Thank you @Viveka : yes that sutta does give a practical answer …
& which has metaphorical application to mental states.
Bhante @Khemarato.bhikkhu, I wasn’t thinking about keeping tally but would like to know how your mirror functions. What was on my mind was something that often worries me: even developing and dwelling in the Brhama Viharas is seen as being done for oneself. I sense a contradiction here – surely a truly open heart transcends concern for self as it embraces concern for all?
I guess, given this is a thread on Ethics, I might put that another way and worry about what I see as a lack of connection between sīla and the BVs. … They are part of Right Intention, and Right Intention preceeds sīla, … Have I just answered my own question …? … It’s getting late … I’ll look for your answer tomorrow.
While waiting for Ven Khemaratos reply re the mirror, maybe this perspective might be helpful.
The more defilements, the harder it is to have that open heart. So in order to be able to be kind and care for others, one has to have an open heart, and to do that one needs to reduce the defilements, and this is done by looking after oneself by meditating (sati and samadhi), and in order to meditate one must have a level of sila, that enables a calm and peaceful, unagitated, mind. So keeping sila directly leads to the capacity to be kind, by keeping defilements at bay through the practice of meditation. Sila > Brahmaviharas.
Lack of sila > agitation > presence of defilements > barrier to Brahmaviharas.
Sila > peacefulness > absence of defilements > access to BV’s
So I think rather than thinking that one is developing sila for oneself, one can view it as being done in order to transform oneself into a kinder and more compassionate Being. The direct benefits to oneself cannot be separated out from the benefits to others. It just happens (cause and effect) that, the kinder and more compassionate one is; 1) the personal outcome is less suffering here and now and in any future re-birth! And 2) the outcomes for other Beings is that whatever interactions they have with you, are with a harmless, kind and compassionate person
Attempting Right Effort While Acknowledging Delusion
The Khemarato Grand Unified Theory of Buddhist Ethics
In my understanding…
Karma means there’s no actual distance between the inner motives and the outer effects.
∑(inputs) = ∑(outputs)
So, yes. There’s no actual tension between purifying your mind and helping others. Our actions will have an effect exactly commensurate with their mental drivers.
We gain confidence in this hypothesis by paying close attention to our inputs and outputs. For example, by considering how, in real life, a gift given to a co-worker out of sexual attraction will feel very different than a gift given out of gratitude, or one given to apologize, or one given to ingratiate, or or or… Same act (giving a gift) but different motives lead to different results, right?
In Buddhism, we call this the āsava: our (seemingly) “private” mental states “leaking out” into our “public” actions.
Eventually I realized, “hey wait. If I want Max(outputs) then I have to Max(inputs)” because whatever is in my heart will eventually show. If your mind is not so private, you’d better clean up in there! That means obsessively purifying my mind, and because a clearer mind can also strategize better, etc this can lead to nonlinear growth.
BUT there’s a bootstrapping problem! I come with delusion: Sometimes, I mistake an unwholesome motivation for a wholesome one. Or visversa.
So what do I do?
This is where we can use our formula in reverse:
∑(outputs) = ∑(inputs)
If a situation with a friend goes badly, I can reflect… wait… did I bring any sticky, greedy, selfish, controlling, bitter, angry, conceited, etc, etc energy into this? Looking closely at the outcomes we can sometimes get insights into what we brought in that our capacity for self-deception didn’t let us see directly at the time.
Now, of course, it takes a very long time for karma to ripen, so measuring results like this is problematic. Maybe the situation with that friend is entirely the result of past-life drama! But, whereas mindfulness gives feedback very quickly, it’s also more subjective to our blind spots.
Which brings us to prescriptive morality: ie the five precepts. This gives us a middle frame of reference between mind states and final outcomes. We look at our actions and compare them against a sensible list of proscribed actions which almost certainly indicate bad inputs (and thus bad outcomes). This has the benefit of being both relatively unbiased (by motivated reasoning) and immediate in its feedback, but at the cost of being arbitrary and decontextual. That’s not too bad a deal for e.g. murder where not adhering to the rule (e.g. war) is much worse than holding it too strictly (e.g. passing a harmful ban on abortion). Of course this kind of “dogmatic danger” gets more tricky as the rules become more specific and contextual, as in the monastic rules.
In conclusion,
We use mindfulness of the mind, actions, and the external effects of our actions to get three different snapshots of the karma we’re creating. Like how astronomers watch distant galaxies in different wavelengths of light, each lens on our karma has its strengths and weaknesses in terms of what it can tell us, but taken together they paint a more accurate and complete picture than any one perspective alone even though all three are describing the same underlying reality.
An interesting perspective/conclusion It raises some questions for me.
I’m interested to know why /how/if you find focusing on ‘possible’ types of kamma resulting from actions/speech/thought, of more use than focusing on the defilements and their impact on mind states I assume here you are trying to get a measure on the sila factors of the Noble 8 fold path…
I understand that you are trying to compensate for delusion, but I don’t see how your model leads to greater clarity. I’ve always felt that Kamma is extremely complex and that it is very easy ( or even likely) to get it wrong… no matter the number of ‘snap-shots’ one has.
Also how does the aim of no longer creating kamma fit into your model?
So to illustrate
To me it feels different because of the motives or intention… degree of purity/sila inherent in the act. The less the defilements the more the purity > more peaceful the feelings etc. In my view the kamma, is a by-product that is uncertain. When all defilements are completely ended, there is no more kamma created, one abides in Nibbana
So here, it is not so much if the ‘situation goes badly’. (which requires some kind of definition of good/bad). but rather how one feels about the situation. ‘I feel uncomfortable with how that went’ - I need to mindfully explore whether my motives and intentions were pure, or if there were defilements present that caused these feelings. However the situation goes, it may have nothing to do with you (your inputs) and be entirely out of your control and a result of that persons processes etc. Instead, one reflects on the feelings that result, and investigates ones own conduct. To what degree was it wholesome or unwholesome.
So here, it is all about Right View. In my opinion this factor is the foundation of the N8fp - the ability to differentiate the wholesome from the unwholesome is what enables progress along the path. It is attained with stream entry, and after that it is just a process, no more returning to wrong view.
By introducing kamma into the mix for evaluating ones behaviour I feel it introduces a perspective that can lead to more mistakes - because the definition of what goes well and what goes badly is tied to social norms, and personal desires, and not reality as the Buddha teaches, (which has the characteristic of going against the stream. So to tie this to your example above, the feedback from the friend would only be useful if they were a Noble One, and would be reacting without defilements. Again this highlights the importance of the degree of defilements rather than an assessment of potential kamma.
So here, I understand you are applying the mindfulness to the consequences of your actions, though I don’t see how this is any less subject to blind spots. Mindfulness on the nature of the feelings and thoughts that arise as a consequence of ones actions, appears to me to be more reliable. We know that they are reliable because of the dependent causality of them, as the Buddha taught.
So basically to try to bring this all together… I’m wondering why you choose to focus on kamma as an investigative tool into conduct by body speech and mind, rather than using the tools of D.O as they relate to this life.
And to give it an even broader context in line with the question of ethics… I have a bit of a different take… One of the things I love about what the Buddha taught is that there is no ‘moral principle’ that exists in it’s own right. ‘Morals’ (eg precepts) are simply those things that lead to a happy and peaceful life, that are conducive to progress along the path, or just lead to more harmony and happiness in this life. EG killing in itself isn’t bad… it is bad because it causes suffering, for others by depriving them of life, and for one self because it leads to regret and remorse, and an agitated mind, as well as living in fear from revenge, being despised by others etc. etc… - so because it directly leads to suffering. And it is the mind state that determines kamma and future rebirths. In Buddism I think there is no good v/s evil just wise versus foolish, and wholesome, skillful and beneficial, as opposed to their reverse. Causes and effects - suffering and the end of suffering -that is all
Just some food for thought.
Added:disclaimer, I’ve never read anything (including the book in the OP) about ‘Buddhist ethics’ as philosophy… only the EBT’s
I totally agree with everything you have written. And thank you for helping me to clarity the causes/conditions of my anxiety more clearly:
Why do Buddhist groups so often get caught up in discussion of how kamma works (or other matters), rather than how of how to develop and open a compassionate heart and ways of acting from that space?
Perhaps Ven Khemarato’s calculus is doing just that, but it’s a very complicated convoluted argument (like many about kamma lol)
Wonderful to see early air-born notions coming to land. But I see a fault. What about unexpected causes intervening where you have placed the equals sign?
A very able exposition/?demonstration of why it’s hard to draw up proper comparisons between Western and Eastern ethics.
You are both making important points.
However, would it be unBuddhist to construct a simpler ethics based on the open heart?
Because deep inside us unawakened beings are always looking for excuses or reasonings to not do what needs to be done…
And what most powerful excuse would be the idea of a Buddha who did not talk about our intentions, choices and actions being effective and us being morally responsible for the welfare of others and our own selves?
In my view, this gets to the crux of it, and is also the point of tension. While the doctrine of Not-self removes the agent from the picture, it doesn’t leave a void or vacuum because one is constantly and mindfullly kind to all Beings. It just means one isn’t responsible / doesn’t personally assume responsibility for what occurs.
I believe that one behaves more ‘ethically’ because there is no ‘self’ and less craving driving the choices - just a process of non-harm, kindness, metta and compassion. This is like the difference between ‘I have to fix everything or I’m bad/a failure’ and ‘I want to be harmless, and kind and compassionate in every way I can’. The first leads to suffering and the second to Liberation
And so its time for me to be ‘kind’ and stop stirring the pot Please accept my apology if I have not expressed myself skillfully and have caused offence, it was not meant that way.
Thanks @Gillian for your comments, and Ven Khemarato and Gabriel for your ideas, I hope my words did not come across as harsh or divisive’, I was just curious.
May we handle all our differences of opinion skillfully… (milk) (water)
With much appreciation and metta and wishing everyone a beautiful day
Paul Harrison seems to have made a similar observation:
scholars need to leave the campus and enter the monastery, in one way or another, they need to look real Buddhists in the eye, otherwise we run the risk of the Buddhology of idealisation, or the Buddhology of contempt: of admiring or deploring an abstraction of our own making.
It raises some questions for me.
I assume here you are trying to get a measure on the sila factors of the Noble 8 fold path…
Just some food for thought. 
(milk) 
(water) 
