Inner Strength - Access to Insight

24we then listen to a sermon or sit in meditation, tend to get drowsy because we’retoo well nourished. If we sit for a long time, we feel uncomfortable. If we listento a sermon, we don’t know what’s being said, because we’re sleepy. This ruinsour chance to do good. People who are too well nourished tend to get lazy,sloppy, and addicted to pleasure. If they sit in meditation, they tend to get numb,tired, and drowsy.This is why we’re taught to observe the eight uposatha precepts as a middlepath. We eat only during half of the day, only half full. That’s enough. This iscalled having a sense of moderation with regard to food. We don’t have to loadup or compensate for missing the evening meal. We eat just enough. ‘I abstainfrom eating at the wrong time’: After noon we don’t have to turn to anothermeal, so that the heart won’t turn after the world. This is like giving just enoughfertilizer to our tree.‘I abstain from dancing, singing and ornamenting the body’: The Buddhadoesn’t have us beautify the body with cosmetics and perfumes, or ornament itwith jewelry. This is like giving our tree just the right amount of water. Don’t letthe soil get water-logged. Otherwise the roots will rot. In other words, if we getattached to scents and to beauty of this sort, it’ll make us so infatuated that ourvirtue will suffer. This is like taking scraps of food and pouring them around thefoot of our tree. Dogs will come to trample over the tree, chickens will peck atthe leaves and flowers, and fire ants will eat into the roots, causing our tree towither or die. All sorts of complications will come to hassle us.‘I abstain from high and large beds’: When we lie down to sleep, the Buddhadoesn’t have us use soft mattresses or cushions that are too comfortable, becauseif we have a lot of comfort we’ll sleep a lot and not want to get up to do good.The results of our concentration practice will be meager, and our laziness willgrow rampant. This is like caterpillars and worms that burrow throughout thesoil: They’ll keep whispering to us, teaching us all sorts of things until ultimatelythey tell us to stop doing good—and so we stop. This is like insects crawling upfrom the ground and eating into our tree, climbing higher and higher up untilthey reach the tiptop branches: the mind. Ultimately, when they eat the tips ofthe branches, the tree won’t bear flowers. When it has no flowers, it won’t bearfruit. In the same way, if we lack a sense of moderation in caring for ourself, wewon’t be practicing right livelihood. If we don’t have a proper sense of how tonourish and care for the body, our conduct will have to degenerate. But if wehave a proper sense of how to nourish and care for the body, our conduct willhave to develop in the direction of purity, and the mind will have to developalong with it, step by step.* * *The world has its highs and lows, its good and evil, and we’re just like theworld. Our body—no matter how much we care for it to make it strong andhealthy, beautiful and comfortable—will have to be good in some ways and tomalfunction in others. What’s important is that we don’t let the mindmalfunction. Don’t let it go branching out after its various preoccupations. If welet the mind go around thinking good and evil in line with its preoccupations, it