Upāsaka

I came across this yesterday:

In what ways do you offer less than 100 percent dedication to awakening?
Learn what drains and diminishes your effort. Notice the effect of daily habits and entertainments on your meditation. Observe the effects that watching TV, engaging in gossip, or surfing the Web might have on your concentration. If you discover that an activity increases distraction or reduces your energy, you can do something different — engage in more supportive pursuits. Confront any obstacles that sap your strength and determination for practice.
Excerpt from: “Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana” by Pa-Auk.

For the greater part of this year, I have been trying to completely eliminate distraction (mostly in the form of entertainment) from my life. The longest I have gone is 27 days. Often, I end up binge watching YouTube videos on a weekend instead of practicing the Dhamma, meditating, or doing anything that will bring benefit in the long term such as learning a new skill or exercising.

When you begin meditating, you learn that in order to get the most out of the meditation practice, it must not end when the timer sounds and you get off the cushion. You must be mindful and develop concentration at all times. This complete dedication to the meditation practice is what brings the greatest fruits in this life and the next.

Last week was the last time I engaged in excessive sensual pleasures that only brought temporary satisfaction, not the long term happiness and equanimity that the Buddhist path enables. And I hope that I will never again willingly engage in these sorts of pleasures.

When a friend was showing me educational videos on YouTube, I suggested that he watch something that I considered to be “funny”, and he asked me “You watch this kind of stuff?” With this outside perspective, it struck me that what I was watching had little to no value. I was truly wasting my time. It wasn't even funny the second time around.

On the 24th of September, I will “break my record” for the number of days I have gone without engaging in fruitless entertainments. The goal is to keep track of this for one year, after which I hope to look back and wonder why I even considered wasting this life, which affords such a rare opportunity.

“Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?”
“It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole.”
“It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.
“Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'”
SN 56.48, Chiggala Sutta