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What Keeps the World Human

AN 2.9, the Cariya Sutta — set 2, The Basic Diagnosis and the Path

Reading time: about 1 min · 109 words

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Before you read

What happens

The Buddha tells a group of monks about two qualities that protect the world.

Central question

What stops people from crossing the most basic boundaries?

Main point

Conscience and moral caution protect the human world. Conscience is the inward sense that an act would betray your own integrity. Moral caution looks outward, at the harm an act would cause.

Reading tip

This is a short teaching. Notice its two pictures: a world these qualities protect, and a world without them.

This text is not saying

The teaching does not praise guilt, shame, or fear. It names two protections that work together: one looks inward, and the other looks outward at harm.

Key words

These definitions are here so you do not need to know Pali or Buddhist vocabulary before reading.

bhikkhus
Buddhist monks -- those who have left household life to practise full time. The Buddha's usual way of addressing the assembly, roughly "friends" in force.
conscience
This project's rendering of "hiri" -- the inward ethical sense that recoils from an action because it would violate one's integrity. It does not mean guilt or toxic shame.
moral caution
This project's rendering of "ottappa" -- alertness to the harm and consequences of an unwholesome action. It is the outward-looking partner of conscience, not ordinary fear.
world
A word whose scope shifts with the teaching. It can mean the lived world we build through the senses and the mind, or the wider physical cosmos. The surrounding passage shows which sense it has.

Translation

Two Bright Qualities

"Bhikkhus, two bright qualities protect the world.

Which two?

Conscience and moral caution.

If these two bright qualities did not protect the world, people would stop respecting even the most basic sexual boundaries: mother, mother's sister, uncle's wife, teacher's wife, or the wife of someone they look up to.

The world would lose all sexual boundaries, like goats and sheep, chickens and pigs, dogs and jackals.

But because these two bright qualities do protect the world, people respect the boundaries around a mother, a mother's sister, an uncle's wife, a teacher's wife, and the wife of someone they look up to."

The ninth discourse is finished.

Words used in this translation (4)
bhikkhus
Buddhist monks -- those who have left household life to practise full time. The Buddha's usual way of addressing the assembly, roughly "friends" in force.
conscience
This project's rendering of "hiri" -- the inward ethical sense that recoils from an action because it would violate one's integrity. It does not mean guilt or toxic shame.
moral caution
This project's rendering of "ottappa" -- alertness to the harm and consequences of an unwholesome action. It is the outward-looking partner of conscience, not ordinary fear.
world
A word whose scope shifts with the teaching. It can mean the lived world we build through the senses and the mind, or the wider physical cosmos. The surrounding passage shows which sense it has.
Source and corrections