The Five Precepts Options

I undertake to observe the precept to abstain from ...

...harming living beings.
...taking things not freely given.
...sexual misconduct.
...false speech.
...intoxicating drinks and drugs causing heedlessness.

Anyone else on the forums keeping these precepts? I am struggling with 1 and 4. My lack of willpower has stopped me moving to a veggie diet. And I find myself making 'false speech' on a daily basis, a little embelishment to a story or a slight tweek to the truth here and there.

Any advice appreciated.

An advice I could think right now is the one I am currently attempting Med. First, we need to strengthen our will power and power over our own thoughts. There are many methods out there to achieve these two.

The current method I am now taking is the tantra sadhana with fasting.
In my short experience during doing these, fasting helps me control my own physical and mental, impulses and bodily desires. There was a lot of "demons" giving temptations in my head I have to fight and show them who's the boss over my body. Sadhana, or ritual mantra chanting in trance helps me sharpens my mind. I found out by experience that our mind just like muscle while attempting a non-stop 9 hours trancework over a mantra. The last hours was a torture to the body and mind (at first). It's like trying to lift a weight but your muscle can no longer lift it due to exhaustion. With discipline and persistence, I intent to push my limits and so should you and anyone else trying to be the master of our own ship.

The speech part can be done by asking yourself why do I want to say that or why did I say that before or after speaking for one complete day and it will show up your deeper reasons if you accept the first reply to yourself, then ask why again and again until you hit the real baseline, of course, you are unlikely to hit the real baseline with some things in a day; so you rest a week or so and do it again.

The downside of this is that it either shuts you up and you start analysing everyone else too or you are not ready to face baseline and you give up.

I find this is useful when I have said something and wish I hadn't.

For false speech I try to do use the idea Radiant star talks about.
I will layout the entire sentence in my head before I say anything. This usually causes a bit of a lag and can be somewhat annoying to both the speaker and listener. It helps if I slow my speaking cadence so that my mind is working faster than my mouth. I notice though that when I get excited or emotional this all flies out the window. I do the same thing times, embelishing a story and I hate the fact that I have to keep stroking my ego at times. I can usually tell when others are doing it and I know how annoying it is to me so I can only imagine their reaction to engaging in the same actions.

This post has been edited by chaoscrowley37: Nov 2 2005, 08:35 AM

Not sure how to put this on proper wording, but contemplate this: it's better to cure the root of the problem than to cure the symptoms.

Exactly Kinjo (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That is why you don't stop asking why you did or said something until you are sure you hit the baseline; but this sometimes takes many attempts and occasionally with big issues, can take years to understand an aspect of ourselves.

Of course, meditation helps loosen things, but Mediocracy practices Zazen already (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

My Zazen recently has been... intermitant (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

I have lost my focus. On the plus side I am aware of this and so can, with your helpful advice, get back on track.