Monday, Apr 19, 2010 This week’s Food for Thought – April 19, 2010

THE ETHIC OF RESTRAINT

—His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ethics For The New Millennium

If we retain our peace of mind and thereby our happiness, it follows that, alongside a more rational and disinterested approach to our negative thoughts and emotions, we must cultivate a strong habit of restraint in response to them.  Negative thoughts and emotions are what cause us to act unethically.

Furthermore, because afflictive emotion is also the source of our own internal suffering—in that it is the basis of frustration, confusion, insecurity, anxiety, and the very loss of self-respect which undermines our sense of confidence—failure to do so means that we will remain in a state of perpetual mental and emotional discomfort.  Inner peace will be impossible.  In place of happiness there will be insecurity.  Anxiety and depression will never be far away.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. — Albert Schweitzer