rightaction

Right action is simple: be a good person.

• Do not kill

• Do not steal

• Do not engage in sexual misconduct

Not killing is straightforward and extends to animals too. Don’t worry if you accidentally stand on an ant; intention is the thing that matters in buddhism.

Not stealing is also straightforward, however there is always room for nuance in the practical side of the dhamma. If you steal bread to save the life of a child, you’re still in the right.

Not stealing extends to lying and manipulating in business. The emission scandals for example, or many accepted modern business practices, are wrong-action. Carbon credits and statistical arbitrage trading are probably wrong action too, but they didn’t exist in the b-man’s time so aren’t in the suttas.

Not engaging in sexual misconduct does not mean you need to be celibate; it just means do not use sexuality in harmful ways. Rape and molestation, of course, but also adultery, revenge porn, indecent exposure, and any other form of sexual behaviour which causes harm.

In short: be a good person. Help the people around you. Do not act through self-interest, apart from in terms of ensuring that you are building good or not-good-not-bad kamma.

You’re free to ride your motorbike and jump out of airplanes. You don’t have to engage in copious amounts of charity or give away your house. You can live your life the way you want to, so long as you don’t harm others.

Again it comes back to the fact that you do not have a lasting self around which all these zero-sum actions can accumulate.

You are both the stone thrown and the ripples created. The stone will disappear and the ripples will remain. Make sure they are good.

/jb202509181337