“The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.”
—Alexandra K. Trenfor
 

very year at the monastery, we would offer a Precepts retreat. During that retreat, we would explore Buddhism’s ten grave prohibitive precepts. These were tenants The Buddha laid down to help guide people away from suffering. The claim was that if you were engaging in any one of them, there was a good chance you were suffering.

People arrived bright-eyed and confident. Many heard “Not to kill, not to drink, not to steal, not to lie, etc.” and would interpret them like many interpret The Holy Bible’s Ten Commandments “Thou shalt not…” But we did not make it that easy for retreatants. The precepts are not part of a spiritual checklist. “I didn’t kill anyone this year—check! I didn’t drink alcohol this year—check!…” Instead, we invited retreatants to explore, “Not to lead a harmful life nor to encourage others to do so.” Hmmm. “What is harmful? How do you define harmful? How do you lead a harmful life? How do you encourage others to do so? What would it look like not to lead a harmful life—for you?”

We went deep into this exploration. Not for answers. Not for “right” or “wrong.” “Good” or “bad.” But rather to see what there was to see about how we caused ourselves to suffer so we could drop that and end suffering.

That would certainly be a good start.