Growing up in London in the 1960s and protesting against the Vietnam War, Ajahn Brahm could never imagine that serving in the military was compatible with being a Buddhist. But a meeting with Buddhist servicemen in Britain caused him to rethink the ethics of military service and to challenge his own preconceptions. This talk is a thoughtful exploration of the ethics of serving in the military and various situations in life where simplistic, rules-based ethics falls short. Ajahn Brahm asks people to look at ethical choices from multiple perspectives and to be informed not just by rules, but compassionate intentions and wisdom. And to not judge the difficult ethical decisions others make until we’ve looked at it from other perspectives.

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This dhamma talk was originally recorded using a low quality MP3 to save on file size on 27th April 2007. It has now been remastered and published by the Everyday Dhamma Network, and will be of interest to his many fans.

These talks by Ajahn Brahm have been recorded and made available for free distribution by the Buddhist Society of Western Australia under the Creative Commons licence. You can support the Buddhist Society of Western Australia by pledging your support via their Ko-fi page.