CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES

An action depends on something else in order to occur, and this something else for a person is usually in the form of a decision.  Should I take this action or not take this action, or even should I think this thought, or not think this thought, because thoughts lead to actions, most often.
  
The Buddhist teaching in the Majjhima-Nikaya II.32 reads:  “If this is, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises; if this is not, that does not come to be; from the stopping of this, that stops.” 
 
We must, in other words, think through what we are thinking and doing, or, as the case may be, think through what we have chosen to not think and to not do.  Thinking and doing and not thinking and not doing, equally have consequences.