CTP (Audio air-date release: TBD) G. Scott Graham Buddhism 8 Precepts BTS/SP Video
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00:00Welcome to the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast, a.k.a. CTP.
00:07I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D.
00:12CTP is your no-must, no-fuss, just-me, you, and occasional-guest type podcast.
00:19I really appreciate you tuning in.
00:22As Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show!
00:25Welcome to another episode of the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast.
00:33We're not going to really talk Christian.
00:35We're not going to really talk politics.
00:38Well, maybe a little of both mixed in, but we're going to talk Buddhism.
00:43Now, now, now, don't freak out.
00:47Don't jump to conclusions.
00:48Don't tune out.
00:49I'm a Christian.
00:50I'm staying a Christian.
00:52That's not to say Buddhism, as a philosophy, does not have some wonderful things to discuss.
01:01And to do that, joining me today is G. Scott Graham.
01:06Should I call you G or Scott?
01:10You can call me Scott.
01:12Okay.
01:13Some people say G when they're like, G-Wiz, what are you doing?
01:16But, no, Scott is fine.
01:18It's great to be here.
01:26Start with the proverbial first things first.
01:29Cue the who song.
01:31Who are you?
01:33Who, who, who, who, right?
01:36Where were you born?
01:37Where were you raised?
01:38How much time did you spend in prison?
01:41All those things.
01:42Well, I was, uh, born in Cleveland, Ohio, and I moved to Florida when my parents retired.
01:51They were, I was born late in life, my mom used to say.
01:56And, uh, it was her surprise present.
02:00And I'm, uh, um, went to, I was, went to seven, went to 12 years of parochial education, Catholic
02:09education, um, graduated from the University of South Florida, moved to New England to work
02:15for Outward Bound.
02:17Uh, and that's where at some point I started working for the Department of Corrections and
02:24a person encouraged me to-
02:25Oh, so you actually did spend time in prison, but as a guard.
02:32Well, I was, I was actually as a therapist and, uh, and really helping, you know, Vermont's
02:38got a very progressive approach to incarceration, which is we all could get incarcerated at some
02:45point.
02:46We made some bad decisions.
02:48Let's make sure you're going to not make those bad decisions again.
02:51And so they work towards people getting their degrees, you know, high school degrees or
02:57other degrees, getting sober, those types of things that can just keep them out of prison.
03:02And so I managed a program that really focused on those things for the entire state at one
03:08point.
03:09Um, which is, I did go to prison.
03:12Oh yeah, there's a little delay here, which is of course, very Christian.
03:16I am very much for prison as partial punishment, but let's try to reform them and make them
03:25good members of society, set them up to succeed when they're out, not become habitual re-offenders
03:33and returning, yes?
03:36Mm-hmm.
03:36Yes, exactly.
03:39And then somebody at one point convinced me, I was a, he was another therapist in the program
03:45that I worked and he was trying to convince me to go to, uh, take a Vipassana course, which
03:51is a prison, uh, because you cut yourself off of society for 10 days.
03:56There's no talking, there's no, um, reading, there's no writing, there's no music.
04:01You're in total silence for 10 days and spending most of those days with your eyes closed or
04:07in a little, um, kind of meditation cell, which is kind of like a broom closet.
04:13Um, and you only get a meal and a half a day and you're really focused on meditating for
04:19those 10 days.
04:20And I've done enough of those that I've accrued 260 days of that type of prison under my belt.
04:27Um, and I didn't, I didn't want to go cause I was like, this is some sort of cult.
04:30This is some sort of religious thing.
04:32And I discovered it's not.
04:34You mentioned it earlier when you said, you know, hold on, don't turn off the channel.
04:40We're going to talk about Buddhism.
04:42Buddhism's a philosophy.
04:44It's not so much of a religion.
04:45We think of it as a religion out West.
04:48And there are some sects like Tibetan Buddhism has more of a religious spin, but Buddhism at
04:55its core is, is you could be a Christian Buddhist.
04:58There's no, except these, um, tenants.
05:04There's no beings to worship.
05:06There's no, um, religious values to believe.
05:11There's not, there, there's, it's not like that at all.
05:14You don't have to make it.
05:16It's really grounded in.
05:17Yeah.
05:17You don't have to make it such, like you said, some do actually worship the Buddha and others
05:24view it as a philosophy.
05:26And meditation is one of those very positive health benefit, mental and physical wise things.
05:35I had on Jeff Patterson, we talked meditation, uh, without the Buddhist connection.
05:41But of course, automatically when one hears meditation, they think, um, right?
05:50It, it, it can be, but not really.
05:52I mean, in traditional Buddhism, there is not, you're, you're not doing that.
05:57You're not doing that at all.
05:58There is no, um, there is no prayers.
06:00There is really just, um, uh, strong determination and focus of your mind.
06:07Um, that's what it is.
06:08In fact, the meditation place that I have trained at a lot, you, you would go in there.
06:13There's nothing there.
06:14There's no Buddhas.
06:15There's no, there is nothing there that you would look at and say, oh, that's what it is.
06:20It looks like just a big public hall, um, of empty space.
06:24Um, that's it.
06:26That's it.
06:26Yeah.
06:27Well, let me backtrack.
06:29Why is G Scott Graham here?
06:33He's the author of Living the Eight Precepts, How Ancient Buddhist Ethics Can Help People.
06:40Uh, and for those viewing behind the scenes video, you could see he held up the book.
06:46For those listening on audio or reading the transcript, why aren't you watching the video?
06:52You'd have seen it.
06:55Yeah, there we go.
06:57There we go.
06:58Yeah, so, so when you sit down and you take a meditation course, you agree to follow eight
07:07precepts for those 10 days that you're in prison.
07:09Um, and they're Buddhist precepts.
07:12Traditional Buddhists follow five precepts.
07:15And then if you're on a meditation course, you'll follow three or three more to bring
07:21it to eight.
07:22Monks follow, you know, hundreds of precepts.
07:25And really, they're geared towards right living.
07:28And so the book that I wrote takes those precepts and says, what does that look like in your
07:33regular life?
07:35Because the precepts are, let me go through the precepts.
07:39I'm going to put my glasses on here so I can actually, I'm going to actually, I don't want
07:42to just make a mistake.
07:43Yeah, oh, I, I do that often when I'm talking about my books on other shows, I'll pick up
07:51a piece.
07:52I can't memorize this.
07:54I wrote this, but I don't have it memorized.
07:59Right.
08:00Right.
08:00Well, I don't want to misquote those.
08:02So I'm just going to read all eight of the precepts so that you can, you can say, okay,
08:06you know, is this, what are you saying here?
08:09Are you saying that you have to believe in this God or that God?
08:12What are, you know?
08:13So here's, here's what they are.
08:15Number one, to abstain from killing any being.
08:18Number two, to abstain from stealing.
08:21Number three, to abstain from sexual misconduct.
08:26Number four, to abstain from telling lies.
08:30Number five, to abstain from all intoxicants, which can lead to carelessness.
08:35Number six, to abstain from eating after midday.
08:40Number seven, to abstain from sensual entertainment and bodily decoration.
08:45And number eight, to abstain from using high or luxurious beds.
08:52Those are the eight precepts.
08:53And a lot of that is more or less embodied in Christian scripture too.
09:00Although I have to take issue with number one, thou, you know, abstain from killing anyone.
09:09Christianity, the commandment really in original Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek is thou shalt not murder innocents.
09:19Because Exodus 22, 2 alone speaks of someone, a thief in the night, dealt the fatal blow.
09:29You are not guilty of murder.
09:33You have killed, but that's not murder.
09:37So I, I definitely adhere to try not to kill anybody, but there are times it is forgivable.
09:51Self-defense for one.
09:53Uh-oh.
09:55Yeah, these, uh-oh.
09:59Uh-oh, we're having technical issues with Scott.
10:04All of the core piece of the, while you're, while you're doing it.
10:07You, you, I need you to start over because your internet froze, you froze up.
10:12We just got a frozen screen there for a minute.
10:15Respond again.
10:19Do you remember what you were going to say?
10:22I do.
10:23I'm just, I'm just giving you a break.
10:24So, so that you, so, so the, so the big piece about this is your mental volition when you do something.
10:31Um, all of, all of Buddhism is really focused on your mindset.
10:38And they tell this story.
10:40They say, you know, someone goes and they're, they're, they go see, uh, a doctor.
10:46And that doctor is trying to save that person.
10:48And he takes out a knife and sticks that knife in that person.
10:52And that person dies.
10:55Somebody else is trying to hurt somebody.
11:00Mean, ill, really bad, ill will.
11:03And that person uses the same knife.
11:07Same place where they stick that knife in, where the surgeon's sticking in, stuck it in.
11:12Both people died.
11:14There's a difference between that.
11:16And that's mental volition.
11:18Absolutely.
11:20Yeah.
11:21Intent.
11:21Yes, absolutely.
11:25So there's, there's, it's, it's not even so much of, of, of, yeah, I guess intent is it, it's like, what is your state of mind?
11:34Are you, are you full of anger?
11:36Are you full of compassion?
11:38Are you trying to be helpful?
11:40Um, you know, what is, what is that piece?
11:44And it's, and it's not just focused on, uh, uh, people, you know, someone could be really angry at their dog and have really ill intent and shoot that dog, um, because they don't like how that dog's behaving.
12:04And that main, that negative volition is just as bad as the volition of taking somebody else, shooting somebody, because it's not specifically the person, like a person's more valuable than a dog or a dog's more valuable than a fish.
12:21It's the amount of agitation and anger that you're creating in your own life that's creating the problem.
12:27Yeah.
12:28That's an important distinction.
12:30Yeah.
12:30All of these pieces.
12:31And I think actually your pause and almost desire to push back on my word, use of the word intent is good too, because indeed there's degrees.
12:42There's a difference between premeditated murder and negligent homicide where you may not have intended to kill, but you did.
12:53You're then guilty of a negligent homicide in certain cases where there was no ill intent, but the result was the same.
13:05So yeah, all those things factor.
13:08Exactly, exactly.
13:12The same thing goes with telling lies, right?
13:15If somebody's coming to your house and looking to hurt your kids and your kids are in the back room and they say, are your kids here?
13:25And you say, no, they're not.
13:27That's not, is that a lie?
13:29That your intent for that person is to, is to protect them and care for them.
13:32But there's another piece that happens around lying that most people are incredibly sloppy with.
13:40We exaggerate.
13:41We're trying to look great with somebody else.
13:45We're kind of manipulating somebody else's perception.
13:48That type of, when it comes back down to the intent and the, and the volition of your mind, that kind of lying is really hurtful.
13:58It's really hurtful for you because you, in order to commit that lie, think about how much agitation you have to create or what you're having to do in the background in order to get to the point.
14:11To do that, it's like, right?
14:16It's like speaking ill, speaking ill, ill of somebody, right?
14:20You, there are some people that speak ill of everybody, but most of the time in order to say, you know, who is this person and who is this, you know, they're this or they're that.
14:32And we call them all kinds of names before that even happens.
14:36The person who has to say that has to generate like a lot of internal agitation, a lot of internal misery to be able to call that other person out.
14:49They're just a miserable person, right?
14:51And that person really should have our passion because if you're, if you're happy and you're loving, you're not going around calling other people names and being mean spirited.
15:01Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
15:05Hyperbole, right.
15:06In the intent.
15:07Are you trying to puff yourself?
15:09I joke all the time.
15:11I'm not a hoarder.
15:14But I am a slob.
15:16I can be honest with myself and others about that to say, oh, I'm not a hoarder and just leave it that and imply you.
15:26Let me.
15:27I always joke about the ugly.
15:28Like, look at all that garbage under the green screen there.
15:33You know, I am definitely a slob.
15:38And right.
15:39The wife now asked, do these jeans make me look fat?
15:44Oh, no, honey.
15:46Right.
15:47Little white lies.
15:49And the intent, as you said, is of keeping the peas and, you know, they don't make you look fat, but obviously you put on a few pounds, right?
16:01No, we just don't need to go there to be.
16:05It's about being pleasant and nice and coexisting.
16:10Oh, you froze again.
16:18Okay.
16:20I am talking just to fill space because Scott has frozen again.
16:26I'm not sure if he's coming back.
16:33Oh, now you're back.
16:35Okay.
16:35You froze again on me.
16:37Oh, and he's frozen again.
16:47Oh, you froze again.
16:49But now you're back.
16:51Now I'm not.
16:52I'm just, I'm just.
16:54I'm back.
16:55Yes.
16:56Yeah.
16:57No.
16:58So, so, so where were we?
17:00Where were you in this conversation?
17:01Well, I challenged precept one, but ultimately we do agree.
17:09It's a matter of semantics and nuance and gray areas.
17:16And everything isn't always necessarily black and white.
17:20There are gray areas.
17:22Yes.
17:24That is true.
17:25And so I went ahead and in, in the book, one of the things I push around this is what
17:31are those gray areas?
17:33You need to decide what, what that precept means to you, right?
17:38What the, what does it mean to follow that precept?
17:41Somebody, one person, there are some Buddhist traditions that are so focused on abstaining
17:49life and not telling lies that they hardly even talk.
17:52And they walk incredibly slow so that they're not even killing any bugs.
17:58Oh my.
17:59They wear masks like we had in COVID so that they are not accidentally even inhaling bugs.
18:07They're very, very specific about that approach to life.
18:12And so you have to figure out what that means for you and how you're going to integrate that
18:19in your own life.
18:20Yeah.
18:21Because it's not necessarily black and white, like you might see in some Christian writings
18:28where it says, this is it.
18:31This is exactly, explicitly what it says.
18:33Or then you trace it back and you say, okay, it's not a rule book.
18:37It's, it's an intent.
18:39It's a focus.
18:40That's why it says to abstain from killing versus thou shalt not kill.
18:47Okay.
18:48Yeah.
18:49As you might see that it's, it's, it's not a rule piece.
18:53It is a piece that is about your choice and the direction that you're going in and you
19:00want to go in in your life.
19:01Yeah.
19:02And that's why I make the clarification though.
19:05It's not thou shalt not kill.
19:06It's thou shalt not murder innocence.
19:09There, you know, the whole Bible in full context, there may be that rule, but there is other
19:18context that there can sometimes be exceptions to a rule.
19:24That gray area thing and a, a, a, an aspiration to be the best we can be, but we're all human,
19:36frail, flawed, and indeed fall short.
19:40And like you said, yeah, the, the only way to not even accidentally say something you might
19:47not mean because subconsciously, again, do these genes make me look fat response, right?
19:53Oh no, honey.
19:55Right.
19:56Your, your nature is just sometimes, Oh, what a pleasant day.
20:01Well, I don't think it's pleasant, but to be nice, I'm going to say, yeah, what a great
20:05day.
20:05It's just part of being conversationally, societally nice humans.
20:11The only way to avoid any lie, white lie, or otherwise, as you said, is to sew your mouth
20:19shut.
20:21Right.
20:22Right.
20:24The, the, a core piece about that, that, that people hear over and over again around
20:30these pieces is to put these things in practice in your own life.
20:37And you, you hear over and over again in Buddhist writings, the Buddha said it, other, other teachers
20:43say it all the time.
20:44Do not follow these paths blindly.
20:47Put these in place as a practice and see if it benefits you.
20:52If it benefits you, then continue to practice that.
20:56If it doesn't benefit you, then throw it out.
20:59Most times you sit down and say, okay, how can I be better?
21:03Like, let's just take lying.
21:05Right.
21:05Somebody might be an over-exaggerator and they find that, that, that is really driven by
21:12their own fear and insecurities.
21:14They're thinking about it.
21:15I mean, these things don't happen in a vacuum.
21:18Someone doesn't over-exaggerate.
21:20Someone doesn't have hubris.
21:21Someone doesn't lie about things that it, when they have it all together, these things start
21:27because you don't have it all together.
21:29And so if you start practicing these pieces and then you find, wow, I'm, I'm not as agitated
21:36anymore because I've gotten, I've had to deal with those things that are fueling those
21:42behaviors.
21:43I have more balance.
21:45Then why wouldn't you want to continue doing it?
21:50Yeah.
21:50Yeah.
21:51Why wouldn't you want to continue doing it?
21:52And again, like I said at the top, hope people didn't tune out.
21:58How does anyone have a problem with any of this?
22:02Right.
22:03I mean, seriously, I got to say, I'm worried about our connection issues.
22:09It keeps, you keep freezing and going in and out.
22:13So I'm going to cut us a little shorter than I would otherwise do.
22:17And indeed urge the value in people skinning your Living the Eight Precepts book.
22:26Do you have a personal or professional website people can go to?
22:34Yes, they can just go to gscottgraham.com.
22:38They can just Google G. Scott Graham and that should bring them right to all my books, information
22:45about me.
22:46I'll put, I'll even have this podcast listed there.
22:49Great.
22:50Sounds great.
22:51Absolutely.
22:52That's wonderful.
22:54Again, I'm sorry to cut it short, but I normally keep my shows to only 30 minutes.
23:02But with the connection issues, I think we've got out the main points we need to.
23:10And again, I just, I urge people again, don't get high.
23:16I'm hung up on the Buddhism thing by G. Scott Graham's Living the Eight Precepts.
23:24Studying that, understanding that, agreeing with some of that doesn't somehow make you less
23:32of a Christian.
23:33Well said.
23:37Well said.
23:37Well said, well said, Joseph.
23:39All right.
23:40Thank you again, G. Scott Graham.
23:44And I, of course, purposely keep repeating it to try to get it to stick in people's craw.
23:50You do.
23:50Thank you so much.
23:52Take care.
23:53God bless.
23:53Have a good one.
23:54Thank you for having tuned in for a Christianist politics show.
24:01If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, Terror
24:07Striped, coming soon to a city near you.
24:11Available anywhere books are sold.
24:13If you have locally run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you.
24:19And let me remind, over time, the fancy high production items will come.
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24:46So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
24:49Take care.
24:50God bless.
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