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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling

A person goes to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: "Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I am content." (SN 47.10)   When feeling a neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling, one is aware: "Feeling a neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling" … one is just aware, just mindful: "There is feeling." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Pleasant and painful feelings are apparent enough, but the third kind of feeling, one that is neither pleasant nor painful but neutral, can be harder to detect. Some say most feeling is neutral, and only a few feelings are obviously pleasant or painful. Others say that most feelings are either pleasant or painful, only appearing neutral with insufficient attention, and that with greater discernment they will resolve into pleasant or painful. Try out both points of view and decide for yourself.

Daily Practice

Feeling tone is a component of every mind moment. While breathing in and out, notice the changing textures of feeling throughout the body. Feelings are fleeting, numerous, and varied. It is against the backdrop of pleasant and painful feelings that you can begin to notice feelings like tingling, perhaps, that don't register as obviously pleasant or unpleasant yet still make up the strands of experience.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)

With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4)

Reflection

Trying to attain these stages as some form of accomplishment is actually antithetical to the states of mind accessed by jhāna. One of the reasons the jhānas have not been emphasized in western meditation circles until recently is precisely because of the danger inherent in the striving or comparing mind. Never mind stage one, two, three, or four—just sit quietly and allow the contentment of the tranquil mind to formlessly arise.

Daily Practice

As you sit quietly and your mind becomes increasingly calm and stable, it is natural for the pleasant sensations that arise from the mind being free of the hindrances to gradually morph into the pleasant sensations that come simply from the mind being focused. This unified tranquility is actually a natural state for the mind, which is much more at home in serenity than it is in our hectic, multitasking life.

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of  Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna

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Via Daily Dharma: Guide Yourself Towards Healing

 Once you have genuinely, fully, and tenderly touched your own brokenness, place a seed in the crack. Make a wish in that fissure, and share with yourself the aimless kindness of your own presence.

Lama Karma, “A Letter from My Future Self, Encouraging Me to Practice”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - February 6, 2022 💌

 
 

It’s interesting to observe your own reaction when change presents itself in life.   

It may be an economic change in your circumstances, it may be a change in the way you spend your life. A lot of people, as their children grow, have an opportunity to change their lives, but they have such strong habits in how they’ve always done things and who they’ve always been, that they get frightened at the freedom to change when an opportunity presents itself.    

Up until now, they justified their existence by what their karma commitments are; “I have to be this way,” and I would say that doesn’t have to be the case. They don’t have to wait for their kids to grow up, because that waiting becomes their daily routine.    

How much of who I was yesterday is defining who I am today? How much can I allow who I am today to be totally open and tuning and responding to the situation, which includes everything I was yesterday, but also all that I will be tomorrow?  

- Ram Dass

Professor Ann Gleig at GBF - San Francisco Sunday Feb. 6, 2022 // QUEERING BUDDHISM OR BUDDHIST DE-QUEERYING?

 

2022.02.06 Ann Gleig (Queer Buddhism, Racial Justice & Buddhism, Buddhism).mp3

Article in Google Books: Undoing Whiteness in America Buddhist Modernism: Critical, Collective, and Contextual Turns

Article at  tandfonline.com: Queering Buddhism or Buddhist De-Queering? Reflecting on Differences: Amongst Western LGBTQI Buddhists
and the Limits of Liberal Convert
Buddhism

Gay Buddhist Fellowship

Via Daily Dharma: Facing Life’s Pains

In turning toward our pain there’s great freedom—a freedom that grounds us in our core of being. As we slowly but steadily undo our various ways of fleeing our pain, the energy we’ve invested in getting away from our pain—as opposed to simply being with our pain—is freed up, becoming available for us to use for truly life-giving purposes.

Robert Augustus Masters, “A Painless Present”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

What is the cessation of suffering? It is the remainderless fading away and ceasing, the giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of craving. (MN 9) When one knows and perceives odors as they actually are, then one is not attached to odors. When one abides unattached, one is not infatuated, and one’s craving is abandoned. One’s bodily and mental troubles are abandoned, and one experiences bodily and mental well-being. (MN 149)

Reflection

Suffering arises and falls away moment by moment, just like everything else. Suffering is not an abstract characteristic of the world but is manifest in thousands of little ways every day. Any time you feel afflicted by suffering, you can inquire into what it is that you want to be other than it is and then relinquish your hold on that episode of wanting. Desires and discontents come up but need not rule us. Just let go of them, one by one.

Daily Practice

As we move through each of the senses in order, today we work with odors and the sense of smell. Next time you smell something offensive, and you catch yourself automatically recoiling from it, try instead to bring an attitude of equanimity to the experience. Notice that you can disengage from aversion to the smell if you choose to do so and then continue to smell the odor without attachment or aversion.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Appreciative Joy
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

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#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.