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Four Ideals to Guide Your Practice
By Dale S. Wright

An often-overlooked sutra contains four simple teachings for bodhisattvas that may also serve as a guide for contemporary dharma practitioners.

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

RIGHT EFFORT
Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders unhealthy states, one has abandoned healthy states to cultivate the unhealthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to unhealthy states. (MN 19) Abandoning sluggishness, one abides free from sluggishness; one purifies the mind of sluggishness. (MN 51) Just as a person who had been gravely ill, suffering, with no appetite and weak in body, would recover from that illness and regain their strength, so would one rejoice and be glad about the abandoning of sluggishness. (DN 2)

Reflection

Some mental and emotional states drag us down into suffering and obstruct our ability to see things clearly, and some states move us away from suffering and enhance our ability to see what is really going on. Sluggishness is unhealthy—not wrong or bad but unhelpful to the project of understanding and diminishing suffering. Whenever it arises, it is worth making an effort to abandon it by stirring up and applying some energy.

Daily Practice

Focus your attention on that moment when you recognize you are sleepy or lazy or otherwise feeling sluggish and counter it with an upsurge of energy, whether physical or mental. There is a transition point at which the mental state of sluggishness is met with the mental state of energy, and your experience is thereby transformed. Learning to be aware of such nuances in experience is the essence of mindfulness practice.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna
One week from today: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

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Via Daily Dharma: Letting Go of Resistance to Pain

 If we do experience pain or suffering ourselves, we can use it. We’re conditioned to resist pain. We think of it as a solid block we have to push away, but it’s not. It’s like a melody, and behind the cacophony there is tremendous spaciousness.

-Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, “No Excuses”

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