In this forty-second installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash, we continue our inquiry into meditation practice both on and off the cushion, turning attention to our ethical foundation of the five precepts: training to refrain from harming; dishonesty/untruthfulness; taking/receiving what’s not given (thieving); sexual (energy) misconduct; and intoxicants
In our last Q and A Wendy mentioned that “a few years ago, I was really earnest. I’ve always been a bit of a goody-two-shoes type of person. I can get pretty earnest and pretty serious about being good. Like, ‘We’ve got to be good, folks. We can’t just be out having fun — we’ve got to be good.'”
Wendy’s statement kind of raised an eyebrow for me. In this Q and A on the five precepts and ethics we plan to unpack this comment of Wendy’s along with exploring: directly seeing and knowing the purpose and benefits of precepts; the eventual pointlessness of breaking precepts; “may I” vs. “shoulds” and expectations; excuses / justifications; how belonging, self-deception, and trust / (self-)confidence factor in; exploring (unconscious) distortions around views like: “only this is what’s best (for me)” and/or “this and this needs to happen (first) and (to) be a certain way for me and things to be OK” and of course how all this relates to meditation practice
A selection from the blog post Faith that Straightens the Mind:
Confidence is required for the establishment of virtue. Without confidence and trust, one does not firmly resolve to act rightly.
If you cannot trust your own mind to remain upright in moral conduct, then uprightness will never be sustained. If you do not trust yourself to refrain from false speech, your speech will remain crooked. If you do not trust yourself to refrain from taking what is not given, bodily actions will continue to incline in that direction. If one does not establish firm restraint over lust, sexual misconduct will recur again and again. If you keep giving excuses to break precepts, the mind will always justify its own crookedness. If you do not trust in the benefits of the precepts, transgressions will keep recurring.
Moreover, if one continues to deceive oneself—pretending that the precepts are being maintained when they are not—then the cycle of transgression continues without interruption.
One must have confidence in one’s own ability to uphold the precepts; without that trust, their observance will never be firmly established. And if one lacks that confidence, the mind can remain crooked.
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a few months thereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Audio:
Past chats with Wendy:
Unedited transcript via YouTube:
Integrating Presence 