Quote:
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Originally Posted by Joe Mc
I undertake the training to refrain from taking intoxicants, which cause carelessness and cloud the mind.
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When I first started doing retreats, sila and refuge seemed like a ritual, 'say three times'. After a while it started to sink in that sila is about ending craving and refuge is about trust.
You trust in the enlightened quality of yourself, trust the way nature works and trust your spiritual community (wary about the third one). It follows that, as a community member, you have to be trustworthy and therefore moral, so sila. Otherwise, the sangha is not a safe refuge and you can forget the whole thing.
Maybe the bigger picture of truthfulness, purification, resolving sorrows and realising the enlightened quality of yourself is a better ambition - and the 5th sila is merely necessary to achieve any of that.
Hence I don't think Buddhism should be a 'recovery' strategy... but dealing with craving in the overall sense is pretty much what it's all about.