REFORMERS AND THEIR FATE 187
These Silas or precepts formed the moral code which it was intended should regulate the thoughts and actions of men and women.
Of these the most important one was the precept not to kill. Buddha took care to make it clear that the precept did not merely mean abstension from taking life. He insisted that the precept must be understood to mean positive sympathy, good will, and love for everything that breathes……
He gave the same positives and extended content to other precepts. One of the Buddha’s lay followers once reported to him the teaching of a non-Buddhist ascetic, to the effect that the highest ideal consisted in the absence of evil deeds, evil words, evil thoughts, and evil life. The Buddha’s conment upon this is significant. “If, said he, “this were true, then every suckling child would have attained the ideal of life….. life is knowledge of good and evil; and after that the exchange of evil deeds, words, thoughts, and life, for good ones. This is to be brought about only by a long and determined effort of the will”…….
Buddha’s teachings were not merely negative. They are positive and constructive. Buddha was not satisfied with a man following his precepts. He insisted upon encouraging others to follow them. For example in the Auguttara Nikaya the Buddha is quoted as distinguishing between a good man and a very good man by saying that one who abstains from killing, stealing, unchastity, lying and drunkenness may be called good; but only he deserves to be called very good who abstains from these evil things himself and also instigates others to do the like……
As has been well said the two cardinal virtues of Buddhism are love and wisdom.
How deeply he inculcated the practice of love as a virtue is clear from his own words. “As a mother at the risk of her life watches over her own child, her only child, so also let every one cultivate a boundless loving mind towards all beings. And let him cultivate good will towards, all the world, a boundless (loving) mind above and below and across, unobstructed, without hatred, without enmity. This way of living is the best in the world.” So taught Buddha [1] .
“Universal pity, sympathy for all suffering beings, good will to every form of sentient life, these things characterized the Tathagath (Buddha) as they have few others of the sons of men; and he succeeded in a most surprizing degree in handing on his point of view to his followers.” [2]
1 Sutta Nipata.
2 Pratt—Buddhism, p. 49.