Digha Nikaya, Sutta 1: The BrahmaNet Spell. Ethics

Elementary Things: Basic Ethics

[7] Beggars! It is only with regard to elementary things, matters of basic ethics that the uneducated common man speaks of the Tathagata.

And what are the elementary things, what are the matters of basic ethics which would be spoken of by the uneducated common man when he speaks in praise of the Tathagata?

[8] "Letting go of taking life, the Template:Wiki Gotama lives abstaining from life-taking. Giving up stick and sword, considerate, compassionate, concerned for the good of all living beings."

This the uneducated common man would say in praise of the Tathagata.

"Letting go of taking what has not been given, the Template:Wiki Gotama lives abstaining from taking what has not been given. He lives clean-handed, accepting what is given, waiting for what is given, refraining from theft.

Letting go of carnal Template:Wiki, the Template:Wiki Gotama lives separated from family life, above participating in Template:Wiki matters.

[9] "Letting go of lies and deception, the Template:Wiki Gotama lives abstaining from intentional untruth. A straight-talker, one whose word can be counted on, one whose word can be trusted, dependable, no deceiver of the world.
Letting go of malicious speech, he does not repeat in one place what he has heard in another place to the disadvantage of anyone. He makes peace between those with differences and he encourages the peace of those who are friends. Rejoicing in peace, loving peace, delighting in peace, he is one whose words speak up for peace.
Letting go harsh language, he abstains from from Template:Wiki speech. He speaks words that are blameless, pleasing to the Template:Wiki, agreeable, penetrating to and vibrating in the heart, urbane, pori, words that charm and enchant the people.
Letting go idle talk, he knows the right time to speak, he says only what is true and to the point, Template:Wiki about the Dhamma and Discipline, words to be treasured, well-reasoned, well-defined, connected with the goal.

This the uneducated common man would say in praise of the Tathagata.

[10] "The Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from damaging seeds and crops.
He eats once a day and not at night. He abstains from eating at improper times.
He does not watch dancing, singing, Template:Wiki and shows.
He abstains from using garlands, perfumes, cosmetics, jewelry and accessories.
He abstains from using high and wide beds.
He abstains from accepting Template:Wiki and Template:Wiki. He abstains from accepting raw grain or raw meat. He does not accept gifts of women and young girls, Template:Wiki or Template:Wiki slaves, Template:Wiki and Template:Wiki, foul and pigs, elephants, cattle, horses and donkeys, fields and plots;
He abstains from acting as a messenger, from buying and selling, from cheating with false weights and measures, from bribery and corruption, deception and insincerity, from wounding, Template:Wiki, imprisoning, highway robbery, and taking food by force."

This the uneducated common man would say in praise of the Tathagata.

Elementary Things: Basic Ethics II

[11] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins, while living on the food of the faithful, continue to cultivate such crops as are propagated from roots, from trunks, from limbs, from leaves, from seeds, the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from such injury to plant life."

This the uneducated common man would say in praise of the Tathagata.

[12] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins, while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to enjoy the use of stored possessions such as meat and other foods, drink, clothing, carriages, beds, and perfumes, the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from such enjoyments.

[13] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to attend shows of dancing, singing, Template:Wiki and Template:Wiki; displays of oratorical skills, street performances, hand-music, cymbals and drums, fairy-shows, acrobatic and conjuring tricks, combats of elephants, buffaloes, bulls, Template:Wiki, rams, cocks and quail, fighting with staves, boxing, wrestling, sham-fights, parades, maneuvers and Template:Wiki reviews, the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from attending such displays.

[14] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to engage in such idle pursuits as board games with eight or ten rows of squares; playing the same games in the mind; hopping from square to square on diagrams drawn on the ground; removing sticks or pieces from a heap without Template:Wiki the heap, or constructing a heap without causing it to collapse; throwing dice; hitting a short stick with a long stick; dipping the hand in paint or flour and slapping it on the floor or wall to make the shape called out by one's mates "elephant! ...horse! etc.;" games with balls; pretending to play Template:Wiki with toy instruments; playing with toy ploughs, windmills, scales, carriages, bows and arrows; turning summersaults or playing leapfrog; playing guessing games; or mimicking deformities, the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from such footholds for carelessness.

[15] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to use high and wide beds, divans, couches adorned with animal figures, fleecy or variegated coverlets, coverlets with hair on one or both sides, Template:Wiki coverlets with or without gem Template:Wiki, elephant-, horse- or chariot-rugs, choice spreads of antelope-hide, couches with awnings, or with red cushions at both ends, the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from using such luxurious beds.

[16] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to use forms of adornment and beautification such as massages with scented oils, bathing in scented water, shampooing, and using scented powders; using mirrors; using rouges and eye make-up, cosmetic ointments, and perfumes; wearing garlands, bracelets and headbands; carrying fancy walking-sticks, Template:Wiki boxes, and bottles, swords, sunshades, decorated sandals, turbans, gems, whisks of the yaks-tail and long-fringed white robes, the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from using such adornments.

[17] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins, while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to talk idle talk about kings and ministers of state, Template:Wiki and thieves, the horrors of war and Template:Wiki; talk of food, drink, clothes, beds, garlands and perfumes; talk of cities, towns, villages, relationships, men and women, heroes and villains; Template:Wiki at the corner, over the back fence, or at the well of those alive or of those who are departed; talk comparing differences between this and that; speculative talk about creation, existence or non-existence, the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from such idle talk.

[18] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins, while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to indulge in argument and contention, using such phrases as:

"You don't understand this Dhamma, I do." "How could someone like you know about this Dhamma?" "You hold wrong view. It is I who have right view." "I am Template:Wiki to the point, you are not." "You are putting last what ought to come first, and first what ought to come last." "What you've been expounding so long, is completely disproved." "Your challenge has been met." "You are proved to be wrong." "Straighten up your act." "Get out of this one if you can."

The Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from such argument and contention.

[19] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins, while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to do such things as running errands and carrying messages for such as kings, ministers, nobles, Brahmins, householders and young men who say: 'Go here — go there! Take this there — bring that from there!' the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from running errands and carrying messages.

[20] "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmins, while feeding on the food of the faithful, continue to use deception, patter, hinting, signifying, belittling, and cajoling in their never ending quest for adding gain to gain, the Template:Wiki Gotama abstains from from such trickery and deceit."

This the uneducated common man would say in praise of the Tathagata.

Elementary Things: Basic Ethics III: On Earning a Living

[from Template:Wiki][21] "Or he might say: "Whereas some Template:Wiki and Brahmans,
while living on food provided by the faithful,
earn a living by craft and black arts such as:
Template:Wiki,
prophesying long life and Template:Wiki or the reverse
from marks on a child's hands, feet, or other parts of the body;
divining by means of Template:Wiki and signs;
auguries drawn from thunderbolts and other celestial portents;
Template:Wiki by interpreting dreams;
fortune-telling from marks on the body;
auguries from the marks on cloth gnawed by mice;
sacrificing to Agni (fire);
offering oblations from a spoon;
making offerings to gods of husks,
of the red powder between the grain and the husk,
of husked grain ready for boiling,
of ghee,
and of oil;
sacrificing by spewing mustard seeds and so forth out of one's Template:Wiki into the fire;
drawing Template:Wiki from one's right knee as a Template:Wiki to the gods;
looking at the knuckles, and so forth, and,
after muttering a charm,
divining whether a man is well born or lucky or not;
determining whether the site for a proposed house or pleasance, is lucky or not;
finding a lucky site for a proposed house or pleasance;
consecrating sites;
knowledge of the charms to be used
when lodging in an earth house,
or repeating such charms;
laying Template:Wiki in a cemetery;
laying ghosts;
Template:Wiki charming;
the poison craft;
the Template:Wiki craft;
the Template:Wiki craft;
the crow craft;
foretelling the number of years that a man has yet to live;
giving charms to ward off arrows;
The Animal Wheel.

[from Template:Wiki][22] Knowledge of the signs of good and bad qualities in the following things and of the marks in them denoting the health or luck of their owners: — to wit, gems, staves, garments, earrings, swords, arrows, bows, other weapons, women, men, boys, girls, slaves, slave-girls, elephants, horses, buffaloes, bulls, oxen, Template:Wiki, Template:Wiki, fowls, quails, iguanas, tortoises, and other animals;

[from Template:Wiki][23] Soothsaying, to the effect that the chiefs will march out; the chiefs will march back; the home chiefs will attack, and the enemies retreat; the enemies chiefs will attack, and ours will retreat; the home chiefs will gain the victory, and the foreign chiefs suffer defeat; the foreign chiefs will gain the victory, and ours will suffer defeat; thus will there be victory on this side, defeat on that.

[from Template:Wiki][24] Foretelling that there will be an eclipse of the moon; there will be an eclipse of the Template:Wiki; there will be an eclipse of a star; there will be aberration of the Template:Wiki or the moon; the Template:Wiki or the moon will return to its usual path; here will be aberrations of the Template:Wiki; the Template:Wiki will return to their usual course; there will be a fall of meteors; there will be a jungle fire; there will be an Template:Wiki; the god will Template:Wiki; there will be rising and setting, clearness and dimness, of the Template:Wiki or the moon or the Template:Wiki, or foretelling of each of these fifteen phenomena that they will betoken such and such a result.

[from Template:Wiki][25] Foretelling an abundant rainfall; Foretelling a deficient rainfall; Foretelling a good harvest; Foretelling scarcity of food; Foretelling tranquility; Foretelling Template:Wiki; Foretelling a pestilence; Foretelling a healthy season;
Counting on the fingers; counting without using the fingers; summing up large totals (looking at a tree and telling how many leaves are on it, etc.);
Composing ballads, poetizing, casuistry, Template:Wiki...

[from Template:Wiki][26] Arranging a lucky day for marriages in which the bride or bridegroom is brought home; arranging a lucky day for marriages in which the bride or bridegroom is sent forth;
Fixing a lucky time for the conclusion of treaties of peace (or using charms to procure harmony); fixing a lucky time for the outbreak off hostilities (or using charms to make discord);
Fixing a lucky time for the calling in of debts (or charms for success in throwing dice); fixing a lucky time for the expenditure of money [or charms to bring ill luck to an opponent throwing dice);
Using charms to make people lucky; using charms to make people unlucky; using charms to procure abortion;
Incantations to bring on dumbness; incantations to keep a man's jaws fixed; incantations to make a man throw up his hands; incantations to bring on deafness;
Obtaining Template:Wiki answers by means of the magic mirror; obtaining Template:Wiki answers through a girl possessed; obtaining Template:Wiki answers from a god;
Bringing forth flames from one's Template:Wiki;
Invoking Siri, the goddess of Luck.

[from Template:Wiki][27] Vowing gifts to a god if a certain benefit be granted; paying such vows;
Causing Template:Wiki; making a man impotent;
Template:Wiki rinsing of the Template:Wiki; Template:Wiki bathing;
Administering emetics and purgatives; purging people to relieve the head (that is by giving drugs to make people sneeze); oiling people's Template:Wiki (either to make them grow or to heal sores on them); satisfying people's eyes (soothing them by dropping Template:Wiki oils into them); administering drugs through the Template:Wiki; applying Template:Wiki to the eyes; giving Template:Wiki ointment for the eyes; practicing as an oculist; practicing as a surgeon; practicing as a doctor for children; administering roots and drugs; administering Template:Wiki in rotation;
Gotama the Template:Wiki abstains from earning a living by craft or black arts."

These, Beggars, are the elementary things, the matters of basic ethics which would be spoken of by the uneducated common man when he speaks in praise of the Tathagata.

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