Which ethical rules are binding for a lay person? And what about alcohol, meat and vegetarianism?
New question - under review
The Vinaya prescribes no disciplinary penalty for a lay person who breaks these rules (secular law is a separate matter). But the five precepts (pañcasīla) are not advice either: they are pañca sikkhāpadāni, five training rules a person takes on themselves and keeps themselves.
The canonical five are abstention from:
- killing living beings (pāṇātipātā veramaṇī);
- taking what is not given (adinnādānā veramaṇī);
- sexual misconduct (kāmesu micchācārā veramaṇī);
- false speech (musāvādā veramaṇī);
- intoxicating drinks that are a ground for heedlessness (surāmerayamajjapamādaṭṭhānā veramaṇī).
The third precept does not require celibacy of a lay person: MN 41 spells it out with a historical list - women protected by mother, father, brother, sister, relatives or the Dhamma, married women, those whose company carries a penalty, and women who are betrothed.
AN 8.39 calls these five abstentions great gifts: whoever keeps them gives limitless beings freedom from fear and hostility, and gains a share in that freedom themselves.
The five precepts are not the whole of it. MN 41 works through the ten courses of action: three bodily, four of speech - false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter - and three of mind: covetousness, ill will, wrong view. Intention here is kamma itself: intending, a person acts by body, speech and mind (AN 6.63). And virtue (sīla) is only one division of the path: right speech, action and livelihood make up the aggregate of virtue, with concentration and wisdom following (MN 44). On uposatha days a lay person may take eight precepts for a day and a night (AN 8.41), including complete celibacy for that period; that is a voluntary load, not a standard.
Alcohol. Surā, meraya and majja are names of intoxicating drinks; extending the rule to modern substances is reasonable, but the Pali formula contains no literal list of them. It is worded as abstention, not as moderation: the suttas single out no permitted “glass of wine with dinner”, and it is more honest to say so than to bend the text to a habit. The argument is not about sin - intoxication takes out mindfulness, and with it the ability to hold the other precepts, though that is practical reasoning rather than a line of a sutta. DN 31 lists six everyday consequences of the habit: loss of money, quarrels, illness, a bad reputation, indecent exposure, weakened wisdom.
Meat. The early texts prescribe no general vegetarianism. MN 55 gives the threefold rule, and it is addressed first of all to monks receiving almsfood: meat is not to be eaten if you have seen, heard or suspect that the animal was killed for you specifically. It is not a ready guide to shopping in a supermarket. Devadatta demanded that five ascetic points be made compulsory, including lifelong abstention from fish and meat; the Buddha refused and confirmed the allowance of meat pure by the three conditions (Kd 17). Killing and the meat trade are nonetheless judged negatively: AN 5.177 lists trade in living beings and in meat among five occupations a lay follower should avoid, and MN 55 spells out separately how much demerit is accumulated by whoever kills an animal for an offering.
Morality still does not reduce to what is on the plate. The line that what defiles a person is not meat but cruelty, deceit and malice stands at Snp 2.2.
Where to read: AN 8.39, MN 41, MN 55.