Cattāri Brahmavihārā

May I purify my conduct through the practice of the Five Precepts, the Ten Paramis and by training in the discipline of the Triple Gem.

Last night, or this morning, I quickly posted the remnants of what I am describing as a Code of Buddhist Chivalry. I have now rewritten them but will continue to modify them as I see fit since I intend to use the as practic guidelines and recite all fourteen of them every day before my formal meditation. I’m sure that some people may take issue with my conflation of medieval Christian and Islamic notions of chivalry and Buddhist doctrine but to me, in my current role as a lay person, it just seems to fit. But this explanation surely begs the question of why I feel compelled to even call these training rules a code of Buddhist Chivalry at all so it looks like I have some explaining to do.

As a child I was deeply influenced, as most boys in our culture are, by stories of heroic deeds but even more so by the ideas of honor, virtue and nobility of character. Unfortunately my ideas skewed pretty much to the martial side so I spent my days during recess literally fighting the boys who preyed upon the weaker girls (that’s just how it happened to play out in my schoolyard). My fighting for all the wrong reasons continued through elementary, high school and into adulthood until I started to take the Dhamma a lot more seriously whereupon I more or les quit it and a boat load of other unskillful behaviors. And yet that energy and the idea of fighting for a worthy cause never quite went away but simply went into hiding. Now, much in the way the devout Muslim thinks of jihad as a spiritual struggle, I am seeking to turn the desire to be a force of good in the into a battle to overcome the defilements and to make some positive impact, however small, on he lives of those around me.

So far, in the scant few days I have been practicing with the code, I have seen great benefits which are well worth the effort. I can’t be sure if these praftices themsleves will lead to the development of wisdom but it is clear that the mind will be much more free of remorse and I should get better results from formal meditation.