you train the mind this way, your meditation will mature quickly and successfully. You. You. Please don't misunderstand these days, it's common for people to go on retreats for several days where they don't have to speak or do anything but meditate. Maybe you've been on a silent retreat for a week or two, returning afterward to your normal life. You might think you've done Vipassana, and because you feel you know what it's all about. You return to old habits of sensual indulgence when you do this, what happens? Before long? None of the fruits of Vipassana, or we could say the fruits of seshin, will be left. You do a lot of unskillful things that disturb and upset the mind, wasting everything. Then next year, you go back, do another retreat for several days or weeks, come out, carry on partying and drinking. That is not the path to progress. So you need to contemplate until you can see the harmful effects of that behavior. This is what is meant by renunciation. You have to will be willing to decide so easy to have a pattern, a bad habit, pattern that just keeps going and going and going. We know it's not helpful. We know it affects other aspects of our life, but it's just so easy to slip into it, where awareness can really help and willingness. Sometimes it's hard, it's okay. Sometimes we need renunciation. Just stop doing that. Need to see why. Need to be ready. Can't change everything, but you can change yourself. Says, see the harm in drinking and going out on the town, reflect and see the harm inherent in all the different kinds of unskillful behavior you are accustomed to indulging in until the harm becomes fully apparent. Say, find out what you value. This will provide the impetus for you to take a step back and change your ways. Then you will find some real peace. To realize peace of mind, you have to see clearly the disadvantages and pitfalls in such forms of behavior. This is practicing in the correct way. If you do a silent retreat for seven days where you don't have to speak or get involved with anyone, and then are chatting, gossiping and indulging all over for another seven months. How will you gain any real or lasting benefit from those seven days of meditation? I would encourage all of you to try to understand this point. It's necessary to speak in this way, so habits that are faulty become clear to you, and thus you will be able to give them up. You can say the reason you came here is to learn how to avoid doing the wrong things in the future. What happens when you do the wrong things? It leads you to a state of agitation and suffering where there is no goodness in the mind. It is not the way to peace. This is how it is, but many places where meditation is taught don't come to grips with it really. You have to conduct your daily life in a consistently calm and restrained way. Of course, we wouldn't recommend giving up everything becoming rigid. Back in the early days of the Zen Center, we lived in a apartment on Oxford Street there, very near the center, and there were a number of other Zen couples and families living there, and one of them would walk up and down the driveway in the kini posture wherever they were going, just seemed a little much. And as hauen says, Our laughter and songs are the voice of the Dharma. It's not that we don't enjoy ourselves, it's just that we have a measure of moderation where we're aware of causes and conditions. Don't go too far. We don't lose ourselves completely, Don't get hysterical in all things don't eat up all our time, thinking about politics, criticizing other people, giving way to Justified Anger and. You.