That is interesting that you mention that, because I spent years going to Buddhist meditation centers (of the Lama Ole type) and at some level still identify with it. However I never understood it as a sense of ethical duties or maxims I must exert my will to follow, but rather a set of practices that will put me in a state of bliss and natural compassion where I won't need to exert wil in this regard, goodness will just naturally flow from me. In this sense I am not even sure Buddhist ethics even exists if we define ethics as something you must force yourself to follow even if you really not feel like doing so. And I have always seen compassion in the B. sense as a form of gain to yourself - reducing the ego by focusing on other people's problems, thus our own problems will look smaller because we see our own self as something less important. (I don't practice it much anymore, because I realized if a "religion" is based on reincarnation there is no pressing need to work on it right now, it is not like I can ever be too late for that bus, so you should only work on it if you really feel like doing so. And frankly, these years I feel like being way more "evil" than Ole :) )