The Dhamma was very appealing to merchants and bankers like Anathapindika who had no place in the Vedic system. The businessmen could appreciate the Buddha’s “skillful” ethics, because it was based on the principle of shrewd investment. It would yield a profitable return, in this existence and the next. Monks were trained to be mindful of their fleeting mental states; lay followers were directed to appanada (attentiveness) in their financial and social dealings. The Buddha told them to save for an emergency, look after their dependents, give alms to bhikkhus, avoid debt, make sure that they had enough money for the immediate needs of their families, and invest money carefully. They were to be thrifty, sensible and sober. In the Sigalavada Sutta, the most developed sermon on lay morality, Sigala was instructed to avoid alcohol, late nights, gambling, laziness and bad company. There is a lay version of the Fire Sermon, in which the disciple is urged to tend the three “good fires”: taking care of his dependents; caring for his wife, children and servants; and supporting the bhikkhus in all the different sanghas.

But, as always, the cardinal virtue was compassion. One day King Pasenedi and his wife had a discussion in which each admitted that nothing was dearer to them than their own selves. This was obviously not a view that the Buddha could share, but when the king told him about this conversation, the Buddha did not chide him, launch into a discussion of anatta, or preach a sermon on the Eightfold Path. Instead, as usual, he entered into Pasenedi’s viewpoint, and built on what was in his mind-not on what the Buddha thought should be there. He did not, therefore, tell the king that the self was a delusion, because without a life of regular yoga, he would not be able to “see” this. Instead, he told him to consider this: if he found that there was nothing dearer to him than himself, it must also be true that other people also cherished their “separate selves.” Therefore, the Buddha concluded, “a person who loves the self, should not harm the self of others.” He should follow what other traditions have called the Golden Rule: “Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you.” Laymen could not extinguish their egotism entirely, but they could use their experience of selfishness to empathize with other people’s vulnerability. This would take them beyond the excesses of ego and introduce them to ahimsa.

We see the way the Buddha preached to lay people in his famous sermon to the Kalamans, a people who lived on the northernmost fringe of the Ganges basin and who had once run a tribal republic, but were now subject to Kosala. Gradually, they were being drawn into the new urban civilization and were finding the experience unsettling and undermining. When the Buddha passed through their town of Kesaputta, they sent a delegation to ask his advice. One ascetic, one teacher after another had descended upon them, they explained; but each monk and brahmin expounded his own doctrines and reviled everybody else’s. Not only did these dhammas contradict one another, they were also alien, coming as they did from the sophisticated mainstream culture. “Which of these teachers was right and which wrong?” they asked. The Buddha replied that he could see why the Kalamans were so confused. As always, he entered completely into their position. He did not add to their confusion by reeling off his own Dhamma, and giving them one more doctrine to contend with, but held an impromptu tutorial (reminiscent of the question-and-answer techniques of such other Axial sages as Socrates and Confucius) to help the Kalamans work things out for themselves. He started by telling them that one of the reasons for their bewilderment was that they were expecting other people to tell them the answer, but when they looked into their own hearts, they would find that in fact they knew what was right already.

“Come, Kalamans,” he said, “do not be satisfied with hearsay or taking truth on trust.” People must make up their own minds on questions of morality. Was greed, for example, good or bad? “Bad, Lord,” the Kalamans replied. Had they noticed that when somebody is consumed by desire and determined to get what he wants, that he is likely to kill, steal or lie? Yes, the Kalamans had observed this. And did not this type of behavior make the selfish person unpopular and, therefore, unhappy? And what about hatred, or clinging to what were obviously delusions instead of trying to see things as they really were? Did not these emotions all lead to pain and suffering? Step by step, he asked the Kalamans to draw upon their own experience and perceive the effect of the “three fires” of greed, hatred and ignorance. By the end of their discussion, the Kalamans found that in fact they had known the Buddha’s Dhamma already. “That is why I told you not to rely on any teacher,” the Buddha concluded. “When you know in yourselves that these things are ‘helpful’ (kusala) and those ‘unhelpful’ (akusala), then you should practice this ethic and stick to it, whatever anybody else tells you.”

He had also convinced the Kalamans that while they should avoid greed, hatred and delusion, it would also obviously be beneficial to practice the opposite virtues: “non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion.” If they cultivated benevolence, kindness and generosity, and tried to acquire a sound understanding of life, they would find that they were happier people. If there was another life to come (the Buddha did not impose the doctrine of reincarnation upon the Kalamans, who might not have been familiar with it), then this good kamma might get them reborn as gods in heaven next time. If there was no other world, then this considerate and genial lifestyle might encourage others to behave in like manner toward themselves. At the very least, they would know that they had behaved well-and that was always a comfort. To help the Kalamans build up this “skillful” mentality, the Buddha taught them a meditative technique that was a lay person’s version of the “immeasurables.” First they must try to rid their minds of envy, feelings of ill will and delusion. Then they should direct feelings of loving-kindness in every direction. As they did so, they would experience an enhanced, enlarged existence. They would find that they were imbued with “abundant, exalted, measureless loving-kindness”; they would break out of the confines of their own limited viewpoint and embrace the whole world. They would transcend the pettiness of egotism and, for a moment, experience an ecstasy that took them out of themselves, “above, below, around and everywhere,” and would feel their hearts expand with disinterested equanimity. Laymen and -women might not be able to attain the permanence of Nibbana, but they could have intimations of that final release.

The Buddha was, therefore, teaching monks and lay folk alike a compassionate offensive to mitigate the egotism that prevailed in the aggressive new society and that debarred human beings from the sacred dimension of life. The skillful state that he was trying to promote is well expressed in this poem in the Pali Canon: