QNTNs.com Podcast

100 Sīlas | Lesson


Listen Later

Sīla is a Pali word for morality and ethical conduct. In this context, the lessons are “spiritual,” but spirit being spirit is never separate. The lesson of 100 “sīlas” is a reminder. You add to this list as the lessons are discovered. You return to the list as you forget the lesson.

* Do not change your mind. | You say you will do this, do that. You say, “I will change this habit.” Then the habit of old rears its head, challenging you in the least, yet the least is enough for you to change your mind. Stop. Do not change your mind.

* Choose in each moment how you want to express yourself. | “Who are you? Who do you hope to become?” I will choose my highest nature in each and every moment.

* Do not deny yourself. Instead, choose how you want to express yourself. | Denying leads to suppression. Suppression leads to pressure. Pressure eventually ruptures. Expression does not mean without jurisprudence. As the rotor of a helicopter is always running, yet can climb or descend the same, so the flow through you is always flowing, but per the pitch of your blades, per the pitch of your expression, so you fly through the skies of your life. Never deny the rotor’s flowing. You determine with wisdom whether to collect or let pass the rotor’s power.

* Remember who you are with evenmindedness. Equanimity is your operating system. | You may have your applications, your hardware, your mentations, body, and will, but it is no matter if the system running all this is running wild with no balance or calm.

* You are nowhere.

* You are obliged to no one any more than you are obliged to your higher self. Life is never an obligation. | Duty, dharma, responsibility, and commitments are choices that support the nature of how we want to be. When who we want to be changes, so we must forgive, surrender, and move past previous promises.

* Right and wrong is infinitely relative. Forgive judgement. There is nothing to learn. We already are. The reason we are here is to experience who we are so we can be us. Ourselves. Still, right is right and wrong is wrong, but no one is ever wrong given their model of the world. | “What gives?While there is right and there is wrong, we cannot see what is so till we have the proper perspective. If your perch of life affords better discrimination, do well to share your advantage point, all while forgiving judgement that they cannot see what is impossible for them to see.

* The two poles of emotion are love (light, truth) and fear (darkness, falsehood). | The candle (soul) cannot experience its flame as part of the infinite allness of the sun. So the candle banishes itself to the cave so it might experience its nature relative to the sun. Fear allows us to choose and experience love. Then, knowledge and experience in hand, we may be love.

* Enjoy yourself. You are free at any moment to enjoy yourself. All there is to it is remembering. | A time will come when the circumstances of present will steal our attention. The senses of our lives will so overwhelm our awareness that we will forget our power to choose how we are aware. Will you be aware that you are free to be aware as you please, free to enjoy awareness’s innate peace, or will you grow unaware, subjected to the forever whims of what may be?

* We are beings, not doings. | When we do, be. Do not forget to be as you do. It matters not what you do, for what you do is never who you are. How are you, then, during everything you do? The answer to what’s the matter is always the matter.

* Want nothing, neither having preferences nor needs.

* Live simply so others may simply live. | Said another way, if everyone did what you are about to do, if everyone lived the way you are about to live, would the world be sustained?

* Give all. Seek nothing.

* Make every moment an outpouring of love.

* Live the way of “High thinking. Right living.” | Use every moment to think the highest thought, say the highest word, and do the highest deed.

* Every person who has ever come to you has come to receive a gift from you. | Whenever you are approached by someone always ask, “How can I help? What can I give to you?”

* Joy. Paradox. Change. | This is the nature of nature.

* God has no reason to say no. What if you didn’t either? | God has no reason to say no because God’s time is infinite. God is infinite. Are you not also an immortal with infinity on your hands? Why, then, do you live such a conservative, reserved existence?

* Habits can only be deleted in deep meditation. | If not deep meditation, then the habit can only be replaced. However, the habit happens at the level of sensation in the body. You may either react to the sensation with a better habit, or allow the sensation to pass out from the body once and for all. Should you wish to change the habit, remember the structure of any habit: cue + action + reward. If you wish to change the habit, change the action after the cue and before the reward.

* Humility is never forgetting that you are the soul. | That means others are also souls and as a soul to other souls, one should always serve with the poise of a dignitary, treating all with dignity. Talk to other souls, soul-to-soul. Meet others soul-to-soul. No matter what you do or have done, remember always who you are and the true power behind your doing. Remember always who others are. Do not let lesser actions deceive you. Do not fall prey to believing others are anything less than who they are: the soul.

* The troubles in our world come from a perceived lack of abundance. May we instead know everything we need can be ours and can be given to everyone. | When we live from a place of scarcity instead of abundance, we live from a place of fear instead of love. Instead of thinking how we can share with others, we think how we must protect ourselves from not having enough. Thus doing, we take too much, creating from our fear our very fears.

* Smile a lot. “It will cure whatever ails you.” | Sometimes, amidst all the thinking, doing, philosophizing of how to live, the simplest remedy for all is a good and unceasing smile shared with others and with self.

* Breathe. Breathe deeply. The love of God is breathing in you.

* All of life is a meditation with the divine.

* You cannot lose that which you give away.

* You teach what you have to learn.

* Success is how much you give. “Life is forgiving, not forgetting.”

* E-V-I-L is L-I-V-E in reverse. | In truth, living is all there is. No need to condemn evil for what it is. It also is.

* Do everything from a place of peace. Channel the subtler emotions.

* All are one. | We all come from the source, the same original thought and star dust. To hurt one is to hurt self. To help one is to help self.

* Tell the truth.

* Do what you say.

* Do what works. | Sometimes the social customs do not work. Nevermind. Do what works.

* Justice is not punishment. | We think of a justice system which punishes, but that is not so. Justice is filling in where the love was lost. If a criminal acts from a place of hate, we do not punish by hating or condemning. We rectify and justify what the criminal has lost: love and nurture.

* Live knowing sufficiency.

* You own nothing. All owns all. “What’s mine is yours.” | We are merely stewards. The best example of this is the air we breathe and the light we see. Always in and out, reflecting all around — shared.

* Spirit creates nature. Man creates machine. | These are but expressions of our creation. One is not good, bad, better, worse than the other. Instead, recognize their distinction.

* Kill no one.

* Make a sanctuary of your home.

* Do not poison yourself.

* Do not compete. | This is to say, do not play games where one person’s victory is at the expense of another’s loss.

* Have unconditional love.

* Use metaphysics. | Do not forget that this world is beyond the physical. Know this and live this.

* Meditation cannot be done. All we can do is set the intention to meditate. | May we merely come as we are. Sit. There, God will meet us.

* If you want to eschew darkness, focus not on the darkness. Focus on the light. | If you want to forgive a bad behavior, focus on the good behavior.

* Coincidences are not coincidences.

* Be mindful of who controls your mind. | Does Fox News control your thinking? Does CNN control your thinking? Does this YouTuber, that author, this friend, that parent all control your thinking? Maybe you want this professor, that teacher, this guide, that saint to control your thinking by programming your mind with more uplifting thoughts. Very well. Just be mindful of who controls your mind.

* . . .



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit substack.qntns.com
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

QNTNs.com PodcastBy Poems, Writings, Essays, and Lessons by QNTN