The Buddha’s basic set of guidelines for an ethical life are what’s known as the five precepts. The precepts are essential to the aim of liberating oneself from suffering, and act as a set of practical instructions to support one’s daily conduct while advancing on the path to enlightenment. 

For over 2,500 years, Buddhists have committed to the precepts as a way of training the mind in wisdom and compassion. These five guidelines are to refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false and harmful speech, and intoxication. 

Learn more about each precept, and the way they are interpreted in different Buddhist lineages and cultures, in this deck. 

Discover Level 3, Deck 1: 

The First Precept: Abstain from Killing: The Buddha’s first guideline for an ethical life asks us to refrain from taking life. 

The Second Precept: Abstain from Taking What Is Not Given: The second precept, refraining from stealing, can also help us to cultivate contentment and generosity. 

The Third Precept: Refrain from Sexual Misconduct: The way this precept is interpreted tends to vary based on time and place. 

The Fourth Precept: Abstain from False and Harmful Speech: The fourth precept is often viewed in the context of the practice of right speech, one of the branches of the eightfold path. 

The Fifth Precept: Refrain from Intoxicants: The fifth precept has led to a great deal of debate about what constitutes harmful consumption. 

Recommended Reading: 

• Commit to Sit: The Five Precepts, by Tricycle 
• Skillful Speech, by Allan Lokos
• The Fifth Precept, by Tricycle 
• A Giant Act of Love, by David L. Barnhill 
• The Buddha’s Guidelines for Simplifying Life, by the editors 

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The first precept takes into account intent and motivation as well as actions, not unlike the Western legal system. Theravada Buddhism lists five factors that contribute to a violation of the first precept, including the desire to kill and whether or not the victim dies. So it is possible to violate the first precept without killing anything, while killing in self-defense or by accident is considered a lesser breach than premeditated murder. Because the precept allows for factors beyond the act of killing itself, the first precept can be extrapolated to mean a commitment not to support killing in any way, including praising or encouraging the act in thought or speech. 

From a Mahayana perspective, it is possible to kill without violating the first precept if the killing is of widespread benefit and the killer is motivated solely by compassion. A famous example of this utilitarian view in traditional texts is a story about the Buddha’s former life as a ship captain, found in the Upayakausalya, or Skill in Means sutra, in which he killed a murderous stowaway on his ship to save his five hundred-person crew from being murdered or from blindly killing one another in an attempt to stop the stowaway. Though rare circumstances like this may not be considered violations of the precept, they still create karmic consequences. In modern times, there are the well-known cases of Vietnamese and, more recently, Tibetan Buddhist monks self-immolating to bring attention to their causes. Generally, however, Buddhist teachers err on the side of caution in endorsing anything that ends life, since the stakes are so high and pure motivation is deemed virtually impossible. 

Daily life choices as well as hot-button topics are not explicitly covered in the Buddhist teachings about ethics. Thus, there are no hard-and-fast rules connected to the first precept vis-à-vis vegetarianism, pest control, abortion, euthanasia, or capital punishment. Buddhists acknowledge that it is impossible to live without killing in some way, especially if the precept is understood broadly. Thus Buddhist teachers typically advise practitioners to assess how their life habits cause harm and then make choices that reduce harm as much as possible. The Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s community, for instance, engages with the first precept as a training exercise “to protect life [and] to decrease violence in oneself, in the family, and in society.”

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This precept covers all the illegal behavior one would expect, such as burglary, shoplifting, fraud, and counterfeiting, as well as mundane activity like wearing a sibling’s clothes without asking permission. Contemporary Engaged Buddhist teachers sometimes take a more expansive view of the second precept that denounces acts such as purchasing products made by an exploited workforce or intentionally wasting another’s time or energy. 

In the Theravada Buddhist tradition there are five factors that contribute to a violation of the second precept, including intent to steal, the act of theft itself, and the knowledge that the object belongs to someone else. There are also factors that affect the severity of a violation. Stealing from someone virtuous, for instance, is worse than stealing from a weapons trafficker. The value of the stolen item also matters; it’s more consequential to steal an asthma inhaler from a person whose health relies on it than to steal an expensive car from a person who owns several cars.

Abiding by the second precept also means not coercing or tricking someone into giving you something they otherwise wouldn’t give. Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal writes that this precept “precludes relying on ambiguity, deceit, force, exploitation, or intimidation to acquire what belongs to others.” 

Across Buddhist traditions, the second precept is commonly practiced not only as an instruction to abstain from a negative action but also as an opportunity to cultivate positive mental states and behavior, specifically contentment and generosity. Contentment is an antidote to the perception of lack, which engenders the desire to steal. Generosity entails gifting money or belongings, giving one’s time or work, and providing others with opportunities to be generous themselves, such as granting permission when someone asks to use or borrow something. This aspect of practicing with the second precept ties in to the Buddhist path to enlightenment, which aims to lessen selfishness.

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For this reason, and because the Buddha generally advised his followers to abide by their society’s laws, how the third precept is understood changes from country to country and culture to culture. 

Some later Buddhist texts outlined with precision several activities that constitute sexual misconduct, including having anal or oral sex and exceeding the maximum number of orgasms allowed per night (five). In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in particular, the understanding of homosexual sex as a violation has caused friction with Western practitioners who take issue with this view. In recent years, Buddhist teachers have generally tended to understand such strictures as cultural more than canonical. 

Buddhism does not hold a particular view on marriage or monogamy, although there are teachers who stress the importance of monogamous commitment in the context of the third precept. (Polygamy, concubines, and courtesans—fixtures of the Buddha’s time—have little relevance to practitioners today.) Contraception and family planning are not forbidden by the third precept. 

Practitioners often ask what Buddhism has to say about pornography, prostitution, kinky practices, and other sex-related topics. The third precept does not offer a comprehensive answer, but since the precepts are meant to be taken as a whole, sexual misconduct is often defined in relation to other ethical guidelines. Are your sexual choices deceitful (fourth precept)? Do they involve taking that which has not been given to you (second)? Do you have a sex or porn addiction (fifth)? Are your sexual relationships causing harm to yourself or others, or are they a source of harmony and goodwill (first)?

Despite the third precept, sexual scandals in Western monastic and lay Buddhist communities that have come to light recently as part of the #MeToo movement are raising questions about women’s rights and sexual ethics in a religious tradition that has been shaped largely by patriarchal societies.

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False speech includes any untrue statement as well as some factual ones. Straightforward lies clearly violate the precept but so do common behaviors like self-inflation, exaggeration, lying by omission, pretending to know something, and even some forms of humor, such as sarcasm, that may be hurtful. Gossip, true or not, is considered false speech, as is anything divisive or malicious, as well as idle chatter. 

The fourth precept covers all forms of communication—speaking, writing, even body language. As with the other precepts, violations are not evenly weighted. Telling a lie as part of a joke is not as serious as, say, lying to get a job or spreading harmful rumors. In Theravada Buddhism, there are four factors that lead to an infringement of the fourth precept. Intent is one, so saying something false that you believe to be true is not considered a violation. Whether or not the listener believes the falsehood is not a factor. 

A frequent question that arises in discussion about the fourth precept concerns lies told to prevent harm. For example, if Anne Frank were hiding in your attic and the Nazis came knocking to ask if you were harboring her, would lying to save her violate the fourth precept? Opinions vary about whether a lie in such case would constitute an offense, as do recommendations on the right course of action. Generally, in daily life, Buddhist teachers advise against rationalizing lying as beneficial in intent and encourage practitioners to handle sticky situations without falsehood. However, especially in extraordinary circumstances, it’s important to understand the precepts not as rules to be blindly followed but as guidelines for acting compassionately and cultivating a mind unperturbed by guilt.

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The fifth precept was created as a support for following the rest of the precepts. As anyone who has drunk to excess knows, minding yourself in word and deed is far more difficult, sometimes impossible, when you are intoxicated. The Buddha, in one of the Jataka Tales about his past lives, minces no words when describing the effects of drunkenness:

The one who drinks this brew will sin in thought, word, and deed. He will see good as evil and evil as good. Even the most modest person will act indecently when drunk. The wisest man will babble foolishly. . . . You will grow accustomed to evil behavior, to lies, to abuse, to filth, and to disgrace.
—Kumbha Jataka: The Fifth Precept, from Jataka Tales of the Buddha: Part III, retold by Ken & Visakha Kawasaki

Still, many Mahayana Buddhist schools and teachers today maintain that it is intoxication of the mind that violates the precept and not the drinking per se. Those who hold this view are apt to draw a distinction between becoming tipsy, blacking out, and enjoying a glass of wine with dinner.

Taking medicines containing alcohol and eating food made with trace amounts of alcohol are not considered violations in any Buddhist schools because unless abused they do not cause intoxication. Pain medication is also not an issue, if taken as prescribed for legitimate medical reasons.

Most traditional Theravada Buddhists find marijuana, hallucinogens, and other recreational drugs to be clear violations of the fifth precept, while opinion among Mahayana Buddhists varies. The belief that hallucinogens can serve as spiritual aids has been popular in the West, since many current Western Buddhist teachers came to Buddhism during the drug-exploratory counterculture of the sixties. This view lost favor in ensuing decades but is once again in vogue today.

Some teachers, particularly Zen Buddhists, understand the fifth precept to mean refraining from any addictive or compulsive behavior that intoxicates the mind, such as pornography, gambling, shopping, overeating, excessive exercise, unskillful use of the internet, and overconsumption of TV, and other media. Even Buddhist practice, when undertaken obsessively, can be an intoxicant in this view.

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