Wednesday, June 15, 2011

roots


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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3 comments:

  1. Lovely. The precepts are behavioural details of the three roots of unskillfulness... because we just don't get it unless it's spelled out! :-)

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  2. ...and I've heard that if we just followed the first five, there wouldn't be any need for all the others!

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  3. Perhaps if we followed just the first - not to kill - everything else would naturally follow!

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