Revoked: Dec 8, 2024

Sunday, December 8, 2024

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Via Daily Dharma: Seeds of Karma

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Seeds of Karma

Just as a single seed planted in the right environment and conditions can bring a large tree bearing flowers and fruit every year, the karmic imprints of our actions can lead to multiple results over a long period of time.

Kathleen McDonald (Sangye Khadro), “Purification with the Four Powers”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling

A person goes to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: "Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I am content." (SN 47.10)

When feeling a pleasant feeling, one is aware: "Feeling a pleasant feeling." . . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is feeling." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

The second basis on which mindfulness is established is feeling tone. This does not refer to our emotional life—feelings of affection or anger or dismay—but rather to the valence of feeling as pleasant or unpleasant or neutral (not obviously pleasant or unpleasant). The practice is to sit down deliberately for some time—even five minutes, if that is all you can manage—and simply notice pleasant and unpleasant sensations as they occur.

Daily Practice

As with mindfulness of breathing, the attitude with which you are aware of feeling tone is of great importance. The text is guiding us to be fully aware of a painful feeling, for example, without analyzing it or wishing it was not happening. Simply notice it as a brief episode of a particular feeling tone, without clinging in any way either to its going away if it is painful or to its coming again if it is pleasant. Just be aware of it.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION
Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)

With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which brings inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought but with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4)

Reflection

The teachings around right concentration have to do with four phases of absorption, also known as jhānas. When the mind rests steadily on a single object of attention—which is quite difficult to do at first—it gradually disentangles itself from the various hindrances and becomes unified, peaceful, and stable. With this comes inner clarity and the dropping away of the internal use of language.

Daily Practice

You will know when you have entered into absorption of the jhānas because the state is accompanied at first by a great deal of physical and mental pleasure. The physical pleasure is described as being fundamentally different from any sensual gratification, and the mental pleasure comes naturally when the mind is free of the hindrances (phase one) and when it becomes concentrated or one-pointed (phase two).

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation -- Words of Wisdom - December 8, 2024 💌

"The three levels of compassionate action that I see are: One is you do compassionate action as best you can as an exercise on yourself to come closer to God, to spirit, to awareness, to One.

Next is you start to appreciate that you’re a part of something larger than yourself and you are an instrument of God. No longer are you doing it to get there, you’re now doing it as an instrument.

And third is where you lose self-consciousness and you are God manifest. You’re part of the hand of God. Then you’re not doing anything. It’s just God manifest. How do you get to that third one? By honoring others and being patient.

So we all relax and we just keep quieting and calming and observing and witnessing. We keep aiming and correcting and cleaning and letting go and opening again and coming back. Just keep quieting and deepening, opening the heart, quieting the mind.

The ego gets subtler and subtler. It gets more obvious to the quiet mind and witness how it’s working. You become a connoisseur and an appreciator of your own ego."

>> Want to dive deeper with Ram Dass? Click Here to Receive a Daily Wisdom Text from Ram Dass & Friends.