..续本文上一页fting, and things like that. But then if you refine your sila more, you refrain from taking things which have not been given to you. As monks, we refrain even from touching things that are not given to us. If we go into your home, we”re not supposed to go around picking up and looking at things, even though we have no intention of taking them away with us. Even food has to be offered directly to us: if you set it down and say, ”This is for you,” if we stick to our rules, we”re not supposed to eat it until you offer it directly to us. That”s a refinement of the precept to not take anything that”s not been given.

　　So there”s the coarse aspect of just refraining from the grosser things, like theft or burglary; and a more refined training – a way of training yourself.

　　I find this a very helpful monastic rule, because I was quite heedless as a layman. Somebody would invite me to their home, and I”d be looking at this, looking at that, touching this; going into shops, I”d pick up this and that – I didn”t even know that it was wrong or might annoy anybody. It was a habit. And then when I was ordained as a monk, I couldn”t do that any more, and I”d sit there and feel this impulse to look at this and pick that up – but I”d have these precepts saying I couldn”t do that.... And with food: somebody would put food down and I”d just grab it and start eating.

　　But through the monastic training you develop a much more graceful way of behaving. Then you sit down, and after a while you don”t feel the urge to pick up things or grab hold of them. You can wait. And then people can offer, which is much more beautiful way of relating to things around you and to other people than habitually grabbing, touching, eating and so on.

　　Then there”s the third precept, about sexuality. The idea at the present time is that any old kind of sexuality is experience, so it”s all right to do – just so long as you”re mindful! And somehow, not having sexual relations is seen as some kind of terrible perversity.

　　On the coarsest level, this precept means refraining from adultery: from being unfaithful to your spouse. But then you can refine that within marriage to where you are becoming more considerate, less exploitive, less obsessed with sexuality, so you”re no longer using it merely for bodily pleasure.

　　You can in fact, refine it right down to celibacy, to where you are living like a Buddhist monk and no kind of sexual activity is allowed. This is the range, you see, within the precepts.

　　A lot of people think that the celibate monastic life must be a terrible repression. But it”s not, because sexual urges are fully accepted and understood as being natural urges, only they”re not acted upon. You can”t help having sexual desires. You can”t say, ”I wont have any more of that kind of desire. . . .” Well you can say it, but you still do! If you”re a monk and you think you shouldn”t have anything like that then you become a very frightened and repressed kind of monk.

　　I”ve heard some monks say: ”I”m just not worthy of the robe. People shouldn”t give me alms food. I”ll have to disrobe because I”ve got so many bad thoughts going through my mind.” The robe doesn”t care about your thoughts! Don”t make a problem out of it. We all have nasty thoughts going through our minds when we”re in these robes just like everybody else. But we train ourselves not to speak or act upon them. When we”ve taken the Patimokkha discipline, we accept those things, recognise them, are fully conscious of them, and let them go – and they cease. Then, after a while, one finds a great peacefulness in one”s mind as a result of the celibate life.

　　Sexual life, on the other hand, is very exciting. If you”re really upset, frightened, bored or restless, then your mind very easily goes into sexual fantasies.…

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