(The Big Why) The foolishness of the 10 Commandments
If the Ten Commandments of Christianity, as borrowed or modified by Judaism because they come in varying official lists from the all-knowing, never wrong, and never ever misquoted or misunderstood God of All Things, are foolish. Not because rules are bad. Rules good. Clear instructions good. Boundaries good. Kindness and fairness to all, very good.
The foolishness derives from the fact that the religion can't even agree and these rules straight. Then we hear that the Black Egyptian Jew Moses (of the founding myth, aka the Exodus that never happened, who has now been scrubbed and completely Ashkenazified) dropped another list and broke the tablet, or perhaps he threw it in anger. In any case, the list changes. Who knew the list ever changed?
The Ultimate Creator (the Demiurge, the El, the god, Baal, Molech, Yahweh, YHWH, Yaldabaoth, Jehovah, God thirsty for sacrificial blood when nothing else will do but black magic for the forgiveness of sin even if it means killing His son, the Big Whomever, Lord of the Universe and Children's Playgrounds and Hell because He rules all, knows all, decides all, wills all, controls all, and is never wrong not to the slightest, which is why He never changes His mind or His word or His law, unless someone talks to Him and gets a personal variance or exception) is said to have decreed them, so who can argue with them? They are the law, the Ritual Decalogue, the Finger of God pointing and cursing when He doesn't get His patriarch way. So OBEY and shut up.
What about them? The Buddha advised all human beings to restrain themselves and keep the precepts -- five, eight, ten, 227, 311, or more, in accordance with one's wishes for the future. A minimum of the basic five should remain inviolate because the wholesome (skillful) karma (actions, deeds) of doing so benefits beings here and hereafter, in this world and the next (a reference to many future worlds one finds oneself in in the future). These are not "commandments," not even for Buddhist monastics (nuns, monks, maechis, anagarikas, temporary novices and spiritual retreatants). They are undertaken voluntarily and violated voluntarily. The goal is not to "please" some god or God. It is to bring about peace of mind and purification of view by insight, which leads one to see things as they truly are. And in seeing them that way, one wishes no harm or suffering on anyone.
How dare Buddhism outline a standard of conduct for individuals/communities! Is that "Zen"?
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How did the Buddha know and care so much?
Also note that none of the precepts is self-serving. There's no "Love Thy Buddha and worship Him above all" or "I am Thy Lord Your God, Obey me, you speck of dust!" or any such thing. All human societies would agree and have agreed for millennia and aeons (kalpas), that everyone is happier and has much more peace of mind when no one is going around killing, stealing, sexually misconducting themselves, lying (bearing false witness), or becoming so intoxicated that they are heedless to these guidelines for human conduct. The additional vows or precepts to temporarily abstain from luxuries, adornments and self-beautification, or eating at inappropriate times are all excellent aids to mindfulness (presence of mind), meditation (absorption), health (vigor and longevity), and undistracted focus.
Right action is just one factor of eight
What a heavenly world this would be if living beings here just kept these five. Rebirth in better worlds is possible just from better conduct here. And liberation from rebirth in any world is possible, making an end of all possible future suffering, is within reach. Maybe that's not what most people want or are aware of, but it is attainable. If all anyone ever wanted out of Buddhism were health, wealth, wishes, beauty, fame, and influence, that is all within reach through karma, here and now and there and then.
Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵, circa 1583–1645) was a Japanese Samurai swordsman, strategist, artist (who drew Hotei Watching a Cockfight shown above), and writer who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in 62 duels [3][a].
Musashi is considered a kensei ("sword saint") of Japan [4]. He was the founder of the Niten Ichi-ryū (Nito Ichi-ryū) style of swordsmanship, and in his final years authored The Book of Five Rings (五輪の書, Go Rin No Sho) and Dokkōdō (獨行道, The Path of Aloneness). More
This method comes from Japanese philosophy about life and works by reshaping the power of the subconscious mind, where resistance, excuses, and hesitation are born.
Learn:
How to stop negotiating with the mind
Why most people fail at self-control despite motivation
The real strength and weakness of discipline in mental training
Simple Japanese meditation techniques that build inner authority
How this approach reflects the eight Japanese habits that can change life
A practical way to understand how to maintain discipline in life consistently.
This is not about forcing the mind. It is about training it so that obedience becomes natural.
Some scholars like D.T. Suzuki see the term wu-nien (無念, "without thought," "without recollection," with nien possibly rendered as smṛti, "mindfulness," "memory") as being synonymous to wu-xin[2, 12].
Furthermore, while wunien is common in the texts of the Southern Schoolof Zen, the texts of the Northern School prefer the term "freedom from thought" or "freedom from conceptualization" (離念) [13].
NO-MIND: The term 無心 contains the Chinese character for negation, "not" or "without" (無), along with the character for heart-mind (心).
Likewise, in Sanskrit, the term is a compound of the prefix a- (negation) and the word citta (mind, thought, consciousness, heart).
In China, the term came to mean a state in which there is no mental activity, or a mind free of all discrimination and conceptualization, making it similar to the Buddhist Sanskrit term nisprapañca[9] and the Sanskrit term nirvikalpa [10].
Another similar Sanskrit term is amanasikāra ("non-thinking," "mental non-engagement"), which is found in the works of the 11th century tantric Yogi Maitripa [11].
Some scholars also offer other Sanskrit terms as being the source of the Chinese term wunien, including: a-cintya, a-vikalpa, or a-saṃjñā[2]. More
It's interesting, isn't it, how our English words "waste" and "waist" are homonyms? What goes on our waistline butt our excess? Why do we have so much excess that we have to carry it around like baggage? Could it be systemic? That is to say, could it be because of a system working upon us rather than the way we are told to think of it, which is just personally problematic? For instance, what does "mortgage" mean? You know that thing that will get you a house? It literally means "death pledge," because we make a "pledge" (gage) to keep paying until we die (mort as in mortician). There goes our whole life.
There is a rebellious punk rock song by Deadly Reign promoted by the Dead Kennedys' Alternative Tentacles Records (a subsidiary of Jello Biafra, Unincorporated) that has the refrain, "Systems suck, system's f*ck*ed, systems suck, okay?" (from Not So Quiet on the Western Front). And the DKs have a song called "Life Sentence" about the way we've mortgaged our lives away.
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