What is 'Right Action' in Eightfold Path?

Presence versus presents

Like right speech, there is a very simple way to think about right action: It is action (karma, conduct, deeds of mind, speech, and body, behavior) that gives rise to peace and happiness in self and others.

In the same way, right action is simply right intention as applied to action.

The Buddha provides useful practical guidelines. He defined right action as abstinence from three things: killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct [1].

The combination of right speech and right action gives rise to a set of guidelines that the Buddha recommends for ethical and wholesome behavior called the Five Precepts [2]. These Five Precepts form the center of ethics and morality in Buddhism.

The precepts apply to monastics and lay practitioners.  The Five Precepts are:

1. To abstain from killing
2. To abstain from stealing
3. To abstain from sexual misconduct
4. To abstain from bearing false witness
5. To abstain from intoxicants that occasion heedlessness.

Hey, Bean, is our radio show right speech? - FU!

The first three precepts are the practice of "right action." The fourth item, right speech, is so important that the Buddha named it as a precept of its own. The first four precepts might seem obvious while the fifth precept may surprise some

In one sutra delivered to a large group of monastics and laypeople, the Buddha explained the purpose of abstinence from intoxicants in this verse:

Because of intoxication

foolish people do harmful deeds,

and they make other heedless folk do such deeds.

One should avoid this basis of demerit,

delightful to fools, causing madness and delusion [3].

Wake and bake, Bro. Let's go to Goenka's and smoke out to be able to sit better. Huh huh huh

.

Shut up, you hor. I'm drunk! I'll knock you out.

In modern terms we avoid intoxicants because intoxication makes people do very harmful things.  However, beyond that, there is a deeper reason for this precept. That is the keen awareness in Buddhism of the close interrelationship between the mind, behavior, and suffering. For this reason, keeping the mind unclouded and uncompromised is an essential part of Buddhist practice.

There is a beautiful way to look at these ancient (pre-Buddhist) Five Precepts, and that is as gifts. The Buddha considers observing the Five Precepts a way of giving five great gifts to ourselves and others.

By observing the precepts, he says, “the noble disciple gives to an immeasurable number of beings freedom from fear, enmity, and affliction. One in turn enjoys immeasurable freedom from fear, enmity, and affliction” [4].

In that spirit, modern Buddhist teachers emphasize the active aspects of the precepts. Each precept is a call to refrain from harmful actions and also an opportunity to practice beautiful qualities.

The great Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, for example, lovingly encouraged one to use

1. the first precept (abstaining from killing) as an opportunity to practice compassion,
2. the second precept (abstaining from stealing) as an opportunity to practice generosity,
3. the third precept (abstaining from sexual misconduct) as an opportunity to practice true love,
4. the fourth precept (abstaining from lying) as an opportunity to practice loving speech and deep listening, and
5. the fifth precept (abstaining from intoxication) as an opportunity to practice nourishment and healing [5].

In other words, the Five Precepts are an opportunity for beautiful living.

But wait, there’s more. The Five Precepts are the core of virtue (sila), and virtue is a gift that keeps on giving. For laypeople, the Buddha lists five benefits of being virtuous:

1. A virtuous person does not lose wealth because of heedlessness.
2. A virtuous person gains a good reputation.
3. A virtuous person approaches any assembly confident and composed.
4. A virtuous person dies unconfused.
5. A virtuous person, after death, is reborn in a good destination [6].
6. For those reasons, the Buddha declares a lay person who possess the five precepts as one who dwells in self-confidence [7].

Do as I say, not as I do. And don't talk back!

Students of religion may be tempted to equate the Five Precepts with “moralistic strictures,” standards of conduct set for people by God. However, being nontheistic, there is no such thing as moralistic strictures in Buddhism, given that there is no God to impose anything upon us.

Instead, the reason we practice virtue in Buddhism is because virtue is highly conducive to our own happiness and good fortune, our progress and contentment here and now.

Western Buddhist monk and author Ajahn Munindo has a beautiful way of putting it. Paraphrasing the Buddha, he states:

“It is wisdom that enables

letting go of a lesser happiness

in pursuit of a happiness

which is greater” [8].

In Buddhism, the practice of virtue is precisely that, having the wisdom to let go of the lesser happiness of nonvirtuous indulgence for the greater bliss of blamelessness and confidence, and as you shall see later, the even greater bliss coming from compassion, samadhi (profound stillness in meditation), and nirvana.

• ACTIVITY: Reflect on this post with Angela

REFERENCES

1. Saṃyutta Nikāya 45.8.
2. Pali term: pañca-sīla.
3. Dhammika Sutta (Sutta Nipāta 2.14).
4. Aṅguttara Nikāya 8.39.
5. Thich Nhat Hanh’s Five Mindfulness Trainings on (learnreligions.com/thich-nhat-hanhs-five-mindfulness-trainings-449601).
6. Aṅguttara Nikāya 5.213.
7. Aṅguttara Nikāya 5.171.
8. This is Ajahn Munindo’s rendering of Dhammapada Verse 290, which reads, “If by renouncing a lesser happiness one may realize a greater happiness, let the wise person renounce the lesser, having regard for the greater.”

• Chade-Meng Tan, Buddhism for All (buddhism.net), Dec. 24, 2023, featured image by Colin Goh; edited by Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly