The Second Grave Precept: I Take Up the Way of Not Stealing.
Bodhidharma: Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the unattainable Dharma, not having thoughts of gaining is called the Precept of Not Stealing.
Dogen Zenji: The self and things of the world are just as they are. The gate of emancipation is open.
Robert Chotan Gyoun Aitken Roshi: This and all the subsequent Precepts are variants of the first, “Not Killing”. “I take up the way of not stealing” means I will respect the order of things – the paramita of harmony.
Peasants who occupy unused private land in Central America are demonstrating their view of the fundamental order. “We are taking what is rightfully ours”, they say. The landlords say they are stealing. The question is, which view kills? Which view gives life?
It’s obvious to the point of triviality to say that we live in a materialistic society… it’s like saying water is wet. No duh. Usually what’s meant is that people put a high value on the material goods we accumulate: the car, the house, the 128-inch plasma TV that you need SPF 30 to watch in your living room. The philosophy of materialism, though, goes one step further and says that only physical things are real. Love, friendship, karma, the loyalty of a fine dog: these are thought to be inconsequential. Reality is what you can hold in your hand.
The Buddhist atomists of the 7th century held a different view. They imagined atoms as points in space made of pure energy, always changing. (Some modern views of physics would agree.) ”‘Everything is evanescent,’ … says the Buddhist, because there is no stuff,” was how the Russian scholar Fyodor Ippolitovich Shcherbatskoy would put it many centuries later.
No stuff.
So what if our whole conception of reality – that the things we surround ourselves with and the castles we build to protect them are what’s really real – is exactly wrong? How would that affect the way we relate to all this stuff? Would we feel OK having so much of it here in the developed world when there are people who haven’t got enough to even live?
The whole idea of “enough” is one that’s totally gotten lost in our world. In the last century, an economist by the name of E.F. Schumacher (not a Buddhist) wrote a book called Small is Beautiful, which described what he called “Buddhist economics.” Central to his concept of a just economic system was the idea that, “since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.” The economic system of the world as it is celebrates consumption, and “growth” as a good in and of itself.
So which view kills? Which view gives life?
