I spent my early twenties in Buddhist monasteries. What I learned at the foot of these peaceful, shockingly kind monks was that the mind is all habits spun on t

I spent my early twenties in Buddhist monasteries. What I learned at the foot of these peaceful, shockingly kind monks was that the mind is all habits spun on the flywheel of action. "Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking & pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness. If a monk keeps pursuing thinking imbued with sensuality, abandoning thinking imbued with renunciation, his mind is bent by that thinking imbued with sensuality." We have a choice every time a thought, a desire, a feeling comes to us. We can follow it, pursue it, foment it. Or we can see it, acknowledge it, and drop it. People will do what they want and never have I advocated we tell people they can't do with their bodies whatever they want to do with them. But we can encourage a wiser eye in our consumption.