Friday, May 24, 2024

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given

 


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RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Taking What is Not Given
Taking what is not given is unhealthy. Refraining from taking what is not given is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the taking of what is not given, one abstains from taking what is not given; one does not take by way of theft the wealth and property of others. (MN 41) One practices thus: “Others may take what is not given, but I will abstain from taking what is not given.” (MN 8)

On seeing a form with the eye, one does not grasp at its signs and features. Since if one left the eye faculty unguarded, unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might intrude, one practices the way of its restraint, one guards the eye faculty, one undertakes the restraint of the eye faculty. (MN 51)
Reflection
This is not a practice for shutting out the world but for gaining some control over what enters and influences your mind. Just as you don’t eat everything that you encounter, so also you need not see, hear, touch, or think everything that is capable of being discerned. Some objects impinge on the senses with such force that they cannot be ignored, but most of what we experience we seek out, driven by desire. We need not do this.

Daily Practice
Even with visual experience, we do not always have to take in more than what is immediately presented to the eye. Practice seeing something, acknowledging it, and then letting it pass away without chasing after its details and associations. We can take what is given to sight, and only what is given, and then move on to the next moment. In this way we are not dragged into entanglements we don’t choose, and we remain free.

Tomorrow: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

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