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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT Maintaining Arisen Healthy States Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders healthy states, one has abandoned unhealthy states to cultivate healthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to healthy states. (MN 19) Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to maintain arisen healthy mental states. One maintains the arisen awakening factor of mindfulness. (MN 141)

Reflection The premier list of healthy mental and emotional states includes the seven factors of awakening, the first of which is mindfulness. It is good to practice mindfulness frequently, for that will incline the mind to further mindfulness. Right effort has a lot to do with developing and maintaining healthy habits of mind and body. It is not always easy to do the right thing, and it often takes effort, but it is invariably good for us. Daily Practice The effort required to sustain the state of mindfulness over time—that is, over multiple mind moments in a row—is not the teeth-clenching discipline of forced action but rather the gentle willingness to come back to the present moment. See if you can access a way of understanding effort that is easeful and natural rather than strained. Think of the effort you put into doing the things you like to do—it is an easy effort. Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and Abiding in the Fourth Jhāna One week from today: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Daily Dharma: Becoming Aware of Our Triggers

 When we become aware of what agitates us, saddens us, or infuriates us, we can practice sitting with it and eventually offer ourselves compassion.

Lauren Krauze, “Anapanasati meditation: Watching the breath without controlling it”

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Via White Crane Institute // DANNY NICOLETTA

 Photographer Danny Nicoletta

1954 - 

DANNY NICOLETTA, is an American photographer and activist, born on this date: In 1975, when he was nineteen, he was hired by Harvey Milk and Scott Smith to work at Castro Camera, their camera store on Castro Street. The three became friends and Nicoletta worked with Milk on his political campaigns for office.

During this period of time, Nicoletta took many now well-known photographs of Milk. Once Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Milk became California's first openly Gay elected official and served for almost eleven months before he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White in City Hall on November 27, 1978.

After the death of Harvey Milk, Nicoletta worked to keep his memory alive. He was the installation coordinator of the Harvey Milk photographic tribute plaques installed at Harvey Milk Plaza and at the Castro Street Station, which featured his photographs as well as those of Marc Cohen, Don Eckert, Jerry Pritikin, Efren Ramirez, Rink, and Leland Toy. He was co-chair of the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee, and his photograph served as the basis for the bust of Milk that now resides in the rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall. His portrait of Milk was also used on the United States Postal Service's tribute stamp.

Daniel Nicoletta's photographs of Milk are featured prominently in the 1985 Academy Award-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Rob Epstein. In the feature film Milk, a biographical film based on the life of Harvey Milk directed by Gus Van Sant, Daniel Nicoletta is played by Lucas Grabeel. Nicoletta himself plays Carl Carlson and served as the stills photographer on the film.

Daniel Nicoletta was one of the founders of Frameline Film Festival. In 1977, while still working at Harvey Milk's photography shop, Nicoletta, along with David Waggoner, Marc Huestis, and others, began film screenings of their Super 8 films, called the Gay Film Festival of Super 8 Films, which evolved into the yearly festival.

As a photographer, Nicoletta has contributed to a number of films, as well as books and periodicals. His work is archived at the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library, at the Wallach Collection of Fine Prints and the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library and at Schwules Museum in Berlin, Germany.

His work has documented queer culture throughout the late 1970s into the 2000s and besides his historic photographs of Harvey Milk also include subjects such as the White Night Riots, the Castro Street Fair and the San Francisco Pride Parade, The Cockettes and the Angels of Light. Nicoletta’s first book, “LGBT San Francisco: The Daniel Nicoletta Photographs,” was released by Reel Art Press this summer (2017).

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

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www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Via Daily Dharma: Taking a Break from the Cushion

 There might be periods—a year or even two—when we can’t get to the cushion, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up. We can still carry meditation inside, still see and feel as a meditator, but physically practice differently.

Natalie Goldberg, “Rules for a Long-Term Relationship”

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