Ten precepts
Ten precepts
The first 7 precepts are moral precepts and they are the most important precepts. There are 3 more precepts which are not related to morality. You need to at least follow the first 7 precepts to be a Nūtana Dhārma follower. But following all 10 of them is strongly advised.
- I will consider that all other human beings that I do not already have close relationships with (irrespective of their race, religion, caste, region, creed, ethnicity, language, sex, and family status) as having equal moral worth.
- I will never harm or support the harm of another sentient being for the mere sake of pleasure and I understand that this implies that I need to be a vegan.
- I will never own another sentient being.
- I will never brain wash my children or my students by teaching uncertain things (like religion), that can neither be empirically verified nor can be deduced purely from logic and mathematics, as certainly true.
- I will try as much as I can to not unnecessarily waste important things like money, food etc by indulging in luxurious activities and instead once I have more than enough for my family I will give these things to the poor and needy people.
- I will be truthful and honest at all times except at times where it would increase the suffering.
- I will always do whatever is in my power to stop suffering using nonviolent methods.
- I will not blindly follow any authority of others (including the authority of Nūtana Dhārma), for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
- I will be open-minded and strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what I wish to be true.
- I will never be a lazy procrastinator and I will not succumb to sensual pleasures.
1
Here having equal moral worth means you will take equal amount of suffering inflicted on different people to be equally serious. These people are all not equal, they have different heights, weights, languages, salaries, religions, genders etc but these doesn’t matter when it comes to morality.
The part “that I do not already have close relationships with” is to consider that you will probably want to give more moral worth to people who already have close relationships with you like your siblings, parents, friends etc. A simple example is imagine 2 people are about to die and you can save only 1 person’s life. If they have equal moral worth you should select 1 randomly. Of course if 1 of them has a close relationship with you, you should save that person only.
Even these things are not absolute and need to be slightly changed in extremely rare cases, like if 1 person can reduce great amount of suffering like saving the lives of millions by finding cure to some diseases then you should altruistically save that person instead of saving the person who is close to you. That is the moral of worth of this million lives saver> people who are close to you> random people.
2
3
4
5
6
Example cases:
1) A criminal is asking the whereabouts of a person whom the criminal wants to kill. You shuould not tell.
2) A parent is asking the marks of their child. Should the child lie to not get beaten for its low marks? No, in the long term it wil suffer more if it starts lying because it will no longer have the fear of getting less marks and will never improve.
3) Should a person tell truth to their spouse if it had cheated on its spouse? This is a tricky question. By telling the truth it will increase the suffering of its spouse. But if it lied then it will continue to cheat and succumb to sensual pleasures. Also if its spouce found out about this later this will cause even more suffering because now its spouse can never trust it from now. So telling the truth and asking for forgiveness is the correct thing to do.
4) A small kid’s parents died in an accident. It asked you where they are and when will they come back. Should you lie that they are in another city and will come back so that it won’t feel sad? No. You should better tell it the truth that they no longer exist and it can never meet them. If you lie and it believed that for some time then it will be even more sad when it finally understands the truth.