Lessons In Practical Buddhism - Sirimangalo.Org

about eating, sleeping, and lounging around in idle diversion
and negligence. When we first undertake to practice
intensive meditation, it will likely be very difficult for us to
follow a meditator’s schedule: sleeping only four to six hours
every day, staying in a simple dwelling with food only in the
morning and of a simple nature. For some, this will be a
reason to put out more effort to give up attachment to luxury
and indolence. For others, it will swallow them like a
crocodile; or rather they, like crocodiles, will be fit to do
nothing but fill their mouths with food and lie around,
wallowing in their laziness.
If we truly wish to become free from suffering, we must let
go of attachment to all things, including comfort, luxury and
pleasure. So, like the Bodhisatta, we should see it as a good
thing to have to endure the hardships of meditation and
monastic life. We should be patient and endure long hours
of meditation with only little sleep, food, and conversation.
We should even be ready to forgo these things entirely if
necessary, practising throughout the night, avoiding
conversation with others, and even surviving on little or no
food if it is not available to us. The Buddha made clear that
going intentionally without food is not correct, but that
patience even when food is not available is far better than
anger and dissatisfaction. We shouldn’t try to avoid
difficulty, or give in to laziness; we should instead try to
avoid laziness, which is like a crocodile that will eat us up
from within.
The danger of whirlpools refers to objects of sensual desire
because they, like a whirlpool, drag us down, drown us,
effectively ending our journey towards freedom. Everywhere
around us, no matter where in the world we might be, we are
constantly confronted with pleasant and unpleasant stimuli
at the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, and the body.
Because of our addiction to these experiences, and the
chemical reactions they produce in the brain, we are like
drunk people, unable to think clearly, incapable of
meditation, spinning around and around like in a whirlpool.
As with a whirlpool, it might seem pleasurable while we are
spinning but slowly, inexorably, it draws us down to our
demise. As with a whirlpool, the more caught up we
become, the harder it is to get out of the cycle of addiction,
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