BUDDHIST FIVE PRECEPTS: NECESSITY AND BENEFITS

Abstract

Five Precepts are the minimal ethical code binding on the Buddhist laity, they are administered regularly by the monks to the lay disciples at almost every service and ceremony, following immediately upon the giving of the three refuges. They are also undertaken afresh each day by earnest lay. Buddhists as part of their daily recitation. The precepts function as the core of the training in moral discipline. They are intended to produce, through methodical practice, that inner purity of will and motivation, which comes to expression as virtuous bodily and verbal conduct. Hence the equivalent term for precept, sikkhāpada, which means literally “factor of training "that is, a factor of the training in moral discipline.