Giving in to impulses, cravings, and gluttony often has negative consequences. Likewise, depriving ourselves of sensory pleasure can isolate us from the experiences that promote our health and wellbeing. How can we find the middle way?

Awareness practice helps us overcome both attachment to sensory experiences that we perceive as desirable, and aversion to those we see as disagreeable. Mindfulness, awareness, and wise attention can help slow down or interrupt our reactions, giving us greater freedom to make wise choices that benefit ourselves and others.

Indriya-samvara is Pali for sense restraint and is the practice of watching or guarding one’s senses. Knowing that if we lapse into mindlessness while experiencing sensory input, we will definitely create craving and aversion—which will often lead to unskillful actions and greater unawareness—we are able to practice restraint.

The Buddha declared that the senses are all burning with the fires of suffering because, without wise mindfulness, awareness, and attention, they contribute to the experience of more suffering.

The senses have the power to overwhelm us, but with mindfulness, full awareness, and wise attention, rather than harming us, we can enjoy them as sources of transitory experience.

[Sakka’s Question on the Restraint of the Faculties, via Wisdom Library | https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/the-great-chronicle-of-buddhas/d/doc364649.html%5D, [Aparihani Sutta: No Falling Away | https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.037.than.html%5D, [Significance of Sense Restraint (Indriya Samvara) in the Theravada Buddhism, by Dr. Ari Ubeysekara | https://drarisworld.wordpress.com/2022/08/09/significance-of-sense-restraint-indriya-samvara-in-theravada-buddhism/%5D

• What types of sense inputs do you find most attractive or most repulsive?
• Can you recall having seen, heard, or tasted the same thing and experienced it differently at different times, and why that might have happened?

Analyze the Buddha’s teachings on sense restraint; evaluate how sensory input influences mental states, thoughts, and emotions; and develop the habit of pausing before reacting to sensory experiences.