Monks, there are these three roots of what is unskillful. Which three? Greed is a root of what is unskillful, aversion is a root of what is unskillful, delusion is a root of what is unskillful.
These are the three roots of what is unskillful.
Now, there are these three roots of what is skillful. Which three? Lack of greed is a root of what is skillful, lack of aversion is a root of what is skillful, lack of delusion is a root of what is skillful.
In a person like this, evil, unskillful qualities born of greed... born of aversion... born of delusion have been abandoned, their root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. He dwells in ease right in the here-&-now — feeling unthreatened, placid, unfeverish — and is unbound right in the here-&-now.
These are the three roots of what is skillful.
......(these are four small parts of the Mulla Sutta; Roots. The Sutta in its entirety goes into much greater detail.)
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In total, there are 250 precepts for monks and 348 for nuns.
Aren't we fortunate that there are only three roots of unskillfulness?!
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Lovely. The precepts are behavioural details of the three roots of unskillfulness... because we just don't get it unless it's spelled out! :-)
ReplyDelete...and I've heard that if we just followed the first five, there wouldn't be any need for all the others!
ReplyDeletePerhaps if we followed just the first - not to kill - everything else would naturally follow!
ReplyDelete