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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Intoxication

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Intoxication

Intoxication is unhealthy. Refraining from intoxication is healthy. (MN 9) What are the imperfections that defile the mind? Negligence is an imperfection that defiles the mind. Knowing that negligence is an imperfection that defiles the mind, a person abandons it. (MN 7) One practices thus: “Others may become negligent by intoxication, but I will abstain from the negligence of intoxication.” (MN 8) There are these two worldly conditions: pleasure and pain. These are conditions that people meet—impermanent, transient, and subject to change. A mindful, wise person knows them and sees that they are subject to change. Desirable conditions do not excite one’s mind nor is one resentful of undesirable conditions. (AN 8.6)

Reflection

We have within us a natural instinct to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. One of the Buddha’s great insights is that both are hardwired into our minds and bodies and are thus an inevitable aspect of the human condition. Knowing this and accepting it as true allows us to watch the interplay of the two without needing to change what is happening. A wise person is mindful of both pleasure and pain, regarding them evenly.

Daily Practice

Practice becoming aware of feeling tones, both pleasant and painful, as they arise accompanying all experience. Cultivate a posture of noticing each one, acknowledging how it feels, and letting it change into something else, as it will naturally do. Give up the hopeless task of chasing after pleasure and fleeing pain and simply appreciate, with equanimity rather than excitement or resentment, the changing nature of experience.

Tomorrow: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via White Crane Institute

 

This Day in Gay History

September 02 Born Father John M. McNeill 1925 - JOHN M. MCNEILL, Jesuit scholar, psychotherapist, born (d: 2015); For more than twenty-five years John J. McNeill, an ordained priest and psychotherapist, devoted his life to spreading the good news of God's love for Lesbian and Gay Christians. One year after the publication of The Church and the Homosexual (1976), McNeill received an order from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican ordering him to silence in the public media. He observed the silence for nine years while continuing a private ministry to Gays and Lesbians which included psychotherapy, workshops, lectures and retreats. In 1988, he received a further order from Cardinal Ratzinger (soon to become Pope Benedict XVI, the first Pope to resign in a millennium) directing him to give up all ministry to Gay persons which he refused to do in conscience. As a result, he was expelled by the Vatican from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for challenging the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of homosexuality, and for refusing to give up his ministry and psychotherapy practice to Gay men and Lesbians. McNeill had been a Jesuit for nearly 40 years. After enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War II at the age of seventeen, McNeill served in combat in the Third Army under General Patton and was captured in Germany in 1944. McNeill spent six months as a POW (Prisoner of War) until he was liberated in May of 1945. John enrolled in Canisius College in Buffalo after his discharge from the army and, upon graduating, entered the Society of Jesus in 1948. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1959. In 1964, McNeill earned a Doctorate in Philosophy, with highest honors (Plus Grande Distinction), at Louvain University in Belgium. His doctoral thesis on the philosophical and religious thought of Maurice Blondel was published in 1966 as the first volume of the series Studies in the History of Christian Thought edited by Heiko Oberman and published by Brill Press in Leyden, Holland. During his professional career, McNeill taught philosophy at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY, and in the doctorate program at Fordham University in NYC. In 1972, he joined the combined Woodstock Jesuit Seminary and Union Theological Seminary faculty as professor of Christian Ethics, specializing in Sexual Ethics. In 1974, McNeill was co-founder of the New York City chapter of Dignity, a group for Catholic Gays and Lesbians. For over twenty-five years, he has been active in a ministry to Gay Christians through retreats, workshops, lectures, publications, etc. For twenty years John was a leader of semiannual retreats at the Kirkridge Retreat Center in Pennsylvania.   |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8| 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 |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|

Via Daily Dharma: Compassionate Speech

 Practice saying something kind to someone every day. Do this especially with people you don’t like. It gets easier with practice and bears surprisingly good results. 

Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, “The Truth About Gossip and Buddhism”

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Via IMS Sangha News ~ September 2022

 

What Is Mindfulness and Why Is It Essential to Our Liberation? IMS Resident Teacher Chas DiCapua

We hear a lot about mindfulness these days. But what is it and why should we be mindful? And if we're mindful, will it help ensure things turn out okay? In this dharma talk, given as part of a retreat called Stillness & Insight at the IMS Retreat Center, Chas DiCapua explains what mindfulness is, why it’s essential to our liberation, and how we can grow and strengthen our mindfulness practice. “Without mindfulness and without being present and knowing what's happening in our body and mind, knowing our own experience, the habit patterns of our heart and mind are going to be in the driver's seat. Our habit patterns are going to be pulling the levers and switches, in terms of governing what we say, what we do, and even what we think. When we're mindful, we have the choice of whether they'll be in the driver's seat or not."

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