Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Virtue Without Attachment

 Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Virtue Without Attachment

"Two popular answers to the question of how to practice sīla [virtue] without attachment both treat sīla in the name of the fetter as meaning “precept,” but they differ in their interpretation of what in the practice of the precepts can act as a fetter. *The first interpretation holds that the precepts can often be too narrow and one-dimensional in the guidance they provide: If you follow them too strictly, you limit your ability to respond to any given situation in a wise and compassionate way*. This interpretation often cites examples where it claims that a wise or compassionate response would involve breaking a precept derived from the sīla factors of the noble eightfold path, such as killing termites that threaten to destroy a home, killing an individual who threatens to kill many other people, lying to authorities who plan to torture a person sequestered in your attic, or stealing a loaf of bread from a wealthy family to feed a starving child. In this interpretation, practicing sīla without attachment to sīla means weighing the precepts against the principles of wisdom and compassion, and being willing to break a precept when it runs counter to those principles.

The second interpretation agrees that the precepts can often be too narrow a guide to compassionate action, but it also sees another danger in the practice of the precepts: the judgmental pride that can develop around adhering strictly to the precepts. According to this interpretation, pride in your precepts creates a strong sense of self that makes you harsh in judging others. It also stands in the way of the total letting go that leads to awakening. The way to avoid this fetter, it says, is consciously and deliberately to break the precepts in a way that removes all pride around your behavior. This, from the second interpretation’s point of view, is what practicing without attachment to sīla means.

However, the Buddha’s own answer to this question, as recorded in the Pali Canon, differs radically from both of these interpretations. *To begin with, the context that surrounds his primary discussion of this issue (in MN 78) shows that sīla in sīla-and-vata doesn’t mean precept or virtue*. It means *habit*, for the passage discusses both skillful sīla and unskillful sīla. In other words, the fetter abandoned at the first glimpse of awakening deals with attachment not only to the good, virtuous habits of the precepts, but also to bad habits that break the precepts. And this makes sense. Why would attachment to bad habits be any less of a fetter than attachment to good?

Secondly, the Buddha states that the danger of being fettered to a habit occurs on two levels. One, if the habit is unskillful, the habit itself poses dangers to the person following it. When you act unskillfully, you harm both yourself and the living beings around you. Two, regardless of whether the habit is skillful or unskillful, your *attitude* toward the habit can fetter you as well."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Virtue Without Attachment" 

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/BeyondAllDirections/Section0009.html