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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Compassion

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Compassion

Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis upon which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on compassion, for when you develop meditation on compassion, any cruelty will be abandoned. (MN 62) The near enemy of compassion is ordinary sorrow. (Vm 9.99)

Reflection

Just as physical pleasure and pain are natural and inevitable aspects of human experience, the same is true of mental pleasure and pain. Sorrow can be seen as a form of mental pain, and it is natural to feel such pain, for example, with the death of a loved one. Compassion is also accompanied by sorrow, but it is not ordinary sorrow; it is a higher sorrow, raised beyond the personal to the level of a universal emotion.

Daily Practice

Allow yourself to open to the suffering of another person; there is plenty of opportunity for this these days. See if you can discern a difference between feeling sorry for them and feeling sorrow on account of their pain. See if you can feel the difference between a personal sorrow and a universal sorrow. Practice opening to the suffering of others on this broader, more universal level of experience and meaning.

Tomorrow: Refraining from Malicious Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Appreciative Joy

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Via Daily Dharma: Simplifying Our Choices

 One of the hardest things to remember about practice is that we’ve truly never before experienced this moment. We repeat the same action over and over and over again. And yet in repeating the act of sitting, we give ourselves a structure in which our strategies become obvious and our choices become simple.

-Alex Tzelnic, “How to Resist the Comfort of Repetition”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via White Crane Institute -- Say their names! MAHMOUD ASGARI and AYAZ MARHONI

Died

2005 -

The Iranian Government publicly executed two teenage boys on July 19th 2005, in the city of Mashad. Their names were MAHMOUD ASGARI and AYAZ MARHONI, one eighteen and the other seventeen or possibly sixteen-years-old.

They were accused of raping a thirteen-year-old boy, but it has been established that the authorities invented the charge of rape to prevent public sympathy for the true reason for their execution, that they were Gay. After their arrest the two boys endured a year of imprisonment and torture before the high court of Iran upheld their sentence and their execution by hanging was carried out in a public square in the city of Mashad.

International outrage was met with arrogance and impunity by the religious and conservative Iranian government, and a systematic persecution soon began against Gays, which has led to an unverified report of a second execution, and untold numbers of arrests and torture. These events indicate that the worldwide struggle for Gay Freedom has not decreased but has become more violent and inhumane.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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