Revoked

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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Via Daily Dharma: Cultivate Noble Thoughts

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We can improve the texture of the mind by influencing the kind of thoughts we tend to think. When you observe thoughts that diminish the qualities you appreciate, abandon those thoughts and give a thought or two to something virtuous, respectable, joyful—perhaps a thought of kindness.

Shaila Catherine, “Access to Absorption”

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