The zen of temptation

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it… I can resist everything but temptation. / Oscar Wilde

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 at 6:58am and is filed under Zen principles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

3 Responses to “The zen of temptation”

  1. jaclyn
    August 9th, 2005 22:08
    1

    Great…

    Um, does that mean I can eat the entire container of Cookies-n-Cream ice cream languishing in my freezer?

    I feel like there is a whole new meaning to rationalization in my life.

    Bless Oscar.

  2. jack
    August 9th, 2005 22:16
    2

    One of my earliest memories of one of my zen teachers, Sensei Ogui, was of him in a dharma talk. laughingly commenting that in Buddhism, “there is no guilt.”

  3. Lori Kozey
    August 13th, 2005 09:07
    3

    I have found this to be true for me for the little temptations in life, but am careful not to carry it to extremes. I have learned that if I want the ice cream (funny that my big temptation is the same), I’m eventually going to eat the ice cream, so I allow myself to have enough of it to satisfy my craving before I spend the evening obsessing about the ice cream that I “can’t” have and eating nine other things I really don’t want as substitutes that in the end don’t do a thing to make the craving go away. If I feel the need to tell someone off when it really won’t do any good, I just write a nasty letter/e-mail but never send it — it gets the venom out of my system so I can move on.

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