Someone wants a whole Dharma talk here, I think! Renunciation, we just talked about. The most important thing to renounce is your wrong views. And this is in retreat and out of retreat. You know, you are standing in line to get the food at breakfast, someone takes four pieces of pineapple, and you get angry: "How dare they, don't they know better!" Can you renounce that anger in that moment, can you bend the energy in that moment? Can you start to reflect with Compassion for that person who doesn't know any better? They can't even read the little notice that tells them to only take one piece of each fruit; they have no feeling for other people who are going to miss out on pineapple. Can you change, renounce the anger right there, bend it with different thoughts? It is an "in retreat - out of retreat" type thing, renunciation, in the sense of the views and so on. Now added to that, as far as normal life goes, there still is a bit of renouncing some of that extra stuff we get that we actually don't need. Like getting a newspaper every single day of the week, getting a magazine every week, this or that, which only end up in the trash cans and so on. How many material things do we actually need? That is something that is helpful to look at.
Energy. Without energy what can we do? If you haven't got enough energy, you are not going to go far anywhere, in retreat or out of retreat. Stimulating mental energy is going to be the key factor. Physical energy is going to depend a lot on your age and your general health. When you get to be over fifty, the body tends to deteriorate quicker. We give extra sleep time for people over 50 in retreats. Physical energy is not always something we can change, but we can try to encourage it in different ways; having a good diet, doing daily exercise, etc.
Mental energy, though, is more important. And within the practice, in particular with the Parami of Energy, we have to stimulate the wish to do this practice. We've got to stimulate interest. We have to stimulate a desire which motivates us to do more. The desire based on interest in the practice will actually give energy. Now, something else that you have heard me say in the regular retreat, reflecting on How Fortunate You Are will give you joy, it will give you contentment. With joy and contentment you get energy. Reflecting on your good past Kamma will give you joy, it will give you contentment. With joy and contentment you get more energy. So you have to train your mind to think wisely, and you are actually going to create more energy on the mental level that way.
Resolution/Determination. One of the biggest ways to strengthen your Resolution/Determination is to reflect on Dukkha. Reflect on where you have been, and where you don't want to go back to. It is one of the biggest ways to strengthen your determination: "I don't want that again, I don't want that Dukkha again." Building that compassion for yourself, compassion for others, that will strengthen your determination and your resolution. The interest in the practice, I just mentioned that. Having energy. When you've got energy, it's easier to stay to your resolutions. When you start to get bored, when you start to get tired, when you start to not care, it is easy to slip back into the old stuff, "Oh, it was so peaceful then, it was so much fun." But when you maintain your interest factor, you can keep your determination factor going.
Truthfulness. Truthfulness is possibly the most least understood of all the Paramis. The one that I constantly work with in different ways, to get people to understand how to look at it in a whole different light. Generally a lot of people think of truthfulness as truthfulness in speech. That's fine, that is one part. But being truthful to our resolutions, being truthful to our direction, being truthful to our principles, being truthful in those sort of ways is much more important. You have come here, you want to learn ways to be a better human being, you want to apply these ways. To stick to it means that you will be truthful to what your intention is. So, you've got to make more determination to support your truthfulness, you've got to put forth more energy, you've got to really work hard to make sure that your whole life starts to be truthful to your intention. It's not so easy.