Ethics and moral conduct

Ethical conduct — one of the three divisions of the Noble Eightfold Path, covering right speech, right action and right livelihood.

To refrain from harming living beings, from taking what is not given, from sexual misconduct, from false speech, and from drink and drugs that cloud the mind.

Because Buddhism has no lawgiver. They are training rules a person takes on, and breaking one has a kammic rather than a judicial consequence.

Action leading to a state of rebirth. The guide names its role in ethical action and intention specifically.

Because kamma is generated by the state of mind behind an act, so two people performing the same outward act can incur different kammic consequences.

Five training rules undertaken by lay Buddhists, against hundreds of detailed rules governing monastics — and the guide notes Theravada and Mahayana vinaya differ.

Bad kamma, and for the gravest offences expulsion from the monastery.

Skilfulness, or skill in means — adapting a teaching or action to what a particular person can receive. It explains the Buddha teaching different things to different audiences.

In Tibetan Buddhism, as an Avalokiteshvara — the bodhisattva of compassion. His authority is moral rather than legislative.

Sila (ethical conduct) supports bhavana (mental discipline), which supports panna (wisdom), which makes right conduct easier. They form one system, not three departments.

Karuna — compassion for all — and ahimsa, non-violence, which it singles out from the Five Precepts.

Because compassion without wisdom is held to misfire. "Compassion guided by wisdom" is the tradition's own formula.

The Five Precepts — especially ahimsa — and the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path.

No. There is no Buddhist equivalent of dharma yuddha or Christian just-war theory; the first Precept admits no exception.

Because kamma turns on intention, so violence damages the mind that performs it regardless of the cause — an argument unavailable to a tradition that locates wrongdoing only in outcomes.

Receiving bad kamma, and being expelled from the monastery — one automatic and impersonal, one a community decision.

Attempts to reclaim Tibet from China — where the Dalai Lama's non-violent position has been contested by younger Tibetans.

That Siddhartha Gotama abolished the caste system, and that little is said on the role or treatment of women. Both, in the same breath.

Recorded honestly, with the Buddhists who criticise it on Buddhist grounds named — neither idealising the tradition nor condemning it.