u/Mundane-Play-1959

Hey there practioners so about my question i have been keeping 5 precpets for a couple of years with little gaps. I'm trying celibacy now (also been under addiction to adult content for few years as well). So i often hear about not welcoming thoughts and not delighting in it. But how exactly do i do it?

In my experience let's take example of sexuality. I may be having a ​unpleasant mood, boredom and i say get triggered by say social media , or i get thoughts of engaging in sexual content , or fantasies and what not. So sometimes what i do is not like think about the thoughts like try not fuel it as bhante says but I don't know if i am doing it correctly. I try to either steer my attention back to the present or to what I'm doing now or i may do something else like ignore it or whatever. What this leaves me with is the pressure there in my mind to think in that direction that i generally am unable to endure and it makes me act out unwise in verbal and bodily behaviour.

While yes​ I'm aware ​navigating this mental domain needs a beforehand establishment in not acting out from verbal and physical domain for long ​what i have been noticing is that say I'm away from all these thoughts and have not acted out during those times i may indulge in thoughts of the thing im restraining myself from slowly day after day it builds up and i end up back where i started. So i want to overcome this habit or this snowball effect. Because when say I'm acting continuously unwisely and breaking celibacy precepts say the mental domain is hard to see and the acting out is fast and hard to stop but after stopping for a while days or weeks it's easy to see all that happening in the mind.

For reference i haven't broken the precept of killing for years now ​and i dislike bugs but everytime i see a bug and a unwholesome thought pops up i instinctively remind myself to not kill it and remind myself that i have take a precept so that thought subsides and I don't act on the thoughts , ​also thoughts ​don't proliferate more after that moment. Is this how that unwelcoming is done? Am i wrong somewhere or is my entire understanding not correct? Is it all about practice again and again? ​My idea is that brute forcing ​first not breaking precpets on physical level and then verbal then once that is kinda manageable try to not welcome those thoughts (but here​ is where i fail ) so yeah any guidance would be very ​helpful. Thank you.

I have been following HH for some years now but still it is kinda in the dark how I exactly attain the right view. I haven't yet reached 8 precepts yet. I am stuck on celibacy but can keep 5 precepts fairly okayish with very occasional breaks. What I don't understand is how much of 8 precepts do i really need to take on for me to get the right view? Yes ik precepts are a close approximation of virtue but is the right view not possible on 5 precepts+ celibacy? Do i really need to reach a baseline of 8 precepts? (Also how far is celibacy necessary , do i need to be a loner no romantic relationships allowed or something?) Yes the animal does kick and scream from that idea of baseline 8 precepts, but i do intend to again start keeping weekly uposathas. But keeping a baseline of 8 just means I would have to cut off mostly everything from lay life. No friends, give up on getting into a relationship (is all this necessary? suttas don't have much on it , yes i do know company is a counter to seeing your citta but is giving up everything really that necessary? I see people here going to ordain and that makes me worried that for my goal maybe i also need to fulfil that requirement or something) while yes the scope of ignorance is massive but i can't understand why is 8 the minimum for me to attain right veiw is occassionally 8 okay or if it's not everyday it's no use? Is just 5 + celibacy okay ?

As far as my understanding goes eight precepts allow a lot of free time to ponder and look into the intentions but till what extent do i need to look? Do i need to understand how to endure pressure indefinitely and see that as not me because it was never "me" who was contributing in arising it hence I don't need to "do" anything for it to cease and thus allowing me to experimentally see anatta and thus break the self identify fetter and the the rest two as well? I'm sorry i know it feels a very obvious question and despite my experience with the teaching for quite a while now it still is a mystery to me. I guess one could say that the presence of the mystery is the reason I'm a puthujjana but yeah like I don't wish to fully give up on lay life all i want to reach in this life is sotapatti. Any help would be appreciated.