On yesterday’s programme we heard from apprentices at Sheffield University who start at 16 and are trained all the way to degree level in skills that equip them to work in industry. The presenter commented on the trainees’ energy and enthusiasm; the apprentices said how important it was to know they have a clear path to a good job; and others spoke about ‘the skills gap’ in the  wider economy.

Technical skills alone may not complete a rounded education. They don’t bring cultural knowledge and may not foster social skills; nor do they bring ethical awareness or a sense of meaning. Nonetheless, there’s something compelling about the process of mastering a skill. An important part of what I gained from my English degree was learning the skills of close reading and critical analysis. These days I get a kindred satisfaction from my efforts at cooking, gardening and DIY, and I don’t care what my family say about the results.

Rather than setting ordinary skills like these at odds with the ethical and spiritual matters that are the traditional preserve of religion, Buddhism uses the experience of developing a skill as a way to see them afresh. Each day when Buddhists recite the first of the five ethical precepts we say, “I undertake the training principle to refrain from causing harm”. Ethics, in other words, is something in which we train. Extending this language, Buddhism generally avoids speaking of good and evil and instead speaks of ethics as acting in a way that is ‘skilful’, and avoiding actions that are ‘unskilful’ .

To be ethically skilful in the Buddhist sense is to act with an awareness of one’s motivations and sensitivity to their likely consequences. Techniques and rules only get you so far, so Buddhist ethical training means applying principles thoughtfully and fostering the emotional intelligence and sensitivity. From this perspective, what it means to be ethical is no more a matter of subjective opinion than judging mastery of a practical skill.

To learn something and become good at it is inherently encouraging. We heard that in the voices of the Sheffield apprentices yesterday, and I think we need the same confidence and clarity of purpose in the whole of our lives. For the Buddha, living well means learning to respond skilfully to whatever happens and to develop our capity with the dedication of a master craftsman. As he says: ‘Irrigators draw off water; fletchers shape arrows; carpenters carve wood; the spiritually mature discipline themselves.’