Since the retreats offer almost no opportunity to break the vows, keeping them is seldom a problem. But, once outside again, the world presents more than enough opportunities; it presents encouragement and even pressure to break them. When I spoke to Goenka about how difficult it was to stop drinking altogether for personal and social reasons, he advised me not to force it, since force would only increase the craving which was at the core of drinking. Be aware, be moderate, keep meditating — he said — and when that particular habit was ready to surface, as a sensation, it would be erased naturally. And, despite my scepticism, that is what happened. I came out of a twenty-day retreat in 1982 and found, in the weeks and months and years that followed, I had not the least desire for a glass of beer or a sip of champagne.
"I’m worried I’m being brainwashed," I said to Goenka in a state of panic midway through my second retreat.
"You are being brainwashed," he answered. "Your brain is being washed!"
It was a matter of faith again, I suppose, but faith tested rigorously, suspiciously, against what it promised and what it delivers. "Do not simply believe whatever you are told, or whatever had been handed down from past generations, or what is common opinion, or whatever the scriptures say," Buddha — is reputed to have — said. "Do not accept something as true merely by deduction or inference, or by considering outward appearances, or by partiality for a certain view, or because of its plausibility, or because your teacher tells you it is so. But when you yourselves directly know that these principles are unwholesome, blameworthy, condemned by the wise — when adopted and carried out they lead to harm and suffering — then you should abandon them. And when you yourselves know that these principles are wholesome, blameless, praised by the wise — when adopted and carried out they lead to welfare and happiness — then you should accept and practise them."
Read more: http://web.archive.org/web/20061015235040/http://rongrahamcanada.com/books/gods.html
