The fifth precept:
I undertake the training rule
to abstain from fermented drink that
causes heedlessness.
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| Wak Saket Prep for New Year's 2555 |
The abbot who I had so much respect for when I did I short term
ordination in Thailand, said when I disrobed that the fifth precept is the most
important to keep in lay life. I agreed but came home to enjoy my occasional
wine with dinner, I felt I had it all under control, but this stuck with me. He
also stated that it isn’t the alcohol that is so bad, but drinking makes you
more apt to break other precepts about lying, false speech and maybe even
sexual misconduct. One as a human becomes weaker.
I continued requesting precepts at temple with the Nuns at home,
which is done after prayers and meditation, so I finally listened to myself. If I
request the precepts then I must want to live by them. Don't I? I love red wine,
and feel it was such an important part of who I am. I keep wanting some
positive, I thought, a remainder of my life pre-brain injury. I realized that I
was clinging still to my old self.
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| My kuti at Thai Temple Nov, 2554 |
But is it really who I am? Not on my wisdom seeking missile path, I
am more and more leaning towards the natural compassion that lives within
everyone. How can I let this shine more? Like when I went up to a participant
at my weekend retreat with Bentinho, at the fire pit in the evening while
rubbing his back, said to a gentleman, “Thank you for being you.” He was touched. Or when
talking to another woman feeling her dis-ease with her life, kneeled next to
her, with positive ideas of how to ask for what she may need from her husband
instead of venturing in search of a spiritual experience. One cannot feel in
these situations if you have even one half a glass of wine. You are more into
the experience of the wine to care deeply about others. Although the wine will
give you the illusion of being more in touch with your feelings.
I feel I can now write about why I quick drinking on 1/1/11(2554). First
let me say, that I am pretty aware of the dangers of alcoholism, but in my
twenties I still partied and drank socially. This lead me to wine with dinner,
and as a way of opening conversation with friends. Thinking more, it actually
lead me to an elitist idea of myself as my taste in wine got more and more
refined. I dawned on me, more ego
…more suffering and less wisdom. I had to quit, not to prove anything but that it was just an organic
leaning to greater wisdom.
You know it is actually liberating to walk past the wine in stores, knowing that is one less thing to look towards for any source of happiness. Just having a half-open bottle of nice red-wine that you can't throw out, means you are obligated to have it the following evening, and thus making it more difficult to do an evening meditation. When you are out shopping, it also becomes a focus of what next to buy. It all became very transparent that all the wine desires pushed me to wanting a new experience each time. I could not rest in awareness or taste the peace of just being. That is a huge relief not to be bothered with in thought and desire, and I now feel the peace that I was actually looking for by drinking.
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| Relaxing at the beautiful Shwedagon Paya, Jan. 2555 |
My partner rarely drinks, and when I last saw him I
bought him some really good Russian vodka that he wanted, last year. A full
liter, it remained in the fridge for his occasional use. He would have a shot
or two after a hard day at work with dinner. When I took off for Myanmar, he
found himself feeling lonely, and drinking more that he should, woke up feeling
not very well. We talked about this, in both cases and he realized he was not
really interested in drinking. He realized that a nice run, was more what he needed. I had to let his natural wisdom shine through
his experience.
After about 4 days in a silent retreat with 10-11 hours
of meditation per day the mind really does not stop thinking, it just gets a little less
interesting to involve yourself in your many thoughts. If you are lucky to develop the
body-mind to realize that the bad feelings and anger don’t feel so good, you stop going there. Not
that you can really control what you spin on, but that is what we work on. Then, in time, everything that
composes your “real” life slowly becomes foggy and less substantial. You have
no net, phone, or speech and immersed in silence and darkness of the cells or
even a quiet hall of other long-term meditators with eyes closed…..what confirms
your existence? There is, of course, no eye contact in breaks, and everyone
there knows nothing of your life or of you. It is not really disturbing, and it is
actually sublime living without all connections to your past. It is all stories
anyway, and when we die those particulars of your life disappear with you. No matter how close people are to you they will never be able together all
the pieces that are your life and idiosyncrasies, no matter how significant they feel at this time. And what does it mean? Why
should we put so much importance on the small stuff or even the hard stuff we
encounter in life? No one else does it for us. When I talked to Jac O’Keeffe in April,
she told me what I went through has no significance at all and to drop it. “It was
your body, and not you that it
happened to, anyway.” It may sound
callous, but it was said with clarity and love.
By day 7, everything I hold dear, like my partner(sorry, Tee Rak) and my
family become only ideas that I can pull up and experience solely based on
feelings or perceived needs. They seem to be like the same feelings one tries to let go of. Ah, which to
keep and discard? The juggling act we think we can do so well. This judgmental mind has often lead us astray. So, I would try to feel them
to feel like I exist. It was never done in a panic because existence is always
really foggy, only while in silence it is more pronounced absence of ties to what we think is reality. My mind had let go of the
stranglehold I had on people and things while meditating, but then my dreams at
night spoke of the fears of non-existence. I would try to solve things and
conjure importance for being. A few dreams I would wake up with I thought was an epiphany as a clear idea of how to solve my problems or others. Fat chance, as they were usually based out of the ego, that was struggling to exist in the face of close observation of it's weak soapbox. There is no reason why we are here, so perhaps I
made this all up to prove I do exist. 
