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Morality

Morality as one of the Three Trainings encompasses every aspect of life that is not related to formal meditation practice.

It includes how we speak, how we think, how we act, our livelihood, relationships, politics, psychology, philosophy, and every other aspect of how we live in the ordinary sense. Thus, it is a vast area of work that cannot be mastered in all its aspects.

It tends to assume that we have control of our lives, that we can make wise choices about how we live, and that by trying to live some version of a good, helpful, moral life, however defined, that our lives and the lives of those around us will be better.

Training in morality focuses on the specifics of what occurs, meaning that the specific qualities of what happens matter, what we think, feel, say and do matters, and that causality matters, which means that the universe follows its laws, and the better we understand the laws of the universe, the better we will do.

These assumptions are contrasted with some of the assumptions of the other trainings, particularly those of insight practices, which tend to be less concerned with the specifics and more concerned with universal aspects, such as the Three Characteristics and tend to emphasize things happening on their own rather than us being in control.

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