Purpose of the precept against entertainment. ____________________________________ Our new Sutta translation website: suttas.hillsidehermitage.org/ If you wish to support the Hillside Hermitage Sangha and this channel you are very welcome to do so via: www.hillsidehermitage.org/support-us/

Along with being a distraction, most forms of entertainment add chaos and stir up the mind. It becomes wearisome to have to keep calming down the mind afterwards in order to get back to a state of tranquility.

Thank you for having the wisdom and skill to tell people what they often don't want to hear. I would have saved myself a lot of pain if I had just trusted my instinct that these things have to go from the beginning.

great one for modern times thanks, I needed to hear it. Also great job on increasing the audio quality/clarity recently. These videos are becoming very shareable.

Wow I needed this

I think most people are using entertainment to distract themselves from the thought that they are not doing what they should. Everyone nowadays thinks they should be doing something useful with their time, and by useful they mean learning new skills or work or workout or even socialize. Just sitting there and doing nothing mostly brings those thoughts at least to me and I suspect many people are like that.

Seeing people around me swiping TikTok everyday for hours on end is really something. It's a culmination of internal yearning for distractions, external manipulating tactics, and capitalist productivity conditioning from childhood.

🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

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Doing nothing is the hardest thing to accomplish. It tests all ones impolses, how long can you do nothing for -patience. When are you going to need something -abundance. How comfortable are you with your weight and environment -balance. Will you continue to cycle a loving positive flow -compassion. Will you be able to silence the mind -communication. Can you accept a new state of mind -knowledge. Experience enlightened senses -Freedom.

Dear Bhante, in many videos you talk about the importance of watching intentions properly and not being affected or even moved by them on a mental level. Instead of practicing mindfulness of breathing with being mindful to the sensation of the breath, my daily meditation in correspondence with this now contains of just sitting down and being aware of my intentions, which means trying to not react to all kinds of different thoughts or emotions. While the foundation of this practice in my understanding is a good awareness of the body and the awareness of bodily tensions, my focus is on mental reactivity. I can afford to sit in this mode for about an hour once or twice a day (due to everyday obligations in my household life) and also practice in this manner during mundane activities. Can you say a bit more about the mental quality of the attitude and the progress of this practice? Should it merge into a mode of equanimity (upekkha) and/or is the main task to understand ones (in)tentions better, culminating in right view? Thank you!

Without resistance there can’t be suffering since suffering is just that and if your minds empty there can’t be resistance. Suffering solved at least for me 😂🤚

Is one not allowed to enjoy oneself? I understand using entertainment, activities, or substances to escape feelings but this isn’t always the case. I am not always escaping something. Surely I am not understanding this talk.

What do you recommend a person do who has 7 hours a day alone in a room with nothing that needs to be done? Assume he is a puthujjana.

I would say an activity is only a distraction, and thereby unskillful and to be avoided, if it leads to loss of awareness. But if one is performing an action such as dancing or singing with full awareness there is absolutely no problem.

I don’t know telling people to completely eradicate entertainment seems way too extreme. It will lead to most people to give up. I think if you indulgent entertainment mindfully it can be OK.

This guy seems like never had a fun time in his life lol 😅