The Buddhist Moral Code
There are moral precepts for the Buddhist code of living. Vegetarianism is not one of them; monks are permitted to eat meat. Lay Buddhists are expected to support the monks with food, clothing, and other necessities. Moreover, it is imperative that they obey a moral code consisting of five negative rules. The prohibitions include no killing, stealing, lying, engaging in improper sexual conduct, and partaking of intoxicants.
The Pali Sermons describe the conduct monks are to follow:
And How, O king, is a monk accomplished in morality?
Herein a monk abandons the killing of living things and refrains from killing; laying aside the use of a stick or a knife he dwells modestly, full of kindness, and compassionate for the welfare of all living things. This is his behavior in morality.
Abandoning the taking of what is not given he refrains from the taking of what is not given, he takes and expects only what is given, he dwells purely and without stealing.
Abandoning incontinence he practices continence and lives apart, avoiding the village practice of sexual intercourse. Abandoning false-hood he refrains from falsehood, he speaks truth, he is truthful, trust-worthy, and reliable, not deceiving people.
Abandoning slanderous speech he refrains from slanderous speech; what he has heard from one place he does not tell in another to cause dissension. He is even a healer of dissensions and a producer of union, delighting and rejoicing in concord, eager for concord, and an utterer of speech that produces concord.
Abandoning harsh speech he refrains from harsh speech; the speech that is harmless, pleasant to the ear, kind, reaching the heart, urbane, amiable, and attractive to the multitude, that kind of speech does he utter.
Abandoning frivolous speech he refrains from frivolous speech; he speaks of the good, the real, the profitable, of the doctrine and the discipline; he is an utterer of speech worth hoarding, with timely speech and purpose and meaning.
He refrains from injuring seeds and plants.
He eats only within one meal time, abstaining from food at night and avoiding untimely food.
He refrains from seeing, dancing, singing, music, and shows.
He refrains from the use of garlands, scents, unguents, and objects of adornment; from a high or large bed; from accepting gold and silver; from accepting raw grain and raw meat.
He refrains from accepting women, girls, male and female slaves, goats and rams, fowls and pigs, elephants, oxen, horses, mares and farm-lands.
He refrains from going on messages and errands; from buying and selling; from cheating in weighing, false metal in measuring; from practices or cheating, trickery, deception, fraud, from cutting, killing, binding, robbery, pillage, and violence.
Buddha died at the age of eighty. Legend says that his final words were, “Subject to decay are all component things. Strive earnestly to work out your own salvation.”
