A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Friday, October 25, 2024
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Intoxication
RIGHT LIVING Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Intoxication
Intoxication is unhealthy.
Refraining from intoxication is healthy. (MN 9) What are the
imperfections that defile the mind? Negligence is an imperfection that
defiles the mind. Knowing that negligence is an imperfection that
defiles the mind, a person abandons it. (MN 7) One practices thus:
“Others may become negligent by intoxication, but I will abstain from
the negligence of intoxication.” (MN 8)
When I look on with equanimity, some particular sources of suffering fade away in me; thus that suffering is exhausted. (MN 101)
Reflection
We saw last
month how some sources of suffering diminish with effort. Now we hear
that other sources of suffering are resolved when we simply look upon
them with equanimity. In other words, some things are better handled by
not striving to change them overtly but simply by changing your
relationship to what is happening. Desire can be a form of intoxication,
and equanimity can transform negligence into clarity.
Daily Practice
Knowing when to
step forward to try to change things with effort and when to step back
and allow them to change by natural processes is a skill to be learned
and a practice to be developed. Never underestimate the transformative
power of equanimity. Sometimes it is our own desires, our wanting and
not wanting, that cause problems; in such cases learning to look on with
equanimity can make all the difference.
Tomorrow: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States One week from today: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings
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