Moderation in Religion

A detailed Summary of Moderation in Religion

Every week on the news there is something new from a different doctor saying that your one time vice is now good for you. It could be that red wine is good for the heart or chocolate is good for something else. After the doctor explains this medical breakthrough, he adds the catch. The catch is "only in moderation". If drinking wine and eating chocolate in moderation is good for me, what else is good for me in moderation? Is moderation the way I should live my life? There are limitations everywhere. Moderation is; prudence, reasonableness, nothing in excess, or middle way. It is defined as the quality of being moderate; restraint; avoidance of extremes or excesses. Moderation is also a belief of many religions. Taoists have moderation as one of "The Three Jewels" of their beliefs and practices. Buddhist has what is called "The Middle Way". Stoicism teaches moderation as one of their "Four Chief Virtues".

Taoists have moderation as one of "The Three Jewels" of their beliefs and practices. The Three Jewels to be sought by a Taoist are compassion, moderation and humility. Many people believe Taoists are always alone. In fact they believe strongly that one should spend time equally with others and by your self. You

Too much store is sure to end in immense loss.

Temperance, which is moderation in all things, is what a Stoic needs to live a moral life. Living as a Stoic is living a simple, quiet, reclusive, sensible life of moderation among friends, avoiding extravagant worldly attractions and bringing no trouble on others. Stoics are known for their repression of emotion and indifference to pleasure or pain. They say, that a wise person is one who exhibits rational self-control, subordinating excessive impulses and emotion-laden desires to the law of reason.

This is the path taught by the Buddha. It is the Middle Path, the path of moderation. You will recall that the life of the Buddha before His Enlightenment falls into two quite distinct periods. The period before renunciation was a period when He enjoyed all the luxury possible. For instance, we are told that He had three palaces, one for each season. He experienced luxury to an extent which we can scarcely imagine. This period of luxury was superseded by six years of extreme asceticism and self-mortification when He abandoned the essential amenities of life, a period in which He lived in the open, wore the poorest garments and fasted for lengthy periods. In addition to these privations, He experienced the suffering of torturing His body through various practices of self-mortification - sleeping on beds of thorns and sitting in the midst of fires in the heat of the noon-day sun. Having experienced the extremes of luxury and privation, having reached the limits of these extremes, He saw their futility and He discovered the Middle Way that avoids the extremes of indulgence in pleasures of the senses and self-mortification. It was through realizing the nature of the extremes in His own experience that He was able to arrive at the Middle Path, the path that avoids the two extremes. As we shall see in the subsequent weeks, the Middle Path is capable of many profound and significant interpretations, but most importantly and most essentially, it means moderation in one's approach to life, in one's attitude

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Approximate Word count = 1390
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Religion