Sayadaw U Pandita on cleanliness and the cultivation of insight

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_anicca_
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Sayadaw U Pandita on cleanliness and the cultivation of insight

Post by _anicca_ »

Cleanliness is another support for developing insight and wisdom. You should bathe, keep nails and hair trimmed, and take care to regulate the bowels. This is known as internal cleanliness. Externally, your clothing and bedroom should be tidy and neat. Such observance is said to bring clarity and lightness of mind. Obviously, you do not make cleanliness an obsession. In the context of a retreat, adornments...time-consuming practices to beautify and perfect the body are not appropriate.
In fact, in this world there is no greater adornment than purity of conduct, no greater refuge, and no other basis for the flowering of insight and wisdom. [Virtuous conduct] brings a beauty that is not plastered on to the outside, but instead comes from the heart and is reflected in the entire person. Suitable for everyone, regardless of age, station, or circumstance, truly it is the adornment for all seasons. So please be sure to keep your virtue fresh and alive.
-In This Very Life
"A virtuous monk, Kotthita my friend, should attend in an appropriate way to the five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self."

:buddha1:

http://vipassanameditation.asia
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Sayadaw U Pandita on cleanliness and the cultivation of insight

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

These apparently superficial aspects of morality are often overlooked. I am guilty of not spending enough time keeping my living quarters and body clean and neat. It is a kind of negligence. Other things seem more important, but when the body is clean and healthy, the mind will be easier to concentrate.

If you're feeling down, and don't want to meditate, spend half an hour to clean and tidy your room, wash and change, etc. It has a real and immediate affect on brightening the mind. Fresh air and exercise are extremely helpful too.

Now that we often live inside brick or concrete boxes, these methods are even more vital.
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cooran
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Re: Sayadaw U Pandita on cleanliness and the cultivation of insight

Post by cooran »

Thanks for these insights and advice. :anjali:
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
DC2R
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Re: Sayadaw U Pandita on cleanliness and the cultivation of insight

Post by DC2R »

Indeed, cleanliness in the physical world is important for the cultivation of the mind.
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