Bill, You say, 'if you are practicing mindfulness you will be following all the precepts - at least the first 5.' That may not be so. For instance, Tantric practice requires a lot of mindfulness, but they don't follow the precept on sexuality. Wait a moment, I may be wrong. They practice 'celibate sex'. Anybody able to come up with more fun than that? Anthony
--- On Wed, 30/3/11, Bill! <[email protected]> wrote: From: Bill! <[email protected]> Subject: [Zen] Re: An Opinion of Thich Nhat Hanh To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, 30 March, 2011, 3:47 PM Steve, I don't disagree with the quote from Thich Nhat Hanh below. I do think, however, that the way he's phrased this in English could lead to a misunderstanding of the relationship between precepts and mindfulness. This is partially linguistic and partically because of the tendancy to look at things like this from a dualistic (and in our case, Western) perspective. Following precepts does not lead to mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness, however, does lead to a life that is compatible with the precepts - at least the first 5. Or to say it another way: you can faithfully follow all the precepts and still not be practicing mindfulness; but if you are practicing mindfulness you will be following all the precepts - at least the first 5. ...Bill! --- In [email protected], "SteveW" <eugnostos2000@...> wrote: > > "If we don't practice the precepts, we aren't practicing mindfulness. I know > some Zen students who think that they can practice meditation without > practicing precepts, but that is not correct. The heart of Buddhist > meditation is the practice of the precepts. You cannot meditate without > practicing the precepts." > -from The Heart of The Buddha's Teaching, page 82 > Any comments? > Steve >
