I agree with what you said. It's not that morality can be
ignored, since prior to insights we have to follow precepts etc to
prevent further suffering/karma/bad rebirths.
But after the arising of insight, morality becomes more natural
(rather than as a set of rules to follow) as actions, speech,
thoughts, behaviors spring spontaneously from a deeper source of
wisdom untainted by dualistic grasping/desires or a sense of
self.
As long as we truly observe and experience reality as it is,
unwholesome actions cannot arise. It is because we do not know
reality that unwholesome actions spring from greed, hatred,
ignorance (i.e. dualistic attraction, aversion, ignorance)
http://www.buddhanet.net/bvk_study/bvk216a.htm
The
Mahasattipatthana Sutta-maggasaccam - (the truth of the Path)
emphasizes that Right speech - Right action and Right Livelihood
must be based on 'what is' - with wisdom/insight and this must be
an experiential understanding and not an intellectual
game.
Morality as explained by
the Buddha is not a set of rules to be blindly followed-there has
to be insight-wisdom and understanding from moment to moment-based
on 'what is' (yatha bhutam pajanati).
The
noble eight fold path culminates in insight. Insight and morality
go hand in hand. Without insight morality is simply a set of rules.
Insight is the flowering of virtue in life-naturally, normally,
choicelessly, effortlessly-based on 'what is'-based on 'as it
is'.
Gurus before the Buddha and at the time of the Buddha and even now
have been telling us-to do this-to do that-not to do this-not to do
that, but morality/virtue cannot be forcefully practised like this.
Mind cannot be forcefully purified. A pure mind is a mind full of
love. A life with love and equanimity is virtuous life, naturally.
Morality without insight is meaningless, it is not morality at
all.
In
fact this sutta emphasizes that the whole of the noble eight fold
path is to be experienced and experienced at the level of
sensations with insight leading to the ending of all the misery and
sorrow, the ending of all fear-freedom from the known. (This has
also been discussed under the heading ''The Four noble Truths''and
''freedom from the known'' in this study.)
The
Buddha states that the 'contents of the mind-concerning the 4 noble
truths'are observed as 'contents of the mind-concerning the 4 noble
truths.'-'as it is'-with insight at the level of sensations. The
4th noble truth is the truth of the path. - the noble eight fold
path.
-(Mahasatipatthana
Sutta, Dhammanupassana- Catusaccapabbam-observation of mental
contents - The section on the four noble Truths.)
What
matters is to live at the height of virtue. (I know you don't like
that word). Those two words 'virtue' and 'righteousness' have been
terribly abused, every priest uses them, every moralist or idealist
employs them. But virtue is entirely different from something which
is practised as virtue and therein lies its beauty; if you try to
practise it, then it is no longer virtue. Virtue is not of time, so
it cannot be practised and behaviour is not dependent on
environment; environmental behaviour is all right in its way but it
has no virtue. Virtue means to love, to have no fear, to live at
the highest level of existence, which is to die to everything,
inwardly, to die to the past, so that the mind is clear and
innocent. And it is only such a mind that can come upon this
extraordinary immensity which is not your own invention, nor that
of some philosopher or guru.
- J.
Krishnamurti, Pg. 168, You are the world.
I agree wholeheartedly with the point that morality/virtue
cannot be forcefully practised and that the mind cannot be
forcefully purified.
My burning question therefore is this: before one has
achieved insight, then rules for morality would have to
be enforced somehow from within or around us right? So some kind of
forcing is still required it would seem..
Imagine a country or a community without any laws laid down in
writing or agreed by most verbally in our current era. Crime
rates will go up further and faster, even though Dharma teachings
are still present.
The only era I can think of when laws, rules for
social behaviour are not really required is that of when human
lifespan can be observed to be increasing beyond the average global
lifespan of 100 plus years, till we reach 84000 years old.
When human lifespan reaches 84000 years old, it is recorded in
scriptures that all, if not most humans of that era, are perfect or
almost perfect in their observance of the basic 5 precepts.