You have to be very careful to be restrained in your actions. Otherwise, you end up doing and saying and thinking things that you later regret. And that regret is very hard to get rid of.

"There are people who complain that if you’re really serious about the practice you lose your spontaneity. Well, spontaneity may have its good side but it has its bad side as well. You want to be really careful, you have to be heedful, your actions do have consequences, you can’t pretend that they don’t. As for the pleasure in the practice, the Buddha says it’s loaded there in the practice of right concentration. If you want to find joy and spontaneity, look there.

As for your other actions, you have to be very careful to be restrained. Otherwise, you end up doing and saying and thinking things that you later regret. And that regret is very hard to get rid of. Especially as life goes on and you don’t see any progress coming in your practice, you begin to wonder, “What’s this all about? What have I been doing?” Don’t be the sort of person who realizes that a lot of time was wasted, a lot of time was thrown away. After all, we don’t have an infinite amount of time. The conditions here may not be perfect but they’re good enough for the practice. You want to take advantage of them while you have them.

And be earnest in the practice, because after all, suffering is earnest, too. It’s not just playing around. As Ajaan Maha Boowa once said of Ajaan Mun, he looked at him and he knew immediately that here was an earnest person, the sort of person who could scare away his defilements just through his earnestness. That’s the only way you’re going to get past them."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "In Earnest"

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