#345 Mindfulness Meditation & Ethical Behavior - One Indivisible Package

     "Moral integrity, concentration, and insight all grow together, conditioning one another every step of the way. Ethical mind states are a necessary precursor for meditation, because the mind is incapable of tranquility if agitated by the hindrances of sense desire, ill will, restlessness, laziness, and doubt. Ethical behavior is also the demonstrable result of wisdom, insofar as unwholesome states arise less often and with less intensity as wisdom deepens. Wisdom transforms the unconscious mind, rooting out impulses that lead to suffering both for oneself and for others. It does this not by acting them out or suppressing them, but by the middle way of seeing clearly how impermanent they are, and how they are born in and nourished by the delusions of self. In short, one understands them, and they lose their allure.
     ... Behavior is the outward expression of one's inner understanding, and only someone still firmly in the grip of craving and ignorance is capable of the abuse of power, money, sexuality, and intoxicants."          Andrew Olendzki

Habib Kassis   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/