Notes on the intoxication precept

• A precept is a tool for liberation, not a way to measure our own (or other’s) worth.
  • When we beat ourselves up for finding things we don’t like, we quickly stop seeing those things.
• Precepts can can be phrased as a prohibition or an aspiration. Sometimes one phrasing will be more useful than the other.
  • Abstain from intoxication, from addictive or compulsive behaviour.
  • Cultivate a clear mind, bring compassionate awareness to whatever’s arising.
• Just observe and understand our patterns of thinking and behaving.
  • Do they lead towards awareness or towards suffering?
• Notice the beliefs and and stories underneath the patterns.
  • That something is wrong
  • That things should be different.
• Give everything a warm welcome.
  • Nothing needs to be different from how it is.
  • Nothing can be different from how it is.
• Here, centred in the moment, there are no problems.
  • When you realise you’re identical to experience, there is no suffering.
  • When you believe you’re separate, there is suffering.

A precept can be a beacon, a lighthouse, a tool for liberation. It can help us:

• notice reactivity;
• highlight our habitual patterns of thinking;
• squarely face the consequences of our actions;
• remember to Begin Again;
• realise our shared, flawed, humanity.

It is not for measuring our own or others’ worth. “Am I able to be in the present moment?”, not “Am I a good person or a bad person?”

Phrasings of the intoxication precept

As prohibition

To provide boundaries.

• Abstain from intoxication.
• Refrain from intoxicants, and addictive or compulsive behaviour.
• Not indulging in intoxicants.

As aspiration

• Proceed clearly.
• Do not cloud the mind.
• I take up the way of cultivating a clear mind.
• Awareness, not clouding.
• We don’t want to cloud our minds in any way that takes us away from the immediate perception of the moment.
• Bring compassionate awareness to everything you’re doing.

The why, not the what, of substances

• It’s not the substance, but if we use it to alter or escape experience.
• It’s to numb the pain or leave an experience.
• It’s not the intoxicant itself but our own process of addiction, of using the substance to maintain an identity that keeps us out of the present moment
• Drinking and using drugs is another way of looking elsewhere or wanting things to be different, based on the assumption that there’s something wrong with what’s happening

More widely

• Embracing all experience directly.
• Live fully present to life.
• Not hiding from the truth.
• When we learn to let go and relax into the moment, then our interest in being right, safe, and under control begins to fall away.

The accompanying values: mindfulness, responsibility.

Working with precepts

Pick one precept to work with for a while. Pick one circumstance to work with.

The details

• Just sit for a few minutes, at first.
• Be awake to the motivation and consequences of our actions.
• Observe our behaviour.
• Understand our patterns.
• Uncover the beliefs underneath (which come from our culture, our upbringing, our natural tendencies);
  • Notice the requirements we place on yourself and others.
  • Notice if you find yourself glued to a notion that something has to be a certain way.
  • Notice where we draw the line about what’s acceptable and not acceptable.
• Make it into an experiment, get to know ourself.
• Look at the intention behind the act
  • Does it lead towards awareness or away from it?
  • Towards suffering or away from it?

Often we give up the substance without addressing the causes. That can be just one more act of cruelty.

Wider view on the precepts

Our reactions to ordinary, everyday, events show us our true colours. Use them to wake up.

• Take the precepts as a whole.
• They interact with and support each other.
• Treat them as guidelines, not rules.

My related notes

• Tricycle - The Five Precepts
• The Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts of Sōtō Zen
• Waking Up To What You Do
• Good Life: A Zen Precepts Retreat with Cheri Huber (still reading it!)

Added 2024-05-03, last updated 2024-05-13.