Buddhist Thought of the Day - Verbal Non-Virtues

Even though the training in ethics takes many forms, the ethics of abandoning the ten non-virtues is their basis. Of the ten non-virtues, three pertain to bodily actions, four to verbal actions, and three to mental actions.

The four verbal non-virtues are:

1. Lying: deceiving others through spoken words or physical gestures.
2. Divisiveness: creating dissension by causing those in agreement to disagree still further.
3. Harshness: abusing others.
4. Senselessness: talking about foolish things motivated by desire and so forth.

The opposite of these ten non-virtues are the ten virtues, and engaging in them is called the practice of ethics.

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