A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
“There is a need for a certain humor about your own predicament. If you take the room you are in, meaning the psychological room, too seriously it makes it more difficult to escape. It's walls are made of your thoughts. A person whose heart is closed, a moment later, could have their heart opened by seeing a little bird fly by. Somebody whose heart is wide open could suddenly have it turned icy cold when they see an expression on someone else’s face. You must realize by now how momentary all of our states are and how little there is to cling to them and hold onto.”
What we choose every moment will affect our habits, our personality, and our destiny. Therefore, we must choose with awareness, with understanding and love, so we can care for ourselves better.
RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering
What is the origin of suffering? It is craving, which brings renewal of being, is accompanied by delight and lust, and delights in this and that; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for non-being. (MN 9)
When one does not know and see bodily sensations as they actually are, then one is attached to bodily sensations. When one is attached, one becomes infatuated, and one’s craving increases. One’s bodily and mental troubles increase, and one experiences bodily and mental suffering. (MN 149)
Reflection
The fifth of the six sense modalities is the range of bodily sensations that are discernable through the body as a sense organ. Like all the other sense organs, the body is an instrument for both the arising of suffering and the cessation of suffering. When craving is present, either for a pleasant sensation or for the cessation of a painful sensation, a micro-moment of suffering is produced. You can experience this happening in your body again and again.
Daily Practice
Whether sitting or walking or engaging in any of your other normal activities, pay close attention to the sensations of the body as they naturally arise and pass away. Notice how some are favored (the ones that feel good) and some are resented and resisted (the ones that feel bad). Notice how that subtle attachment or aversion, called infatuation in this text, is the starting point for all kinds of discontent and suffering.
Tomorrow: Cultivating Compassion One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
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