Commandments vs Precepts

I am in the middle of reading "The Story of B" by David Quinn, which I borrowed it from a colleague. I will reserve my opinion until the end but so far I am not overly impressed by the book. There are some unique ideas, I guess, but both Evolution and Buddhism are misrepresented (the usual fare for both subjects).

This prompts me to write a bit about one of the major differences that is quite easy to describe between the Christianity (and, as you will see other Dogmatic Religions) and Buddhism (which I would not describe as a Religion at all, but that is a post for another day).

In Christianity, we are dealt the Ten Commandments. The first three deal with our relationship to God and the rest to our relationship with each other:

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'

THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'

FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'

FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'

SIX: 'You shall not murder.'

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

In Buddhism we have the five precepts (these are for laymen, there are many more for monks):

ONE: To refrain from destroying living creatures.

TWO: To refrain from taking what is not given.

THREE: To refrain from sexual misconduct.

FOUR: To refrain from incorrect speech.

FIVE: To refrain from intoxicating drinks and drugs which lead to carelessness.

The fist major difference is "You shall not..." vs. "To refrain from...". i.e. "you must never do this" compared to "try to avoid this". This ties into the second point...

The second major difference is also more subtle. While messages against murder, stealing, adultery, and lying are present in the precepts, there is a difference as to why they are there. These are seen as things to be avoided because they only bring people in contact with the three poisons. The three poisons are Greed, Anger and Delusion. The three poisons can all bring you happiness now, but in the long run they are all for naught. This is because the three poisons support the concept of the Ego; destroying Ego is a major theme in Buddhism. So to destroy your Ego, you cannot support it. The three poisons support your ego and the five precepts describe things that feed into the three poisons and thus should be avoided. The precepts are not hard and fast rules that you must must must obey simply because they are bad and wrong things. There is no concept of sin as such. If you go against the precepts, hey, that's ok. learn from you mistakes, get over it and get on with your life.

The opposite of the three poisons are Generosity, Love and Wisdom. All of which cultivate your true nature.