Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 7.9-minute teaching, Ven Sanghy Khandro explains how living ethically prepares us for death and beyond. She begins with the foundation: painful experiences arise from harmful actions, so avoiding suffering requires careful attention to what we do, say, and think. She then teaches Buddha’s framework of ten destructive actions—three physical (killing, stealing, sexual misconduct), four verbal (lying, harsh speech, divisive speech, idle talk), and three mental (covetousness, malice, wrong views)—showing how each creates future suffering. She explains the ten positive counterparts: refraining from harm and actively cultivating beneficial actions instead. Living ethically in this way brings three concrete results: less regret at death, a peaceful and clear mind at that time, and a fortunate rebirth. Clear, practical introduction to Buddhist ethics and karma.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 3.09 Living Ethically.mp3
UUID: 5a99866c-972f-44bf-9314-baa82b09c5ba
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: Heart advice (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 7.9 minutes
Words: ~1,176
So one thing we can do to prepare ourselves for death is to live ethically. Now one reason this is important is that painful, unpleasant, unwanted experiences that might occur at the time of death and also afterwards in the next life are the result of negative actions or negative karma, such as harming others. So I mentioned this before that any painful experiences, any unpleasant experiences that we have in this life or in future lives are the result of actions that we did that were wrong or harmful or negative. And so if we wish to avoid such painful, unpleasant experiences, and instead have pleasant, positive experiences, is important that we take care of our actions Basically, what that means is refraining from negative actions and engaging in positive actions as much as we can. Buddha gave advice with regard to which actions are negative and which actions are positive.
This is not a complete list, but it’s somewhere we can start. He mentioned ten actions which are negative and ten actions which are positive. So the ten which are negative are: First of all, three physical actions. Killing, depriving another being of their life. Stealing, taking what doesn’t belong to us.
Sexual misconduct, which is acting in ways that cause suffering such as adultery, sleeping with someone else’s partner or someone other than your own partner. This causes mental suffering and it can also lead to dishonesty. And any other kind of sexual activity that causes suffering such as rape or abuse. So those are the three main physical actions that are the causes of painful experiences in the future which we should try to avoid if we want to avoid painful experiences. And then Buddha mentioned four actions of speech, verbal actions.
One is telling lies, saying what’s not true, not telling the truth. Harsh speech, which is saying words that are hurtful to another person like insults or criticism or blame. And the third is divisive speech, which is saying words that cause disharmony or disunity, either between two individuals or two groups of people. Or words that promote or increase any disharmony that already exists. And the fourth is idle talk.
And that is gossip, talking about people behind and back. But it can also include just spending lots of time talking about things that aren’t very meaningful, that aren’t helpful for peace of mind and spiritual development. So that could include talking about politics, talking about sports or fashions or movies. Now this may seem fairly harmless, but one problem is that when we talk about these things, tends to increase our disturbing attitude such as attachment or anger, ignorance. And another problem is that we can spend a lot of time in such conversation.
Time which could be spent more fruitfully in other ways, like spiritual studies, spiritual practice, doing things that are beneficial for others. And then there are three actions of mind, three attitudes of mind that are unwholesome or unskillful. One is covetousness, which is having strong attachment to something that belongs to somebody else and even going to the extent of thinking about how you can get it, stealing it or trying to get the other person to give it to you. And the second is ill will or malice. And that is when we are so angry at somebody we want to hurt them.
And we actually start thinking about and planning ways in which we can give suffering to the other person. Even if we don’t carry out such thoughts, just having those thoughts, letting our mind indulge in such thoughts is negative. And the third is wrong views, which is to firmly hold to some idea, some view which is not in accordance with reality. For example, denying that there is such a thing as enlightenment or nirvana, that there are these higher states that can be attained. Denying that there is any relationship between actions and their effects.
In other words, karma. So completely rejecting and refusing to accept that there is karma or the possibility of attaining higher states of mind. These are examples of wrong views. It’s not just having doubts about such things, but it’s completely closing your mind to them. Not even allowing yourself to consider that such things could be true.
So those were mentioned by Buddha as the ten actions of body, speech and mind which are the most negative, bringing about painful consequences. So we should try to avoid them as much as we can if we don’t want painful experiences in the future. And then Buddha also mentioned ten positive actions. And these are actually the positive counterparts to the ten negative ones. They involve making the conscious effort to refrain from the ten negative actions.
Understanding that they bring negative consequences. So for example, if we understand that killing depriving other beings of their life is something negative, it causes suffering to others and to ourselves. And we live our life as much as we can in avoidance of killing. We really try not to kill any other living being. And instead of that, we try to promote life, we try to save lives, do what we can to ensure that beings are able to stay alive.
So that’s the positive action of not killing, refraining from killing. And the same is true with the other nine actions that the Buddha mentioned. Understanding that they are negative and really trying our best to refrain from them so that we don’t create suffering for others and for ourselves. So that’s what constitutes the ten positive actions. But again, these are just partial lists.
There are many other actions which are negative and other actions which are positive. But this gives us something to go on. In general, ethics in Buddhism is about living compassionately, living non violently. Living in such a way that we try our best to refrain from actions that are the cause of harm or suffering to others and or to ourselves. So if we live our lives on that basis as much as we can avoiding harmful actions, then that’s the meaning of living ethically.
So if we do this to the best of our ability, the result is that at the time of death we’ll be less likely to have regret looking back on our life and feeling bad about what we’ve done. And instead, we’ll be able to look back on our life and feel good about what we’ve done, feel that we, you know, we did a good life. We did the best we could to be helpful and not harmful to others and to ourselves. So it will enable our mind to be more peaceful, positive, clear at the time of death. And living this way will also enable us to have a fortunate rebirth in our next life, be born in a fortunate situation, have good experiences.
So it’s helpful during our life, at the time of death, and in the future life.