Ethical Culture

These two
Amount to Self Torture:
Not Doing
What Ought to be Done
And
Doing
What Ought not to be Done

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

In this method, because it is based on a perceived 'law of nature' called 'kamma', which speaks about acts as carrying consequences primarily of importance to the one doing the deed, ethical culture is dictated by self-interest, not some authority.

While Good Deeds produce kamma the consequences of which are experienced as pleasant sensations, in this system, ethical behavior produces kamma the consequences of which are experienced as neither pleasant nor unpleasant sensations.

Here ethical culture is always the abstention from an act that would produce bad kamma, as such the implied intention is toward the Ending of kamma.

Here there is no bad kamma from deeds of omission, no matter how compelling, or no matter how much the culture of the times might dictate the opposite.

If 'doing deeds' were required, the goal of ending kamma could not be attained.

Acts are produced by an individual through three modes:

Imagining, or mental wishing or willing or intending.
Word Thought and Speech (first you mutter to yourself, and then, we shudder to think of it, you speak)
Bodily Acts (unbend bent arm, bend unbent arm)

The Intent behind the act determines the Pleasant, Unpleasant, or Not-Pleasant-But-Not-Unpleasant outcome in terms of subjective experience.
One Intends to produce Pleasant sensations, or Unpleasant Sensations, or to End kamma.

The first steps in The Aristocratic Multidimensional Way after High View are discussions of Ethical Culture, and in some ways the entire system can be seen as a system of higher Ethical Culture.

In the Buddhist Order, there are more than 200 rules of conduct ... However, one time a Beggar came to the Buddha and said that he was unable to remember so many rules and consequently feared falling off the Path.

The Buddha asked him if he thought he could remember three rules.

He said he could.

So for the purposes of introducing Ethical Culture, while not discouraging the newcomer with excessive rules, here are the Three Rules:

1. Train yourself to abstain from intentional harm to living creatures
2. Train yourself to abstain from intentionally saying that which is not true
3. Train yourself to abstain from intentionally taking things that have not been given to you.

In your Imaginings, Word Thought and Speech, and Bodily Acts.

Occupations

A Lay Follower should avoid these five Occupations:

What Five?

Dealing in weapons,
selling human beings,
raising livestock for slaughter or any other occupation that requires slaughter of animals,
selling alcohol,
and selling poisons.

Paths Leading Upward

There are these Three Paths
Leading Upward
Following which one
Goes Upward starting from the first Step
1. For the Liar, there is Speaking Truth
2. For the Bloody Handed, there is Harmlessness
3. For the Thief, there is not Stealing