Morality as a vehicle to enlightement

S.N. Geonka in his lectures during the retreat I attended presented ethics and morality (Sila) in a pragmatic light. He didn't talk about it as a fruit of enlightenment but as a vehicle towards enlightenment.

From what I remember Sila is seen in:

1. the negative sense: don't do unto others (sentient being) what you don't want others do unto you. We hurt others as a response to our aversions and attachments and therefore enforce our sankaras (mental formations?) and therefore hinder our path to enlightenment.

2. the positive sense: compassion and humility, this loosen the grip of the ego on us and hence facilitate enlightenment

Do you find this to be true from your experience? What are your thoughts in general about this idea?

Amr

Hi Amr,

In my experience, sila is indeed an expedient means of cultivation.

It's often described in terms of discipline and self-control, and it's true that that can surely focus someone and facilitate concentration. But in my experience the aspect of sila that has seemed to personally aid me is more devotional. Related to your number two above.

A strong desire to progress in morality seems to focus and urge forward the developmental process. Its not really about shame or punishment or self-satisfied sanctimoniousness. And i don't think it's about desperation in the face of suffering. Those things come up but I don't think that's what it is about. I think it's more about how relentless and ever-present life in the world is. You're always here. And morality is kind of about how to engage with this thing that you always have to engage with anyway. Maybe that's why it helps development so much. You can get up from the cushion, but you can never get out of the world.

But the energy of it is different.

Prajna practices feel like fishing or surfing. Waiting, watching, following. Sila practice feels more like rowing a boat. You just keep on rowing through many different conditions.

Well, that's a start to this discussion anyway.

Hi Amr
I've been wondering about this for a long time. I've only ever attended one retreat over twenty years ago and I also don't read much so I'm pretty poor on theory and descriptors. I have noticed however that Sila, now that I've learned the term has been and will continue to be a critical aspect of my practice. If I am serious about minimising the negative impact of my sankaras on others I must therefore be continuously asking myself "Who is doing this?" "Who is reacting?" "What are these thoughts and feelings," but mostly I attend very fervently to the moments I fall right into my 'stuff." Nigel has described is as like rowing a boat but for me I must admit it's a lot harder than that. For me, the mountain top never comes into view, there's always more stuff coming up, always another curve ball. Acknowledging is key for me, acknowledging and trusting that other people, particularly family can see me in ways I cannot. I believe very sincerely that by this confrontation, which isn't always compassionate, I have with great remiss and fight, given up behaviours that have immediately resulted in progress in my practice, so, relationships are my practice as much as sitting. In fact I know recently by simply acknowledging and apologising with heartfelt emotional humility over an incident in which I caused a lot of pain to someone close to me, it resulted in an energy shift that boosted my 'sitting' practice. Awareness is higher, concentration is better, insight is stronger. Thanks for the post by the way. It's very important stuff

"In fact I know recently by simply acknowledging and apologising with heartfelt emotional humility over an incident in which I caused a lot of pain to someone close to me, it resulted in an energy shift that boosted my 'sitting' practice. Awareness is higher, concentration is better, insight is stronger. Thanks for the post by the way. It's very important stuff"

Hello. Cartago, your post reminded me of a similar energy shift that I've experienced at times from compassionate action, and I felt inspired to share it. A few weeks ago, I caught a mouse in a have-a-heart trap, and when I went to release it, I could sense its fear extremely palpably. I spoke to it very gently, followed the instructions of placing a cloth over the trap to calm it down, and then decided it best to release the mouse as soon as possible. I noticed very clear changes in my energy of mind and body (breath, awareness, concentration -- like you mentioned, Cartago), beginning with acknowledgement of the mouse's fear, and continuing with the actions I took to quell its fear (speaking, covering with a cloth, carrying it out to a nearby park right away). As I walked with it to the park, I held the cage trap against my body, near my heart, keeping the cage as still as possible. Then, as I placed the trap on the ground, I made a conscious intention in my mind as I opened the door that the mouse be free from all suffering. It remained for a minute or so in the open cage, unsure of its safety -- I imagine, and then scurried out into the leaves. During this time, I noticed more changes of energy, and as I walked home was filled with a tremendous sense of ease and bliss, a lightness the kind which I had rarely ever experienced.

Cont. below

Cont. from above

Because my mission had never been to save it from death, but instead to save myself and my roommates from killing, I let it go fully aware that the mouse might be eaten by another creature that very night. In other words, from a certain perspective it was all about my own happiness and wasn't at all about saving the mouse, and yet at the same time, from another perspective, it was all about saving the mouse. One could say the mouse was emblematic, or shamanistic, or however one might acknowledge it's role in my own journey. The main point I want to get at is the way in which compassionate actions of certain karmic potential, of certain energetic power, do seem to produce very real results. Much in the same way Cartago described heartfelt humility, heartfelt compassion is similarly 'real' in my experience.

There seem to be a lot of implications from this episode, which I haven't yet comprehended, but if nothing else, it showed me plainly how awareness, intention and action influence - for lack of a better word - reality. I literally felt utterly changed, in bodily and mental sensation, by awareness of suffering, intention to relieve it, and action to relieve it. This is something we might commonly experience on the cushion simply becoming aware of, and releasing, tension in muscles, a stuck thought, or something of that nature. And, the way I understand it right now, there's nothing different going on in my episode with the mouse or Cartago's episode with a close friend. Also, while I did notice subtle clinging involved in my efforts to humanely trap and release the mouse, the efforts themselves didn't produce the clinging, in fact they dispelled it. Now, does this mean everyone should contrive ways to save animals from being killed? No, but some people might really benefit from doing that. Does this lead me to believe that morality can be a vehicle to enlightenment? Yes!

Anyone who has a lot of "things" going on in their life, those things being the fruit of less-than-ethical actions and intent, is bound to have trouble getting settled, quiet, and otherwise just plain relaxed so that they can concentrate in a meditative sense. I'm sure it's possible and if you're like me you know some folks who have a penchant, intentional or not, for intrigue or shading the truth or just not maintaining the level of ethics and morality that they could. I always wonder about what their minds are like as they go through their day. I know how destabilizing it is when I transgress. So Amr, I think morality and the living of a generally ethical existence is really, really important for a lot of reasons, just one of them being a more stable and effective practice. My experience is that dedicated practice will reinforce that desire and maybe even the actual result.

I had a similar conversation with someone I have a great deal of respect for yesterday, and he confirmed for me the idea that the universe is built upon so many interconnected parts and processes that it's just kind of crazy to intentionally engage in anything that raises your karmic profile in a negative way. I didn't think like that just a few years ago and I attribute to my practice the revealing of this one additional reason to act in a morally responsible way.

Funny, I jotted down a note to myself before bed last night to post an enquiry on this forum about the oft-repeated 'truism' that 'awakening' and 'Sila' are two discrete things. Seems like the (absurd) logical conclusion is that there could be 'an enlightened psychopath.' Since I have very personal observation of someone who could be described/'justified' in this way, this is no mere philosophical speculation.

I have bits and pieces of wisdom, observation, and intuition on the matter: Padmasambhava saying, "My View is as vast as the sky; my actions (practice) as fine as grains of flour."-- which I understand to mean that Wisdom, the emptiness component, is all-inclusive, excepting nothing. And that Compassion, the form component, is infinitely particular, exquisitely responsive to individual differences.

I further take the Taoist point that the endless roster of rules/laws attempting to regulate human actions and interactions is already at a great remove from real virtue. Conventional morality is a kind of harm-reduction more than an expression of an ideal Good.

But I have never experienced any expression of spiritual accomplishment or charisma that overrides the criteria I learned in Sunday School: 'whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.'

I guess I find myself disagreeing with Ken Wilber's model that seems to propose that one can develop in the dimension of insight without any reflection in the dimension of behavior. Is there an argument for that point of view anyone here finds convincing?

Kate