Daily Buddhism

The last rule is to avoid intoxicants. 
Why?  The first-glance answer is that drunks cause all kinds of suffering. Drug addicts harm everyone near them over and over again. This is bad behavior, and we all know it. Yet, most of us are not alcoholics or drug addicts, but that doesn’t let us off the [...]

Rule number four is to refrain from incorrect speech. Right Speech, if you remember was a step on the eightfold path all by itself. Not only is right speech promoted and valued with Buddhists, but here “Wrong Speech” is singled out for special negative treatment. We all know how damaging our words can be. [...]

Rule number three is no sexual misconduct.  How do you define misconduct?  That depends on where you live. The social rules are different from country to country and region to region, and what’s considered misconduct in America might be completely appropriate elsewhere in the world. That doesn’t matter; the real problem here is suffering.  If [...]

The Second of the Buddhist precepts is no to take that which is not given. Nope, stealing is a bad thing, but living in a modern civilized society, we already knew that.  But just as with the first precept, there’s more to it than it appears at first glance.  Remember that one of the steps [...]

The Five Precepts

Today, we start looking at the last of the main Buddhist “lists.” We’ve talked about the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path already. Let’s look at the Five Precepts now. First, I will point out that some groups of Buddhists have eight precepts and some have ten, but these five are universal [...]

Hello to all DailyBuddhism.com fans!  This is a brief note to announce a new website that will be a companion to the Dailybuddhism.com site.  Taooftheday.com will be going online (returning from hiatus actually) next Monday, May 12th.
The Tao (or Dao) was incredibly influential with all Eastern thought, including Buddhism, so reading through the Tao will [...]