16 Combining these practices and applying them with a self-friendly diligence, we begin to break down the unwholesome habits of the mind which frequently arise if not noticed during our normal activities. A Home Retreat becomes a laboratory to test new ways to cultivate and strengthen our wholesome intentions through our everyday speech and actions. When our speech and actions begin to spontaneously reflect virtue, compassion and harmlessness we can rest assured that the link between intention and action is becoming increasingly linked to Wisdom.
Virtue, Morality (sīla): Is a mode of mind and volition manifested in speech or bodily actions. Karma. It is the foundation of the whole Buddhist practice, and therewith the first of the Three kinds of Training that forms the 3-fold division of the 8-fold path, i.e., morality, concentration, and wisdom. Buddhist Dictionary, Nyanatiloka.
Wisdom (pañña): ‘Understanding, Knowledge, Wisdom, Insight,’ comprise a very wide field. The specific Buddhist Knowledge or wisdom, however, as part of the Noble Eightfold Path to deliverance is Insight, i.e., that intuitive knowledge which brings about the four stages of Holiness and the realization of Nibbānna, and which consists of the penetration of the Impermanency, Misery, and Impersonality of all forms of existence. Buddhist Dictionary, Nyanatiloka.
Papañca: Complication; proliferation, objectification: The tendency of the mind to proliferate issues.
Right Intention (sammā-sankappa): The Noble Eightfold Path. Bhikkhu Bodhi. Chapter Three.
Abbreviations in footnotes: AN: Aṅguttara Nikāya, DN: Dingha Nikāya, MN: Majjhima Nikāya, SN: Saṃyutta Nikāya
