A DISCOURSE ON THE ABODE OF THE NOBLE ONES – THINGS TO AVOID

A DISCOURSE ON THE ABODE OF THE NOBLE ONES – THINGS TO AVOID

The third support of the yogi is avoidance. He should avoid all kinds of danger. He must not take unnecessary risk by goint to improper places. He should not allow his meditation to make him overconfident and foolhardy. He must be especially on his guard against close relationship with the opposite sex. In short, he should avoid all sense-objects that are likely to do harm to him physically or morally.

The fourth support of the yogi is the rejection of unwholesome thoughts that tend to make him sensuous, malicious and aggressive. It is hard to overcome these evil thought as most of us like to think about objects and people that we love or hate. The yogi should watch these thoughts and reject them. It is not easy for some people to do so because before taking up meditation they used to let their mind wander freely. To watch every thought is of course burdensome to them but in fact it takes only two or three day’s effort to establish the habit of watchfulness.

Again, foreigners who come to our meditation-center are fond of reading and writing which lead to discursive thinking and do not help to develop mindfulness. So we have to tell them not to read and write. They do not like this restriction but they get used to it in due course and find it beneficial to their mind-training. One such foreigner was Mr. Duval, an American who spent several months at the center. He was much impressed by the Satipa.t.thaana method that had halpped him to attain insight-knowledge and he thought it would also benefit many Westerners who have no inner peace in spite of their material prosperity.