#platform/youtube #channel/Master-YongHua #playlist/dharma-glimpses ![Intention Behind Your Actions - Precepts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwhPcQJI4ro) When you want to have a moral life in Buddhism, we have something called the five precepts, which is the foundation of right and wrong, of good and evil. You follow the rules of those five precepts, you are doing good, you are goodness. You violate them, you are doing evil. So everything we do actually are covered. All our actions, all our karmas are covered by these five precepts. All right? So that's Buddhist wisdom for you. So those of us who study precepts, who practice precepts do have an edge over others, real really significant edges over the rest of the world. So let me explain to you how it works. There is these five precepts that we make a vow to cultivate to observe. The most important thing for you is to watch the intention. You made a vow not to kill. The most important thing about not killing is to not allow your mind to indulge in the killing thought. You vow not to steal. The most important thing you need to watch out for is no have no thoughts of stealing, no intention of stealing. Sometime we steal by mistake. We take things that don't belong to us thinking for the wrong reasons. But there's no stealing intention behind it. Then it's salvageable. It's minor. If you engage in we do that, you commit a karma with the intention to do that, that's a lot more serious. And that's what China is about. China is about we catch those thoughts, those improper thoughts and we raise our guards. I say I'm not going there. Ordinary people, they indulge in these thoughts. The main thing is that do you intend? Do you intend to lie? Do you intend to mislead? That's the most important criteria you need to watch out for. It doesn't matter what people think of you. People think you're lying. People misunderstand you. People approve of you. Those are secondary. Now, if you're a cultivator, it's irrelevant what people think of you. It's what you think of yourself that matters. You don't need people to approve of you. You don't need people to acknowledge you. You need to understand the principles and cultivation is about catching your thoughts. Are they in violation of the principles or not? That's what you do. What chan is about. Chan is about raising the awareness of your thoughts and catch them especially when they are improper thoughts. Okay. So for example if you take a precept against not precept are not stealing and you go to the office you open the office supplies there and you found a new supplies of new pens and you say oh that looks nice you put it in a in in your pocket and you take it home. That process right there is based on a stealing intention. The supplies, office supplies is designed for you to use at the office, not for you to bring at home to put it on your desk. Okay? It's a gray zone there. And so cultivation is not about just coming here to the temple. You come here to the temple to learn about the principles, learn the techniques of how to do it. But after you understand, after you learn, you go home and you watch your thoughts, you watch your intentions. That is cultivation. It's a private thing. You don't need people to approve of you. You don't need people to praise you. Cultivation really is very very personal, very very private. And when you watch your thoughts and do not indulge in those not good thoughts, unh wholesome thoughts, something magical happens. You will like yourself. When you indulge in unh wholesome thoughts, you don't like yourself. You disapprove of yourself. But when you stop these unh wholesome thoughts from arising, okay? And stay away from them. Don't allow them to arise. when they arise, you qu squ squash them, you cut them off, you nip them off. That's what cultivation is about. The more often you do that, the more you like yourself. That is cultivation, folks. You don't need my approval. You don't need me to like you. You have to like yourself. Because if you depend on others approval, when they withhold it because they're in a bad mood, because they disagree with you, because they're confused, because they're depressed, boy, are you in trouble. [bell] Ato.