How to be a good human

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.) based on Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth), Wisdom Quarterly

Ma, why does everyone hate you? - Jealousy.

What does it mean to be "good" on the human plane or manussya loka?

The Buddha defined it as the wholesome karma that led us to rebirth here in the first place. A higher morality or virtue (sila) leads by the lawfulness of karma (deeds) to other states and traits.

What led to my rebirth here? It is only possible to be reborn on this plane by virtue of having accrued good karma in the form of maintaining one or more of the Five Precepts, which means abstaining from:

1. taking the lives of living beings
2. taking what is not given
3. taking sexual liberties (with ten types)
4. taking liberties with the truth
5. taking intoxicants that occasion heedlessness.

These may sound like negative acts, but in fact they are broadly worded categories. It is easy to put them in positive terms, though in doing so they seem to lose some of their breadth.

1. preserving the lives of living beings
2. letting go instead of greedily clinging
3. respecting others' relationships
4. being truthful (kind honesty)
5. being sober (to preserve these five).

Virtue is a mode of mind (heart), particularly that of volition, underlying motivation, or intention (cetana) manifested in thought, speech, and bodily action. (See karma).

Virtue is the whole foundation of Buddhist practice. It is the first of the Three Kinds of Training (sikkhā) that form the threefold division of the ennobling Eightfold Path, namely morality, concentration (coherence of mind), and wisdom.

Buddhist morality is not negative, as it may appear from the negative formulations in the sutras. It is quite positive. For it does not consist of merely refraining from committing harmful actions. Rather, in each instance, it is the clearly conscious and intentional restraint from doing harm (bad karma).

Whatever the action in question, restraint corresponds to a simultaneously arising volition (mind moment or citta). The ennobling virtue of the Path or magga is eightfold.

The karma of animals leads to rebirth as one.

Right speech, right action, and right livelihood are together called "genuine or natural morality" (pakati-sīla), as distinguished from the external rules taken on by monastics, lay meditators, and ordinary people wishing to improve themselves, or so-called "prescribed morality" (paññatti-sīla), which, as such, is karmically neutral.

The Buddha asked, "What now is karmically wholesome morality (kusala-sīla)?"

He answered, "It is wholesome bodily action (kāya-karma), wholesome verbal action (vacī-karma), and purity with regard to livelihood I call 'morality'" (MN 78). Compare at magga, 3-5. More