Mindfulness meditation increases awareness of the devastating consequences of immoral behavior. The meditator vividly experiences the painful effects of unwholesome thoughts, words, and deeds and urgently feels the need to give them all up.
You alone are the author of your future — experience teaches you that. Your behavior is not an unchangeable law of nature. At every moment, you have the opportunity to change — to alter your thoughts, your speech, your actions. If you train yourself to be mindful of what you do, and ask yourself whether it’s likely to lead to positive results or negative, you’ll be guiding yourself in the right direction.
Repeated good intentions can generate a powerful inner voice that will keep you on track. It will remind you — whenever you trap yourself in a cycle of unhappiness — that you can get out of that trap. Periodically you will have glimpses of what it is like to be free. You make this vision a reality by acting in positive ways and letting go of misery.
Thus morality — defined as actions in accordance with reality — is the foundation of all spiritual progress. Without this, nothing of the path will work to reduce suffering.
Bhante Gunaratana