Ethical conduct indispensable for attaining enlightenment or Buddhahood

[Ajay0]

Ethical conduct in the form of right speech, right livelihood and right effort are considered to be vital practices leading to enlightenment in Buddhism or Buddhahood.

The Three Trainings

studybuddhism.com

Noble Eightfold Path - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ethical conduct is also emphasized in the religious philosophies of Hinduism, Jainism and Sufism for attaining enlightenment.

This itself is a refutation of the nihilist and existentialist premise that life is meaningless and all values and virtues are but abstract mental contrivances without any relevance of their own.

 

[baro-san]

right speech, right livelihood and right effort

Sure, but who decides what is "right"?

I recently read the second book of the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna is despondent facing the fighting and killing of his respected gurus. He is about to decide to not fight, when Krishna strongly instructs him against that, and to fight to kill or be killed, giving an argumentation to fulfill his role.

I believe that many widely accepted definitions of "right speech, right livelihood, right effort" are at least counterproductive, if not detrimental to one's purpose for incarnating.

How to find out what is right for you? I believe that the only trustworthy source is your own inner source of knowledge and guidance.

 

[Ajay0]

Sure, but who decides what is "right"?

I recently read the second book of the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna is despondent facing the fighting and killing of his respected gurus. He is about to decide to not fight, when Krishna strongly instructs him against that, and to fight to kill or be killed, giving an argumentation to fulfill his role.

I believe that many widely accepted definitions of "right speech, right livelihood, right effort" are at least counterproductive, if not detrimental to one's purpose for incarnating.

See if one does not perform one's allotted duties due to fear or ignorance or laziness, it begets karma.

A policeman who does not do his duty of patrolling a street prone to crime, due to fear, will be failing in his duty and his cowardice will actually beget more karma and leading to further reincarnations.

A doctor who does not administer medicine to his patient on time due to negligence will also beget karma for himself.

An engineer who does not adhere to quality control while building a multi-storey structure will be endangering the lives of people who may live in it. This similarly begets bad karma for him.

In the context of the Gita, Arjuna as a soldier was supposed to fight and win the war. Since it was a civil war , he had emotional issues over it, and wanted to abstain. But this would have lead to victory for the opposing army which had immoral leaders leading to tyrannical rule and unethical administration later on. Hence Krishna worked on Arjuna's confusions and delusions and cleared them up.

Progress of the individual and society is dependent upon one's realizing one's duties properly and executing them well. In the absence of such proper understanding and execution of duty, regression is bound to happen.