Guideline 5 - Pantanca Sayanasanam

Pantanca sayanasanam: Dont be a busy body. Wherever you live, try to be quiet and at peace. Dont get entangled or "play the gongs" with the other members of the group. Dont get involved in issues unless it really cant be helped. When youve studied and understand your duties, look for quiet, solitary places to live and to meditate. When you live with others, look for quiet groups to live with. When you live alone, in physical seclusion, be a quiet person. Even when you live with the group, be a secluded person. Take only the good, peaceful things the group has to offer. When you live alone, dont get involved in a lot of activity. Be quiet in your actions, quiet in your speech, quiet in your mind. When you live in a group — either two or three people — dont get involved in quarrels, for when theres quarreling theres no peace. Your actions arent peaceful, for you have to get up and storm around. Your words arent peaceful. Your mind — with its thoughts of anger, revenge, and ill will — isnt peaceful. And this gives rise to all sorts of bad karma. When you live in a community — anywhere from four on up to 99 — you have to make sure that the community is at peace, that theres no conflict, no quarreling, no hurting one anothers feelings or doing one another harm. The community should be a cooperative for training peacefully in virtue and the Dhamma. Thats when its a good community, orderly and civilized, fostering progress for all its members. This is one of our duties as part of the Buddhas following, in line with the Buddhas instructions. Its called patanca sayanasanam: creating a quiet place to live, at your ease in both body and mind.