For most of us our normal state of mind is to be under the sway of our moods. But here we’re speaking about the normalcy of keeping the precepts. It’s a healthy normalcy.

"In the Thai tradition, they talk about a mind without moods as a mind at normalcy. This may sound strange to begin with, because for most of us our normal state of mind is to be under the sway of our moods. But here we’re speaking about a different kind of normalcy. It’s related to the normalcy of the precepts. The word for virtue or precept, sila, is often also translated as “normalcy” in Thai. You’re at normalcy when you’re not killing, not stealing, not engaging in illicit sex, not lying, not taking intoxicants. It’s a healthy normalcy."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "At Normalcy"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Connectedness through karma can go either way — the connections can be good, or they can be bad. So you want to foster the good ones.

Gratitude is focused on actions: the actions you’ve benefited from and the actions you feel called on to make in response to repay your debt of gratitude and to try to continue this stream of goodness into the world, on into the future.

The Story-telling Mind (extract)