Benefits of ethical conduct

Yesterday afternoon I was talking about how in order to attain liberation we need the higher training in wisdom, and for that we need the higher training in concentration, and for that we need the higher training in ethical conduct. So, I wanted to explain one more way in which ethical conduct prepares us to generate concentration which in turn prepares us to generate wisdom. 

When you’re developing concentration there are two mental factors that are very important. One is called mindfulness, and the other one I still haven’t figured out a good translation for—maybe “monitoring awareness” or maybe “clear comprehension.” I’ll let you know as I change my mind about how to translate that one, but in any case, I’ll talk about mindfulness today. 

These two mental factors are very important for developing concentration because mindfulness is what keeps your mind on the object of meditation, and then the monitoring awareness is the factor that checks-up to see if you are still on the object, or if your mind’s gotten distracted by something else, or if you’ve fallen asleep. Those two mental factors are very important in developing concentration. 

You also develop those two mental factors when you practice ethical conduct. And developing them in ethical conduct is the basic foundation for developing them in concentration. In ethical conduct, mindfulness—instead of holding onto the object of meditation—is focusing on our precepts and on how we want to behave; it is holding that in mind, remembering that. 

The monitoring awareness is checking-up to see if we are keeping our precepts well, and it’s checking-up and seeing what’s going on with our body, speech, and mind. It is noticing the situation with our body, speech, and mind. 

Those two mental factors are important in keeping ethical conduct. Then, as we develop them more and more, we use them also in concentration. In that way, again, we see why ethical conduct acts as a foundation for concentration which aids us in developing wisdom which leads to liberation.