Studies in the Origins of Buddhism c19.128

c19.128

Moral culture.—The regulation of conduct was thus prescribed in many ways, although it will be a grave error to regard ancient Buddhism as just a simple ethical system—as merely Sīla. Moral formalism (Sīlabbataparāmāsa) was condemned. In spite of the negative form of the list of the Sīlas,⁹³ the actual spirit of the Suttas regarding the problem of moral discipline is remarkably positive.⁹⁴ What is condemned is immoderation and a lazy slavery to sense impressions and impulses.⁹⁵ Sīla is essentially moderation (Majjhimā Paṭipadā, Mattañ- ñutā), and “the student was not . . . to ignore sense experience, but to break it up into constituent processes and resultants so as to divert the complex impacts of the external world from kindling delusion and passion, and convert them into the cool judgments of the intellect.”⁹⁶ Into the cultivation of conduct the will necessarily entered by way of “Bhāvanā” and the intellect by way of “Yoniso manasikāra”, or, in other words the factors of “Viriya” and “Paññā”.