lot of teachers talk about is that our mind is sort of like a garden and you can either plant weeds in the garden you know maybe some uh let's say just for fun some you have a spiky thistle seeds then if you are gardeners you probably don't like to see thistle in your garden and so you can plant these thistle seeds in the garden of your mind or you can plant tulips in the garden of your mind, weeds and flowers.

And if you go around your whole life planting tulip seeds, tulip seeds, tulip seeds, well, the mind's going to start to look very beautiful. And if you go around planting thistle seeds, thistle, thistle, thistle, the mind is going to be very spiky and kind of a painful place. And so in the same way, the Buddha says with kamma, the underlying principle of sīla, we can go around in our life planting two types of seeds.

The word is kusala, akusala, which would be wholesome, unwholesome, skillful, unskillful, or the type of action that leads to suffering and the type of action that leads to well-being.

And so my teacher, this is the thing he would say over and over, is he said, really? Well, first of all, from this backdrop of just be mindful all day long, not just mindful while sitting, mindful in any activity. And say really start to attune to when your actions, words, or even your thoughts are coming from an unwholesome place. When they're coming from some sense of reactivity, some sense of wanting to cause harm, craving, aversion, delusion.

He said notice that. Notice the unwholesome place that your actions, words, and thoughts come from. And then he'd say also notice the wholesome place that they come from. And largely, it was just a practice of mindfulness. Track that all day long. Not in this really kind of over-the-top, rigid way, but just have this gentle sensitivity. And when you notice yourself, say, going on some revenge fantasy or just complaining and bickering, it's like, oh, interesting.

This is unwholesome right here. When you notice yourself just attuning to gratitude in your own mind, oh, this is wholesome. this is beautiful. If you notice yourself scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and you see, oh wow, there's some avoidant energy going on in here. Oh, unwholesome.

You notice yourself writing a message to a family member, and you feel a sense of fondness or care in your heart as you write them. Oh, this is wholesome. How beautiful. And the curious thing is, the more you start to notice the wholesome and the unwholesome, it becomes even more intentional. You kind of lean into the wholesomeness of it. And there's a line, I'm gonna, very simplified, but as you incline your mind, so you become.

The more unwholesome seeds you plant, the more unwholesome your mind becomes. The more wholesome seeds you plant, the more wholesome it becomes. And so, you know, with all these different teachings on sīla, on ethics, kind of being in relationship, we see it starts within. What types of seeds are we planting in our life? mindfulness is a real aid to steering it one way or the other. I wanted to just share another little story I find helpful.

Recently, I talked about when Ajahn Chah, this great Thai forest meditation master, he wandered through the jungles of Thailand maybe 75 years ago looking for Ajahn Mun, the next level great master. And he had a question for him about meditative practice, and He also had a question for him about ethics, about sīla. And for Buddhist monks, the rule book is not just five precepts, it's 227. And it's very detailed and very precise and legalistic.

And so Ajahn Chah had, I guess, had become a bit discouraged. He found it, he said, it seems too detailed to be practical. It didn't seem possible to keep every single rule. What should the standard be? And so he asked Ajahn Mun, this great master, and Ajahn Mun said, well, take the two guardians of the world, your moral conscience and your sense of respect, as your basic principles.

In the presence of those two virtues, everything else will follow. And that was the teaching that cleared up Ajahn Chah's doubt. And so I wanted to leave with that or end with that because it's so easy with Sīla to get caught in all the legalese and all the lists and the do's and don'ts and the principles. All of it is pointing back to the sense of a moral compass, the sense of integrity, the sense of what when I lean into it causes harm and what when I lean into it causes well-being.

And the more we pay attention and the more we learn, the more we see how wonderful it is to live with care and respect and integrity and wholesomeness, we just do that more and then our life becomes a life of virtue.

So I'll pause here and we'll see you all in a bit.