Magico (LGBTQ / Gay Short Film)

"Have you turned a straight guy?" | You Can't Ask That

Via ARISE Sangha

 

ARISE Sangha

Transforming the World's Divisions Through Love and Understanding

One branch of the International Plum Village Community tree that has sprung from Thay’s vision of inclusion is the ARISE (Awakening through Race, Intersectionality, and Social Equity) Sangha. ARISE works to address and heal wounds of racial injustice and social inequity, bridging mindfulness and social action in practice communities and in the larger world. ARISE offers special online gatherings, webinars, a newsletter, Dharma teachings, articles (like this one on Juneteenth), and opportunities for Engaged Buddhism, in-depth conversations, and mindfulness practices that uphold and honor historically underrepresented groups within the global Sangha. ARISE also speaks out on current events, including the recent gun violence that’s disproportionately affected people of color: “When one of us dies in the name of hatred, we do not condone, we transform through love,” part of a recent ARISE statement says.  For more information, visit the ARISE website or follow the Sangha on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And look to our next issue of The Raft for Dharma talks and further content recognizing Pride Month and supporting our LGBTQIA+ friends.

Learn More About ARISE

Via The Raft // Honoring Juneteenth

 “I am a drop in the ocean, but I'm also the ocean. I'm a drop in America, but I'm also America. And as I transform myself and heal and take care of myself, I'm very conscious that I'm healing and transforming and taking care of America.”  

Larry Ward, author of America's Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal

Honoring Juneteenth A Spiritual Practice for Racial Healing  On June 19, the United States marks Juneteenth, which commemorates the freedom of enslaved people at the end of the Civil War. While 156 years have passed since the first Juneteenth celebration, black people and other people of color continue to experience ongoing, systemic, and disproportionate levels of racism, discrimination, poverty, and violence.  In a Dharma talk from Blue Cliff Monastery’s online Order of Interbeing retreat in 2020, Sister Peace says we must continue advocating for legal and social reforms that protect, honor, and celebrate members of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities. But she says people of all races and cultural backgrounds must also learn how to sit with our awareness of this vast sea of suffering to investigate its roots and discern its implications for our lives, first individually and then collectively.  “What's being requested is not with an intent of separation,” she adds, “because we all live and work and move and have our being within the beautiful arms of the Sangha. We need to do the work so that we can individually and collectively heal.”

Watch the Dharma Talk

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects

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 the investigation-of-states awakening factor is internally present, one is aware: “Investigation of states is present for me.” When investigation of states is not present, one is aware: “Investigation of states is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen investigation of states occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen investigation-of-states awakening factor occurs, one is aware of that.  . . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is a mental object.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

The second of the seven factors of awakening is investigation of states. This is a kind of natural curiosity and interest that emerges when you become mindful of something. The heightened awareness leads to an increased inclination to investigate the nature of what is seen. It is like looking at something under a microscope or through a telescope—once it has been illuminated, you can begin the process of examining it carefully.

Daily Practice

Taking a keen interest in your own experience is not something that happens all the time but arises and falls away under various conditions, just like every other mental factor. It is something you can practice doing. It is a matter of amplifying your attention when it comes to bear on an object and then taking the awareness a step further, looking more closely or listening more carefully with open curiosity: What is this?

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna)

With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters upon and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4) One practices: "I shall breathe in, tranquilizing the bodily formation"; one practices: "I shall breathe out, tranquilizing the bodily formation." This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (SN 54.8)

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Again and Again

Practice is an act of vision, of faith, and of desire. It means performing something over and over again, in the face of obstacles and disappointments, to accomplish the goal. 

Diane Musho Hamilton, “Practice Is the Way”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - June 12, 2022 💌

 

So if you keep your heart open with love towards all people, even though you might say to somebody, ‘That’s wrong, and I’m going to stop you from doing it,’ do it without closing your heart. At least you are offering to all human beings at all times a heart-to-heart resuscitation; you’re offering something of your own being. You’re being with other people in love. And that to me is a gift that you bring, that is the best you can do to heal the situation. 

- Ram Dass -

 

Quoted from the Here & Now Podcast Episode 200