Angie Boissevain gave the first talk in a six-week series titled "Ethics, Action and the Five Precepts". Her talk addresses the fifth precept: refraining from intoxication. She discusses the impact of drug and alcohol use on relationships and how restraint can promote harmony.

This series will explore virtue as the indispensable foundation of Buddhist practice. The series will emphasize the five training precepts, and explore action, ethics, kamma, and cause-effect dynamics. The precepts are not rules to be obediently followed; they serve as guidelines for the intentional development of compassion, mindfulness, and wisdom. These five precepts offer us a joyful method to cultivate the heart, nurture harmony in relationships, and free the mind from inner forces of greed and anger that if unrestrained may cause suffering to ourselves and others.

This is the fourth talk in a speaker series titled "Eight-Fold Path of Awakening." Every moment, we are asking, "now, what do I do?" Right action is the guidance to that question. It is a list of the precepts: no killing, no stealing, no lying, no sexual misconduct, no taking of intoxicants to cloud the mind. It is asking us to live our lives with integrity and in harmony with others.

This series explores the Noble Eight-fold Path as a liberating practice. The Eight-fold Path is among the most practical and powerful core teachings of the Buddha. If offers practitioners a comprehensive approach for training the mind in the context of meditation, action, relationship, and life.

Equanimity involves being offered a situation, and accepting it as it is. When we do so, we see things more clearly. When we see things more clearly, we then know how to adjust to the situation. Otherwise, we are constantly up against things that we cannot change, wishing them to be different. This is a major source of our stress and frustration. At a first glance, equanimity may look like giving up, but by allowing things as they are, we can come to a peaceful place where there is no clinging or attachment.