THE FIVE PRECEPTS were my introduction to Buddhist ethics. I had read them early on in my practice and thought that their simplicity made them easy to carry out. After all, how hard was it to not kill, for example? But the more I practiced, the more I realized that sila, ethical conduct, was not only about abstaining from basic harmful behavior, but also about developing behaviors of body and mind that moved in the direction of good will and benevolence. Which is to say that I realized I would not go very far in my practice if I discounted the importance of developing sila. That is because moral conduct is absolutely crucial to developing the higher stages of Buddhist practice, namely samadhi and pañña (Pali; prajna in Sanskrit), concentration and insight.
Without the sturdy
