Saturday, February 10, 2024

Via Daily Dharma: Between Action and Reaction

 

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Between Action and Reaction

By widening the gap between action and reaction, you can gain some distance from your automatic responses and also gain an opportunity to know your emotions. You can stop being ruled by these emotions and instead begin to rule your experience of life.

Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche, “The Power of the Third Moment”


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On Sounding Good and Being Right
By James Shaheen
Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, reflects on the Pure Land idea of bombu, or foolish nature, and how that permeates every endeavor we take. He concludes that rather than letting our limitations get in our way, we can acknowledge that they are there and still move forward.
Read more »

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

 


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RIGHT EFFORT
Developing Unarisen 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 the healthy state, 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 develop the arising of unarisen healthy mental states. One develops the unarisen energy awakening factor. (MN 141)
Reflection
The mental and emotional states that are healthy, leading away from suffering and toward greater clarity of understanding, do not always arise on their own and sometimes need a little help. In the sequence of awakening factors, investigation of states naturally gives rise to energy, because everything becomes so interesting, but the development of energy can also be instigated and encouraged as a deliberate practice. 

Daily Practice
Interesting how it is put in the text: that we need to stir up energy to develop energy. What this is pointing to is that sometimes we just have to reach down and decide that we will bring more energy to bear on a given situation. Perhaps it is blinking the eyes to overcome drowsiness or gritting the teeth boost our willpower to avoid a temptation. Energy is a factor that can be weak or strong. Here we practice strengthening it.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third Jhāna
One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

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