The Second Buddhist Precept states simply:
I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking what is not
given.
Adinnādānā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.
This means abstaining from taking what belongs to others — in
other words, stealing. Unlike the Judeo-Christian Eighth
Commandment, it’s not a divine edict. It’s training in the
practice of non-greed for the good of one’s character and for the
happiness of oneself and others.
Most of us don’t go around breaking and entering, mugging, or
shoplifting, so it would seem that abstaining from stealing should
be a relatively easy matter — but it’s not. There are more subtle
forms of theft — downloading and uploading copyrighted material
without permission, underreporting cash income on one’s taxes,
using ideas without attribution, bringing paper clips home from the
office, inflating damage estimates for insurance
reimbursement. The temptation to petty larceny runs deep
within the crooked human heart, and aspiring to impeccability
requires some heavy lifting.
Corporations can also violate the Second Precept. Ethical
businesses obtain raw materials and labor at a fair price and
create something of value which they sell at a fair price.
Ethical businesses also abstain from passing hidden costs along to
stakeholders. Companies that purchase raw materials from
developing nations at unfair prices, exploit workers through unfair
wages and working conditions, expose consumers to risk through
unsafe products, and pollute the environment are engaging in a form
of theft. So are industries that systematically mislead
others about the real costs of their products, for example, the
health costs of tobacco and soft-drink consumption, or the health
and environmental costs of mining and burning coal, deep sea
drilling for oil, hydrofracking for gas, or storing “spent” nuclear
fuel in cooling ponds.
Governments can violate the Second Precept through unjust
confiscatory taxation. Zen Master Hakuin (1686-1769) railed
against the typical Japanese Daimyo (feudal lord) of his day who
lived:
“a life of the greatest luxury… with never a thought of the
difficulties of the common people under him. From the blood and
sweat he wrings from them he is able to fill his tables with fine
sake…. As there is never enough money to satisfy such
appetites, he ends up dispatching merciless ministers…. Not
only do officials reckon the tax rate yearly, they also raise the
rate two or three times during the same year.”
[1]
Closer to our own time, the American revolution was fought over
taxation without representation, and some present day third-world
countries are governed by oligarchies so corrupt they can only be
called “kleptocracies.”
Political conservatives sometimes claim taxation levels in the
United States are confiscatory. In fact, personal U.S.
taxation levels are considerably lower than most Western European
democracies. Additionally, federal tax revenues currently
constitute a smaller percentage of our gross domestic product than
they did during the decade of the nineteen-fifties.
The Bush era tax cuts have, however, contributed to a massive
transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthiest
Americans. This transfer is also a function of exponential
increases in executive compensation while the hourly wages of
American workers have declined. Fortune 500 CEOs enjoyed a
23% increase in compensation in 2010
alone. The wealthiest one percent of the country now owns 38%
of all privately held stock, 60% of all financial assets, and 62%
of all business equity, returning concentration of wealth to levels
not seen since the Roaring Twenties and the Gilded Age.
[2]
Current tax policy benefits the richest at the expense of
improvements in infrastructure, education, and health care for
all.
No doubt, the reasons for the increasing disparity in wealth are
multiple and complex, including the globalization of the world
economy, the loss of manufacturing jobs overseas, the decline of
labor unions, the deregulation of the banking industry, the rising
cost of energy, the failures of our educational system, and the
Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy. The simple, unbridled
exercise of human greed fits somewhere into the mix as well.
Not unexpectedly, the wealthy continue to vigorously advocate for a
variety of policies (subsidies, incentives, tax write-offs,
deregulation, union busting, shredding the social safety net,
shifting medical risk from insurers to patients, ending the estate
tax, hobbling Medicare’s bargaining power, etc.) that further
accelerate the ongoing transfer of wealth. We might also note
that the Supreme Court’s “Citizen’s United” decision gives the
wealthy even more of an advantage in shifting the political playing
field to their advantage.
The Second Precept applies to more than just the theft of
property and wealth, however. It can also apply to the giving
and receiving of affection, attention, and caring in personal
relationships and the sharing of tasks and responsibilities within
them. Most imbalances within relationships are not regulated
by law and some are reinforced by prevailing customs, making it
easier to fail to recognize them when they occur, and allowing
their justification since “everyone does it.” Focusing on the
needs of our partners and dependents more than our own is an
important part of Buddhist practice. We might consider
replacing the Golden Rule of “Do unto others as we would have them
do unto us” with the Platinum Rule: “Do unto others as they would
wish to be treated.” This isn’t to suggest one should neglect
one’s own needs — self-compassion is important too. As Rabbi
Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am
not for others, what am I?” It’s just that most of us are so
self-focused that a little overcompensation in the other direction
couldn’t hurt! Is it possible to give more of ourselves
emotionally — to be more generous than we are at present — without
resentment — without fearing we might give more than we get in
return? Can we make that our ongoing practice?
The beauty of the Precepts is that they turn all our
interactions into fields of practice in a way solitary sitting
never can. They allow us to explore the degree to which we
express integrity, generosity, and compassion in our daily
lives. In following the Second Precept we aspire to more than
mere equity, the fair giving of tit-for-tat, but to being
open-hearted, caring, and mindful of the needs of others.
Thich Nhat Hanh has rewritten and expanded the
Second Precept to make its intention clearer:
Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice,
stealing, and oppression, I am committed to practicing generosity
in my thinking, speaking, and acting. I am determined not to steal
and not to possess anything that should belong to others; and I
will share my time, energy, and material resources with those who
are in need. I will practice looking deeply to see that the
happiness and suffering of others are not separate from my own
happiness and suffering; that true happiness is not possible
without understanding and compassion; and that running after
wealth, fame, power and sensual pleasures can bring much suffering
and despair. I am aware that happiness depends on my mental
attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live
happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already
have more than enough conditions to be happy. I am committed to
practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering
of living beings on Earth and reverse the process of global
warming.
The beauty of Thay’s reformulation is that it turns a negative —
abstaining from stealing and avoiding greed — into a positive
— the practice of generosity along with genuine activity to reduce
individual and systemic suffering.
In discussing his reformulation in depth, Thay adds:
“When you practice one precept deeply, you will discover that
you are practicing all five. The First Precept is about taking
life, which is a form of stealing — stealing the most precious
thing someone has, his or her life. When we meditate on the Second
Precept, we see that stealing, in the forms of exploitation, social
injustice, and oppression, are acts of killing — killing slowly by
exploitation, by maintaining social injustice, and by political and
economic oppression. Therefore, the Second Precept has much to do
with the precept of not killing. We see the “interbeing” nature of
the first two precepts. This is true of all Five Precepts.”
Buddhist practice is truly holographic — every part of the
practice contains and reflects every other part of the
practice. If all we do is practice the Second Precept, we are
decreasing self-aggrandizement, increasing generosity, increasing
mindful awareness of our greed, grasping, and self-justification,
and increasing awareness of how we depend on and influence the
interconnected web of existence.
Not a bad payoff for one simple precept.
