Via Daily Dharma: Nurturing Hope

 Hope is a flame that we nurture within our hearts. It may be sparked by someone else—by the encouraging words of a friend, relative, or mentor—but it must be fanned and kept burning through our own determination.

Daisaku Ikeda, “On Hardship & Hope”

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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 energy-awakening factor is internally present, one is aware: “Energy is present for me.” When energy is not present, one is aware: “Energy is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen energy occurs, one  is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen energy-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

Energy is a mental factor, like so many others, that arises and passes away in the mind from one moment to another. We all know what it feels like to have too little energy and to give it a boost to accomplish a task, and what it feels like to have too much energy and to try to calm down using relaxation exercises. One way of practicing mindfulness of mental objects is to learn to look at and develop this awakening factor.

Daily Practice

See if you can gain an intuitive understanding of what the energy factor feels like in your own direct experience. Do this by noticing when it is present and when it is absent. Like isolating a muscle in the body for strengthening exercises, see if you can identify and strengthen the means of deliberately increasing or decreasing mental energy. This is an awakening factor because it is a crucial tool for developing the mind toward awakening.

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 mental formations;” one practices: “I shall breathe out tranquilizing mental formations.” 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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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation -- Words of Wisdom - July 10, 2022 💌

 
 

The three levels of compassionate action that I see are:

You do compassionate action as best you can as an exercise on yourself to come closer to God, to spirit, to awareness, to One.

Next is you start to appreciate that you’re a part of something larger than yourself and you are an instrument of God. No longer are you doing it to get there, you’re now doing it as an instrument.

And third is where you lose self-consciousness and you are God manifest. You’re part of the hand of God. Then you’re not doing anything. It’s just God manifest.

How do you get to that third one? By honoring others and being patient.

- Ram Dass