The Ethics of Actions and Their Consequences

Thầy discusses the Four Noble Truths and how Buddhist teachings differ from several other philosophies in regard to defining right actions, right thoughts, and right speech. Some of the other philosophies Thầy uses as comparisons include the divine command theory, consequentialism, a term coined by Elizabeth Anscombe, and utilitarianism as written by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Thầy weighs Anscombe’s view that there are things we cannot do, no matter what, against the flexibility of utilitarianism, and tells the story of conjoined twins born in Manchester whose parents and doctors faced a hard choice.

Thầy also discusses the importance of promoting correction over punishment, especially when working with inmates in the United States. He recalls how Buddhist temples in the past took in prisoners to help them transform, and a retreat in Wisconsin where police officers and prison staff learned to walk slowly and breathe.

Thầy points to what utilitarianism has not seen: how suffering and happiness inter-are, and the goodness of suffering. “Without the mud, there cannot be lotus.” One of his attendants, a former stockbroker, found more peace and joy waking at 4:30 as a monk than staying in luxurious hotels. The path of the Buddha, Thầy teaches, is the middle path, caught neither by the idea of consequence nor by rigid goodness: what is right is determined by our mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

Thầy ends by sharing the practice of oil pulling, rinsing the mouth with oil, as a way of detoxification in order to increase well-being.

This is the ninth talk in a series of thirteen given during The Path of the Buddha, the Twenty-One-Day Retreat in the year 2009. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.