The art of refraining from needs to be relearned in today's society. We could all stand better to refrain from living a life in which we use it and the things or people around us as means to an end. Too often people believe that the spiritual life is a masochistic denial or renunciation of things that make one happy. But the art of refraining is a reserved approach to life. One refrains from judgment. One refrains from indulging in things they clearly know to be harmful to themselves and others. One refrains from concocting something out of circumstances that binds them further to those circumstances. One becomes emotionally mature enough to refrain from using others simply as crying towels and/or masturbation toys.
Refraining or living in a reserved way means that one sees the sand castles we build for what they are, and either begins building sand castles from this perspective or decides not to build sand castles anymore. It becomes no longer necessary to reify existence with the sand castles, whatever the metaphor represents to you. And your happiness becomes no longer attached to the fortunes of the sand castles. In the end they all dissolve back to sand. You can take some measure of pride in accomplishing this or that goal, but you are not attached to the ultimate outcome. You begin to grow into having enough mental space and peace of heart that the vicissitudes and fortunes of life do not seem so threatening or personal.
In this space that refraining offers, you may find your real aspirations have nothing to do with what you originally had conceived. Your personal and social habits become less binding. You gain freedom from the stories you tell yourself. You become free from being merely a character in someone else's drama. You set others free from being merely characters in your life story.
A lot of Buddhists sometimes are offended at the suggestion that they may do well to adopt an approach to life that incorporates the five mindfulness training precepts. Buddhist ideas about development of maturity are based upon five points: Refraining from killing/violence - from encouraging others to kill/use violence and also from having others to kill/use violence for us, refraining from taking what is not offered or given, refraining from sexual practices that are dishonest and painful, refraining from false speech, and refraining from addiction to drugs, alcohol, or other things. With respect to taking what is not given, we need to focus a little more upon the parts of our economic systems which encourage the feeling of 'entitlement' simply because of having the money to buy something or someone. We may need to look deeply at the situation since the simple fact that someone can sell you something does not mean they attained it honestly. In that case the act of buying is really a payment for theft.
Communities and individuals who live life from this approach are said to be part of the Mahá Sangha, the Greater Community. They are a Greater part of the Ariya Sangha, the noble/arisen community; a movement of enlightened cultures and lifestyles that will eventually impinge upon and dissolve the bonds of ignorance, pain, and frustration wherever it exists.
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
(This version on December 25th, 2005, from an old journal entry)
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