Buddhist Ethics
For a more structured walkthrough of this content, see the course.
The training in virtuous conduct.
Courtesy of Photo Dharma, CC BY 2.0
Table of Contents
- Articles (21)
- Audio/Video (15)
- Booklets (15)
- Canonical Works (46)
- Essays (18)
- Excerpts (1)
- Monographs (9)
- Papers (1)
Articles (21)
-
Buddhist ethics is about learning virtuous behavior, and as such can be seen as a form of “play.”
-
For at least the Pāli Buddhist tradition, the cessation of suffering is the sole intrinsic good.
-
⭐ Recommended
If you can intentionally kill out of compassion, then fine, go ahead. But are you sure? Are you sure that what you think are friendliness and compassion are really friendliness and compassion? Are you sure that some subtle aversion and delusion have not surfaced in the mind?
-
Buddhist ethics corresponds to a more generic, act-centered virtue ethics.
-
An encyclopedia entry on Buddhist Ethics across interpretations and traditions.
-
Envisioning and modeling a better way to talk about sensitive subjects.
-
The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll.
-
The gift of fearlessness, if extended beyond its classical scope to include the challenges of xenophobia and terrorism threats, is a capacious framework through which to probe the moral contours of contemporary refugee policy and the security concerns of states.
-
critics have highlighted a number of weak points in Buddhist arguments thus far about environmental issues. Nevertheless, Buddhism does provide resources for constructing an environmental ethic.
-
Such cultivation of mindfulness provides the foundation by establishing the balance within oneself that then enables helping others.
-
An analysis of the “Trolly Problem” from the perspective of Buddhist Ethics.
-
bodily conduct that harms oneself, harms others, harms both; that destroys wisdom and fosters evil; that does not [lead to] attaining Nibbāna, does not lead to knowledge, does not lead to awakening, and does not lead to Nibbāna.
Audio/Video (15)
-
Ajahn Jayasaro’s idea of a “Buddhist economics.”
-
An excellent introduction to ethics in Early Buddhism.
-
A short answer on the question of euthanasia.
-
Ajahn Brahm returns to the origins of Buddhism to help us understand the intentions and practice of “original” Buddhism.
-
On the value of simplicity.
-
🥇 Best Of The Library
An introduction to carnism and a discussion about the importance of mindfulness in living ethically.
-
On how to understand and hold the five precepts, through two common questions.
Booklets (15)
-
The young people of today are not usually impressed by the wisdom of their elders.
-
A collection of essays on generosity.
-
⭐ Recommended
An important sutta on Right Speech, giving the Buddha’s famous injunction to “not insist on local language.”
-
-
Some philosophical essays on the role of ethics on the path.
Canonical Works (46)
-
A lay follower living at home with these five qualities is self-assured.
-
⭐ Recommended
On the eight ways that people become defensive when admonished: a useful mirror for how we handle criticism. When was the last time you were “like a wild colt?”
-
⭐ Recommended
One imagines this sutta was delivered to a group of monks frustrated with an erratic companion. The Buddha gently encourages them to develop empathy by cultivating themselves and to recognize that, in the final analysis, some people are simply best avoided.
-
⭐ Recommended
This epic poem on grasping firmly the intention to awaken has inspired many generations of Buddhists to live a more ethical and spiritual life and it captures beautifully the aesthetic of Buddhist ethics. Well worth reading again and again and again.
-
🥇 Best Of The Library
Venerable Shariputra explains five ways to quell anger through wise attention, giving five memorable similes on being determined to find the good in everyone.
-
“Be my heirs in the teaching, not in material things.”
-
What is the cause, what is the reason why, of the two persons without a blemish, one is said to be worse and one better?
-
Furthermore, a mendicant is attached to their own views, holding them tight, and refusing to let go. This too is a quality that makes them difficult to admonish.
-
What are the qualities that make one a contemplative?
-
⭐ Recommended
One of the most detailed descriptions of morality in the early canon, this discourse lists twenty kinds of actions: unwholesome and wholesome.
-
Here, bhikkhus, someone in pain and grief abstains from killing living beings, and he experiences pain and grief that have abstention from killing living beings as condition.
-
Thus, Rahula, you should train yourself, ‘I will not tell a deliberate lie even in jest.’
-
In which a deva chastises a monk for sniffing a flower!
-
“Possessions, honor, and popularity are brutal, bitter, and harsh. They’re an obstacle to reaching the supreme sanctuary.
So you should train like this: ‘We will give up arisen possessions, honor, and popularity, and we won’t let them occupy our minds.’ -
The Buddha rejects the poorly phrased fatalism of a Jain follower and gives a method for overcoming our bad karma.
-
⭐ Recommended
Protecting oneself, bhikkhus, one protects others; protecting others, one protects oneself.
-
🥇 Best Of The Library
Subha Bhikkhuni finds a creative solution to sexual harassment.
-
A Queen gives her King an honest answer, and the Buddha gives us the very pith of ethics.
Essays (18)
-
⭐ Recommended
Bodhisattvas who genuinely take the bodhisattva vow of ethical discipline do nothing but act for the benefit of beings, either directly or indirectly, but unless one is skilful in benefiting these beings, no matter how much one does, it might not benefit beings, but could actually be a direct or indirect cause of harm.
-
A short celebration of the Perth Bhikkhunis, and how important it is for people to see monastics.
-
⭐ Recommended
Mansplaining is not a universal flaw of the gender, just the intersection between overconfidence and cluelessness where some portion of that gender gets stuck.
-
If we are satisfied, then we will not want more. Wanting more is delusion. We think that it will be better if we can just have this person. But instead of getting better, many problems follow.
-
The ghosts who lust for our dedication [of merits] are like beggars. Only a tiny fraction of the merits we have accumulated can be shared with them
-
🥇 Best Of The Library
A fascinating series of open letters between Ajahn Geoff and Bhikkhu Bodhi on the subject of “just war.”
-
🥇 Best Of The Library
Forget you. This is about waiting
-
⭐ Recommended
A defense of abortion and IVF rights from the Buddhist perspective.
-
🥇 Best Of The Library
I give you back 1948.
-
The key is to focus on two distinctions: systems as distinct from individuals, and having privilege as independent of choosing how to engage with it.
Excerpts (1)
-
A short encyclopedia entry on Buddhist views of suicide.
