Recently, I visited a new, premier donut operation. My partner and I each picked out a donut but, unlike my partner who enjoyed hers and ate all of it, I had two bites and stopped. "Don'ts aren't healthy!" a sad voice within me criticized.
The Buddha would not have approved of my act. Here's why.
After the Buddha gained what is called "enlightenment" he became the object of criticism from some ascetics. They considered him a fraud because he was no longer living an austere lifestyle. Some of the ancient texts indicate the Buddha was eating well, wore a fine robe while they, the ascetics existed on a few grains of rice and slept uncovered in the forests. Some of them even slept beds of nails.
Those ascetics asked the Buddha, “What kind of teacher and yogi are you? You are soft, weak, indulgent.”To which the Buddha replied, “I, too, have slept on nails; I’ve stood with my eyes open to the sun in the hot sands beside the Ganges. I’ve eaten so little food that you couldn’t fill one fingernail with the amount I ate each day. I became so thin I could feel my spine when I pressed on my stomach. Whatever ascetic practices under the sun human beings have done, I, too, have done. Through them all I have learned that fighting against oneself through such practices is not the way.”
The Buddha was big on moderation. It came to be called the middle way. Not too hard; not too easy.
So, the next time I visit a donut shop, I'm eating the whole donut and, possibly, ordering a second one to enjoy!
The Buddha would not have approved of my act. Here's why.
After the Buddha gained what is called "enlightenment" he became the object of criticism from some ascetics. They considered him a fraud because he was no longer living an austere lifestyle. Some of the ancient texts indicate the Buddha was eating well, wore a fine robe while they, the ascetics existed on a few grains of rice and slept uncovered in the forests. Some of them even slept beds of nails.
Those ascetics asked the Buddha, “What kind of teacher and yogi are you? You are soft, weak, indulgent.”To which the Buddha replied, “I, too, have slept on nails; I’ve stood with my eyes open to the sun in the hot sands beside the Ganges. I’ve eaten so little food that you couldn’t fill one fingernail with the amount I ate each day. I became so thin I could feel my spine when I pressed on my stomach. Whatever ascetic practices under the sun human beings have done, I, too, have done. Through them all I have learned that fighting against oneself through such practices is not the way.”
The Buddha was big on moderation. It came to be called the middle way. Not too hard; not too easy.
So, the next time I visit a donut shop, I'm eating the whole donut and, possibly, ordering a second one to enjoy!
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