Proverbs 25:17 Meaning Let Your Foot Be Seldom

What the mind crowds and clings to, it slowly comes to fear, because clinging is a quiet demand, and every demand invites the resentment it dreads. To press too near another is to seek in him the wholeness a mind has denied itself, and no person can carry that weight for long.

The counsel is not distance for its own sake but the freedom that leaves a brother innocent of the burden of completing you. A mind that needs nothing from another can finally love him, because it no longer approaches him as a debtor. Give space, and what looked like the risk of being hated becomes simply room for peace.

Thy neighbour's house: the inner life of another mind, its private ground, which grasping crowds and freedom leaves at peace.

Saṅgaṇikārāmatā: Fondness for company Fondness for company is a pull, and the foot is how it gets carried out. The path to that door wears smooth because the hour spent there is pleasant for you, and pleasure keeps asking for one more visit. Catch the pull while your sandals are still off, and going or staying becomes a choice again.

Paṭigha: Repulsion Repulsion is the mind pushing back against what presses on it. Weariness arrives quietly, one visit at a time, a slight leaning away that has not yet found words. Left to gather, that leaning hardens into the hate, which by then has nothing to do with any single afternoon.

Appiyehi sampayogo: Being joined to what one dislikes Being stuck with the unwanted is one of the plain forms of suffering. Once weariness sets in, the neighbor is caught: the knock comes, the door has to be opened, and courtesy keeps them in the room with someone they have started to dread. They will say nothing, preferring to absorb the visits rather than risk the friendship, so the caution about your foot has to do the work their politeness will not.

Mattaññutā: Knowing the right measure Knowing the measure is one skill worked out in food, in speech, and in visits. Honey is sweet and still turns the stomach once you eat past enough, and welcome runs on the same arithmetic, with "seldom" as the amount that keeps it sweet. The right amount shifts by household: some can take you weekly, others twice a year, and reading which is which is the work of a considerate guest.

Viveka: Seclusion Seclusion is time kept apart from company, and it has its own worth. Keeping to your own house is what makes crossing to the neighbor's worth doing; a foot that stays home has somewhere to go. The evenings you spend on your own side of the wall are what keep the welcome alive on the other. A door you knock on rarely opens wider.