Monday, July 23, 2012
On a few occasions there were group discussions at the end of class. We talked about the 5 precepts and the difficulty I had with the one about intoxicants. “I get why this interferes with meditation, and I never have a beer on the nights I come to meditate, but this is a hard one to follow”, I said. The leader went on to talk about how drinking was all peer pressure. “No one drinks if they are by themselves”, she said. “I beg to differ”, I responded, and the group laughed.
Next the discussion drifted into the power of meditation, or lack thereof in a large group. One of the abbots in a video had implied that natural disasters occurred when a deficit of merit existed in a certain region, or a group of people had very negative thoughts. “Really?!”, I responded. “I’m not buying that.” The conversation then erupted into a cacophony of varying opinions. Somehow the conversation turned to Stephen Hawking, I’m not sure how, and then came to a close. I may not have agreed with everything being said, but at least the debate was fun.