The Sila Parami: Ethical Sensibility

This is the second in a series on The Ten Paramis, based on a talk offered by
Kenn Duncan at Prescott Insight Meditation, January 20, 2026

Following are words, ideas, teachings & thoughts borrowed from Gil Fronsdal (primarily), Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg and Ajahn Chah.

First, a quick overview of our tour of the 10 pāramīs. Again we have: dana-generosity, Sila-ethical conduct, nekkhamma-renunciation, Pañña-wisdom, Viriya-effort or energy, Khanti-patience, Sacca-truthfulness, Adhitthana- resolve or determination, Metta-lovingkindness and Epekkha-equanimity. All of these are qualities of the heart that can be part of our practice anytime, in anyplace.

The second stop on our tour tonight is Sila. There are many translations of Sila: ethical conduct, Virtue, discipline and morality, among others. 

There’s a lot of discussion about ethics, virtue and morality in our country, AND in the world right now.  These have a lot to do with some of the most interesting aspects of human life: money, power, greed, sex, pleasure, relationships just to name a few . It can be a heavy lift, a heavy subject, particularly in a spiritual setting.  In our lives we’re constantly surrounded by questions, and challenged to explore our own virtue all the time, turn on the television or the radio or look over social media and it's everywhere, lots of ethical challenges and issues. 
  To look at ethical sensibility is to hopefully connect with something that's deep in each individual person.  And one of the core issues in our spiritual life is that it becomes essential to harmonize our core inner values with our behavior and how we live. How we act, based on our inner values has to do with ethics and virtue. 
At the depth of Sila is the spirit of non-harming.
Joseph Goldstein: “goodness in general.” 

The Sri Lankan monk Walpola Rahula notes that ethical conduct or Sila is “built on the vast conception of universal love and compassion for all living beings, on which the Buddha’s teaching is based."

While on the list of the paramis, Sila is also an integral part of the eightfold path, something for another talk another time,  but it’s one of the 3 baskets of the path which includes sīla-samādhi-pañña, ethical conduct, mind training, and wisdom.
Born from Sila, as kind of a guideline, are the five precepts:

THE FIVE PRECEPTS
I undertake:
1. to abstain from taking life/killing (harming)
2. to abstain from taking what is not given/stealing
3. to abstain from sensuous/sexual misconduct
4. to abstain from false speech/lying
5. to abstain from intoxicants as tending to cloud the mind or leading to heedlessness

In our tradition we do a lot of sitting, meditating and focusing on the power of mindfulness and this is a good thing as we know. But with that we may overlook developing other qualities. A narrow focus can lead to one part of our spiritual life being more developed than other parts, this can create an imbalanced practice. 

Mindfulness by itself doesn't guarantee that all the areas of our inner life or spiritual life are recognized or developed. Developing these qualities and seeing how they exist within us is one of the ways of ensuring that we kind of develop ourselves in a spiritually well-rounded way. 

Ethical/virtuous conduct strengthens our relationships by ensuring we don’t contribute to others’ suffering. It is relational, it’s how we live with others, and blooms naturally from generosity. Ethics also grows from a connection to freedom, where we don’t act out of attachment or compulsion. Arising from compassion and liberation, ethics becomes a pāramī.

Something that can be a bit of an elephant in the room, in our western culture, morality or ethics is often associated with obligations or duties that are given or assigned by some authority to live a good life. But these teachings or training in Buddhism are presented more like, if you would like to practice the path of freedom and liberation then this is a path you may explore. 

These trainings are meant to free us from the things that could lead us to causing harm through intentional unethical actions. They are not meant to diminish or constrict us, but rather open us up and free us. 

I like the translation of Sila as virtue, which implies more of a quality of character, more something that comes from inside us.    When we have virtue, we have an inner quality of goodness that we radiate or give out, so it’s more about acting on that virtue rather than acting from some sort of obligation. To me it’s more about cultivating and developing our good hearts and capacity for generosity, wisdom, kindness, love and compassion. 

This inner virtue, becomes a foundation or pillar for liberation. It can be a reflection of our deepest love, concern and care for ourselves, those around us and our environment. In the teachings the idea is that we would never cause harm to another because we are all interconnected. Everything is interwoven. The things we do, think about, care about all make a difference and if we want to quiet our minds and bring our lives into a spiritual truth it involves living in harmony. Going back to cultivating mindfulness and quiet in our sits, this can make a difference in a good way.

But we should always start with where we are, and how we get there here is not as important as getting there. I will say that as I’ve explored Sila it becomes much easier to quiet the mind. It’s difficult to meditate with a cluttered mind, certainly with a mind unsettled with the regrets of harm we have or may have caused.  

By taking on the paramis as training or practice, we don't take them on as narrow constrictions to limit our lives. We take it to explore and understand ourselves. 

The 5 precepts born in Sila, are meant to be a training in our relationship to other people and our environment. The practice is to be attentive to these. It's not just about our own inner practice, but we want to live a life that supports others, is connected to others and our environment with care and compassion. 

The 5 precepts give us a chance to work within Sila, when we find ourselves on the edge of breaking one of these, we can stop and investigate and explore, what is the connection to other people, what is the connection to our environment, how might our thoughts, words or actions effect those around us, in this moment we can learn and develop. We can start living within the guidelines of being generous, of being compassionate, content, patient, and being wise.

To live in harmony, one lives with Sila, lives with virtue, one lives with harmony with other beings and the world around us. As you make this commitment you will begin to see a natural development of self-respect and connectedness to others and a nourishment of Metta and happiness.

Sila is something which is connected to the depth of our hearts, something connected to the core values of the tradition, compassion and liberation. And ethics is something that is the foundation for being able to go deep into the Buddhist spiritual life if that is the path you chose.

To practice this idea that the ethical core within our hearts, the virtue within our hearts, is something that can bring us a lot of joy, delight and happiness, and something that offers a very deep and abiding satisfaction and value to our lives. And not something that is heavy and somber, but rather, it's something that really brings peace, liberation and freedom. 

Take Sila into your practice this week, maybe use the 5 precepts as a guide to help see these opportunities to explore ourselves, and to grow.