Taking the precepts must be voluntary. You must be willing to curb your actions and speech. If you are forced to do so, then the precepts will only create frustration and anger; they will not help you in attaining samadhi, or even in your daily life.

It is not only for attaining samadhi that you should take the five precepts; it also signifies that you want to accept the teachings of the Buddha. In addition to taking the refuges, they are the basic requirement for being a Buddhist. When you follow these precepts, your behavior will be different from the ordinary person's. Either people will recognize that your actions and speech are different because you are a Buddhist, or, conversely, they will surmise that you are a Buddhist by your actions and speech. At this point, whether you practice to attain samadhi is another issue. Even if you do not meditate, but wish only to be a basic Buddhist, you should take the five precepts.

Do people's attitudes concerning the five precepts change as they journey deeper into practice? Yes, definitely. The precepts can be viewed from three levels. The first is the "individual liberation precept." It is the level of the ordinary practitioner. Here the precepts are held one by one, from one period of time to the next. Each precept is taken and followed separately. If you are sincere in keeping a particular precept, then you will acquire the benefits of that precept. It does not mean that you will, or can, hold all five precepts simultaneously.

The second level is the "precept that is in conjunction with samadhi." When people move sufficiently deeply into samadhi, they will no longer have any desire to break any of the precepts, and will naturally refrain from breaking them. If people claim to have attained deep samadhi, yet break the precepts, then the samadhi they speak of is not genuine.