Every Buddhist in all the world, practically, as a layman, if he's not a monk, undertakes
 what are called pancha-sila, the five good conducts.
 Sila, S-I-L-A, is sometimes translated "precept," but it's not a precept because it's not a
 commandment.
 The formula when Buddhists, you know, these priests, they chant the precepts, you know,
 "Pana, tipata, veramani, sikapadam, samadhyami," and that means "pana tipata," "pana" is in
 Pali, this thing, "pana," life, "tipata," taking away, I promise to abstain from.
 So the first is that one undertakes not to destroy life.
 Second, not to take what is not given.
 Third, oh, this is usually translated, not to commit adultery.
 It doesn't say anything of the kind.
 In Sanskrit, "kamisu mithyahara," "veramani, sikapadam, samadhyami," "kamisu mithyahara"
 means "I undertake the precept to abstain from exploiting my passions."
 Buddhism has no doctrine about adultery.
 You may have as many wives as you like.
 But the point is this.
 When you're feeling blue and bored, it's not a good idea to have a drink, because you may
 become dependent on alcohol whenever you feel unhappy.
 So in the same way, when you're feeling blue and bored, it's not a good idea to say, "Let's
 go out and get some chicks and have some sex fun."
 That's exploiting the passions.
 But it's not exploiting the passions, you see, when drinking, say, expresses the conviviality
 and friendship of a group sitting around the dinner table, or when sex expresses the spontaneous
 delight of two people in each other.
 Then the fourth precept, "musavada," "to abstain from false speech."
 This doesn't simply mean lying.
 It means abusing people.
 It means using speech in a phony way, like saying, "All niggers are thus and so," or
 "The attitude of America to this situation is thus and thus."
 You see, that's phony kind of talking.
 Anybody who studies general semantics will be helped in avoiding "musavada," false speech.
 The final precept is a very complicated one, and nobody's quite sure exactly what it means.
 It mentions three kinds of drugs and drinks-- sura, meria, maja, and pamatatana.
 We don't know what they are.
 But at any rate, it's generally classed that narcotics and liquors-- now, there are two
 ways of translating this precept.
 One says, "to abstain from narcotics and liquors."
 The other liberal translation favored by the great scholar Dr. Malala Sekar, is "I abstain
 from being intoxicated by these things."
 So if you drink and don't get intoxicated, it's okay.
 You see, you don't have to be a teetotaler to be a Buddhist.
 This is especially true in Japan and China-- my goodness, how they throw it down!
 Once a scholar, a Chinese, said to me, "You know, before you start meditating, just have
 a couple of martinis, because it increases your progress by about six months."
 Well, now you see, these are, as I say, they are not commandments, they are vows.
 Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by some kind of cosmic
 lawgiver.
 And the reason why these precepts are undertaken is not for a sentimental reason.
 It is not that you're going to make you into a good person.
 It is that for anybody interested in the experiments necessary for liberation, these ways of life
 are expedient.
 First of all, if you go around killing, you're going to make enemies, and you're going to
 have to spend a lot of time defending yourself, which will distract you from your yoga.
 If you go around stealing, likewise, you're going to acquire a heap of staff, and you're
 going to, again, make enemies.
 If you exploit your passions, you're going to get a big thrill, but it doesn't last.
 When you begin to get older, you realize, "Well, that was fun while we had it, but
 I haven't really learned very much from it.
 And now what?"
 Same with speech.
 Speaking is more confusing to the mind than taking words too seriously.
 We've seen so many examples of that.
 And finally, to get intoxicated or narcotized-- a narcotic is anything like alcohol or opium,
 which makes you sleepy.
 The word "narcosis" in Greek means "narcsisleep."
 So if you want to pass your life seeing things through a dim haze, this is not exactly awakening.
 So then, that's a concern so much for the conduct side of Buddhism.


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