Hello everybody,

One of the outstanding themes of the Eightfold Path is to be Virtuous, especially when it comes to right speech, right action, and right livelihood. But the deeper I go into meditative practice, the larger the problem I find with that.

We are trapped within this cage of the ego and the ultimate reality is that everything is one. And it is only due to our human societal conditioning that we have this conscience making judgements on what is good and bad. So wouldn't that imply that our ego is what defines what is "right", what is "virtuous"? It does not seem like there is a true right, wrong, virtuous, or not virtuous. Especially with the fluid nature of their definitions.

My understanding is that by following these virtues, we are reinforcing a chain with our egos. How does Buddhism explain that this is not the case?

TLDR; Please help clarify why Buddhism proposes virtuous living when virtues are created by our variable human society/ego.