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.
However the seed is
planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing
good deeds, bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the
purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too verbal
action is to be done with repeated reflection: (MN 61)
When you are doing an action with speech, reflect upon that same verbal
action thus: “Does this action I am doing with speech lead to both my
own affliction and the affliction of another?” If, upon reflection, you
know that it does, then stop doing it; if you know that it does not,
then continue. (MN 61)
Reflection
Human speech is
actually a complex and remarkable phenomenon. There are many ways in
which we are monitoring our own speech as we utter it, if only to know
how to end the sentence we have started. We can make use of this power
of self-observation to improve the ethical quality of our verbal
behavior. It is largely a matter of becoming more conscious of what we
are accustomed to doing automatically.
Daily Practice
You can be
aware of what you are saying before, during, and after saying it. Here
the emphasis is on active mindfulness of speech—awareness of what you
are saying in the present moment. It can be helpful to speak somewhat
more slowly, to allow yourself time and space to both create and monitor
your words. Perhaps a synonym for mindfulness in this context would be
thoughtfulness. Practice speaking thoughtfully.
Tomorrow: AAbstaining from Taking What is Not Given One week from today: Reflecting upon Mental Action
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Good and bad. Right and wrong. Love and hate. Success and failure. Nirvana and samsara.
We experience the world through the lens of duality. The mind divides
everything it perceives into good and bad, like and dislike—generating
attachments to what we like and aversion towards what we dislike. These
attachments and aversions become the source of our suffering.
The Buddhist teachings remind us that opposites can’t exist without each
other. Rather than being diametric polarities, they exist on a
spectrum. One only has meaning in the context of the other.
In Buddhism, we practice cultivating a nondual awareness that sees
beyond apparent opposites to the essential unity that lies beneath.
Beyond the confines of the thinking mind, dualities collapse into a
state of oneness—the true nature of ourselves and all of life. Or as Zen
Master Shunryu Suzuki Roshi writes, “Everything is Buddha himself.”
“When you become one with Buddha, one with everything that exists, you find the true meaning of being,” writes Suzuki Roshi. “When you forget all your dualistic ideas, everything becomes your teacher, and everything can be the object of worship.”
This week’s Three Teachings explore nonduality as a gateway to the true nature of reality.
In the Vimalakirti Nirdesha Sutra,
one of the classic texts of Mahayana Buddhism, Vimalakirti, considered
to be an enlightened layman, debates with the Buddha’s disciples about
the nature of nonduality—and the entrance into a state of non-dual
consciousness.
As
much as we might like to, we can’t separate good from evil. Each of us
has both qualities within ourselves. Dharma teacher David Loy explores
our cultural story of “good versus evil” and takes a Buddhist
perspective on the interdependence of this basic opposition.
Malicious speech is
unhealthy. Refraining from malicious speech is healthy. (MN 9)
Abandoning malicious speech, one refrains from malicious speech. One
does not repeat there what one has heard here to the detriment of these,
or repeat here what he has heard there to the detriment of those. One
unites those who are divided, is a promoter of friendships, and speaks
words that promote concord. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak
maliciously, but I shall abstain from malicious speech.” (MN 8)
Disputes occur when a person is angry and revengeful. Such a person
dwells disrespectful and undeferential towards others, causing harm and
unhappiness for many. If you see any such root of a dispute either in
yourself or externally, you should strive to abandon it. And if you do
not see any such root of dispute either in yourself or externally, you
should practice in such a way that it does not erupt in the future. (MN
104)
Reflection
Anger is
considered in Buddhist thought to be an unhealthy emotion. It may be
justified, and it may even be effective, but indulging anger always
comes at a cost. It harms you as much as or more than the person to whom
it is directed. One famous Buddhist image is of a person who tries to
hurt someone with a burning torch while facing into the wind and ends up
burning himself even more. Something similar happens when we exact
revenge, another unhealthy state.
Daily Practice
Learn to
recognize anger when it arises in your mind and to discern the many ways
it can damage yourself and others. Is anger really necessary in this
situation, and is it helpful? It is hard to see how destructive anger is
as we get caught up in it in the moment and swept away. But if we can
manage to pause and examine carefully what is going on, the danger and
harmfulness of anger can become apparent.
Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Verbal Action One week from today: Refraining from Harsh Speech
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