View from the cliff at La Verna Sanctuary, 06/09/2019
The stone steps of the monastery cliffs are part of a 70 m high sheer rock wall (1,060 m above sea level). The view from the top of the cliff is beautiful. It is said that while Francis was looking at the cliff, the devil showed him the image of hell and threatened him. There is a small cave on one side of the cliff in which he had been crouching in fear.
These illusions common to ascetics are often the result of loneliness and malnutrition for long time. Ascetics is the process of inner purification but sometimes invokes the negative images hidden, what we call original sins that should be removed. It is fortunate if they can be overcome and transformed into wisdom and compassion, but in the worst case, many ascetic monks suffer from mental problems. So Buddha emphasized the importance of middle path.
Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. There is an addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is an addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Perfect One has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path realized by the Tathagata...? It is the Noble Eightfold Path, and nothing else, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Middle Way
