Sunday, January 19, 2025

Via GBF


 

Ali Youssefi - Love is the Light

Via Brian Tyler Cohen

 


Via Alison Elizabeth Marshall blog





My book Paradise of Presence is a new challenge to Western readers. It is out now, available globally as an e-book and paperback. The UBL (universal book link) is https://books2read.com/Paradise-of-Presence. This takes you to a page that shows all the outlets where the book can be purchased. For Amazon, it shows only the US store; however, the book is available from all Amazon stores. 

 

Make the jump here to read the full blog post: https://alisonelizabethmarshall.com/paradise-of-presence-is-a-new-challenge-to-western-readers/

Via FB


 

Via FB


 

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - January 19, 2025 💠

 


"If I can’t stop thinking, maybe I can just let my thoughts go by without getting all caught up in them.

Feel the breeze on your face or your neck? See how it’s going by? You’re not all hung up with it. You don’t have to see where each breeze goes. You don’t have to look quickly to see if it hit those trees over there.

It’s breezes, and they’re just going by. Make your thoughts like those breezes, those little breezes, just going by."

- Ram Dass

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

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

 


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RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects
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 ill will is internally present, one is aware: "Ill will is present for me." When ill will is not present, one is aware: "Ill will is not present for me." When the arising of unarisen ill will occurs, one is aware of that. And when the abandoning of arisen ill will occurs, one is aware of that. . . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is a mental object." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)
Reflection
The second of the five hindrances is ill will, which, like the first hindrance, sense desire, is a mental state that arises and passes away from time to time. Highlighting this factor in the swirl of experience and noticing when it is present and when it is not helps us realize that the annoyance we often feel is a fleeting phenomenon. This in turn gives us the ability to abandon that annoyance. We need not give in to it.

Daily Practice
Annoyance is a good way of practicing with ill will, because it is a mild form of it. Anger, hatred, and fear are more charged and thus more difficult to work with. See if you can notice when you are annoyed and also when you are not. See how annoyance is just a state that arises and therefore is a state you can let go of. Instead of holding on to the justification for the annoyance, see if you can just let it go and "abide without clinging." 


RIGHT CONCENTRATION
Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna)
With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters into and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness as a result of equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4)
Reflection
This state of mind is the culmination of the four stages of absorption and represents the consummation of the meditative enterprise of focused, one-pointed awareness. With the mind thus purified of its imperfections it is capable of seeing clearly, and by becoming "malleable" and "wieldy" it can be used as a tool to penetrate the many distortions and delusions that normally prevent us from understanding the true nature of things.

Daily Practice
Allow your Sunday sitting meditation to slowly and gently mellow into a profound state of equanimity. The mind is steady and bright but also imperturbable in the sense that there is nothing in your inner or outer experience that is going to evoke an episode of yearning or aversion. Equanimity is balance, an evenly hovering attention. Notice also in this passage that equanimity is said to be the means of purifying mindfulness.


Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna


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Via Daily Dharma: Release Delusion

 

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Release Delusion

Although renunciation may express itself in outward forms, its essence is the letting go of the mind’s habits of delusion. Even just a moment of such release is powerful, because it provides a reference point, an alternative to the false sense of self we ordinarily experience. 

Joseph Goldstein, “Love as the Expression of Emptiness”


CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

Abortion and the First Precept
By Katy Butler

  FREE  
This reflection views abortion through the lens of the first precept.
Read more »

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Via White Crane Institute \\ Alexander Woollcott

 

Today's Gay Wisdom
Alexander Woollcott
2018 -

"I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it." - Alexander Woollcott


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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

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Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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