I am delighted by your replies. They give much inspiration to consider what you say and ask.

< Just go with the flow 😆

HaHa! Your humor is top notch!

It can quickly become unruly when you have too many concepts up in the air.

I hear that you talk out of experience. Thanks.

Maybe it depends on how aware the person is of the "sin" at any given moment. Someone who is aware of their propensity for wrath and takes deliberate steps to change feelings/behaviors, may not be a slave to it or any other sin. Being aware of all sins at every moment is exhausting, however, so very few of us can achieve this level of self mastery, as you point out.

The spectrum is broad. If one listens within oneself, it is not too much of an art to find out where a weakness lies. One who is absolutely a slave to his inclinations will not take any conscious steps at all to break this habit. All teaching is lost for him.

It is an ideal to strive towards, knowing that there will be no perfection. But without an ideal, there is no direction. I guess the art is to strive lightly and not grudgingly. To be able to alternate between trusting in oneself and trusting in others.

For the rest of your reply:
HaHa! I hear you! And I often find myself asking sceptical questions. Only the mad man has no doubts :)

To this, a memory comes up. I had met with friends that year, a few months after my mother died. The meeting itself disturbed and agitated me in a way I had never experienced before and I was deeply emotionally upset but didn't know why. On the train back I was reading a book about Buddha and making all sorts of angry side notes. I felt great frustration at this detachment and also just had this image of secluded scholars saying intelligent things in their ivory tower while they themselves had no ill-will to suffer.

I felt like Captain Archer from the Enterprise who was once again up against the stoic Vulcans who seemed to come across as condescending and unworldly with their logic to him.

This is unfair, of course, because monastic life and village life have always had a symbiotic relationship where they functioned - at least in Asian traditions, non-possessiveness has been preserved to this day. The monks offered spiritual guidance and received physical food in return, to simplify briefly. They offered practical as well as spiritual action and ritual in matters of village affairs, as well as assisted in deaths and ceremonial farewells to the departed. And so on. One "cell" cannot be without the other "cell". It is precisely the differences between these cells that makes the whole alive and functional, so they are accepted as positive.

Where they have no clue from my point of view as a woman is the issue of birth and female affairs and the whole space of motherhood (breastfeeding, carrying, singing, blood, placenta, midwives etc etc). The priests, from my point of view, were all lacking in that they could not accept the authorities of the priestesses as equals in the sense of women (a very great weakness and something the gentlemen have to work on to this day). Celibacy is a great strength, but at the same time an Achilles' heel. Since Buddhists look upon birth - and through it rebirth - less joyfully than the West, they naturally have little fun with this issue. :D LOL

I could write endlessly about it!

P.S. Here, I have written extensively about the monastic life. It's a very long read and you have to take time. I did not add my critical thoughts in terms of females affairs. Still, that stays with me as something, which is not ideal.