Via Daily Dharma / Suffering Makes Way for Joy

Our suffering is not our enemy. It is only through a relationship with my pain, my sadness, that I can truly know and touch the opposite—my pleasure, my joy, and my happiness.

—Claude AnShin Thomas, “Conceptions of Happiness”

Via Daily Dharma / The Best Spiritual Teacher

The best spiritual teacher is to challenge your weaknesses.

—Atisha, “Your Best”

Via Daily Dharma / Telling New Stories

To see stories as the problem is to blame the victim. Instead of getting rid of stories one can liberate them: storying more flexibly, according to the situation.

—David Loy, as quoted in Daisy Hernández' “A Second Arrow Story”

Via Ram Dass

The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can't be organized or regulated. It isn't true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.

Ram Dass

Via Daily Dharma / A Healthy Body Image

The more you can free yourself from your internalization of the gaze of others, the more liberated you feel.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Under Your Skin”

Via Lion's Roar / Healthy Desire: A Buddhist’s View of Mindfulness & Sex

by Ray Buckner| May 13, 2017

Buddhist practitioner Ray Buckner shares how bringing mindfulness into sex helps us develop a healthier relationship with both ourselves and our partner, and deepens our connection between mind and body.

Photo via Queereaster Media Working Group.

Eyes wide, out of breath, I remember my exact words. Spoken slowly and softly, I said, “Wow. That was literally the most amazing experience I have ever had in my entire life.” And I meant it.

My body completely still, struck by the awe of the moment, I looked at her. My eyes met her eyes. My smile met her smile. Our love and care met right there in that moment. It was one of my most present experiences. My mind was nowhere else but in my body with me, and in the room with her. It was, simply, a moment of mindfulness.

We don’t often ponder “mindfulness” and have “sex” arise as the next natural association. And yet, the two go hand in hand.

How so?

Let’s assume we all know what sex is (although it is often differently defined by hetero/cisgender men and women, queers, and trans-folks) and instead move on to some basic aspects of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is about bringing a certain quiet attention to your lived experience. It’s about being right there with what you are experiencing, touching your experience as intimately as possible, without judgment or blame.

In a moment of mindfulness, your mind is connected with your body. Your thoughts are not elsewhere but are right there in the present moment. Effectively, mind and body are one.

In many ways, it is only natural for sex and mindfulness to, well, come together. When we are engaging in sex our body is, essentially, awakening to a multitude of arising sensations.

Mindfulness during sex does not always mean experiencing euphoria. Sometimes, it means getting in touch with painful sensations like fear, self-hatred, and confusion.

“Awakening” here does not always refer to sensations. Sometimes, aliveness is in the dullness, the numbness, the lack of feeling arising in one’s body. For example, when my body is touched, it may experience joy and excitement, or a sense of tightness. It may be at ease and wanting more, or it may be numbing, closing down and developing a sense that something is wrong or off. Finally, my mind may be in the present moment, or it may be pulling away to traumatic memories.

So, mindfulness during sex does not always mean experiencing euphoria (as is the case with my experience described above). Sometimes, it means getting in touch with painful sensations like fear, self-hatred, and confusion. This can be difficult, but is important in fostering a healthy relationship with oneself and crucial communication with another.

Why is this so important? Why do we need to pay attention to these inner voices of suffering and joy? The answer lies, in part, in understanding the jewels of impermanence and non-self.

• Impermanence shows us that no two moments are the same; the sensations, emotions, ideas, and relationships that arise and play out are always already in flux. None of these are pre-determined, set, or stable; all are moving and impermanent.
• Non-self teaches us that because all realms and sensations are changing, there is nothing inherent or stable to our very being.

When our “self” makes contact with another’s, this contact will have an impact—on us and the people we’re with. The two forms of contact are intrinsically connected. Contact between our own mind and body are connected as well: the body cannot function without the mind and the mind cannot function without the body. The two inter-are, actively affecting and changing one another. My body tenses during sex, and so does my mind. My mind feels fear during sex, and so does my body. Such is dependent arising: “this is because that is.” To try to separate the sensations of the mind and body leads to suffering and ultimately disconnection from the knowing wisdom of this interconnected self.

And yet, during sex—a time when you really want to be in touch with what arising in the mind and body—an unfortunate and dangerous disconnection can take place. The mind tries to disconnect from the body and the body loses its crucial connection with the mind.

This disconnection may be partly, if not largely, due to societal norms about sex and gender. Society has taught us (particularly women and queers) that we need to act and perform in particular ways during sex. While the pleasure of one partner may be deemed important, the pleasure of another may be silenced or ignored. In my own life, when feelings of fear or confusion have arisen, people have sometimes used these moments to ridicule or shame me. My reservations were “difficult,” “a pain,” or the workings of someone too young to know what they wanted or needed. We learn to silence negative sensations in order to avoid shame and physical and sexual violence toward our bodies and minds. In addition, we fear that to speak could mean touching the reality that our bodily and spiritual desires will be ignored, demeaned, or used against us in the face of our expressed yearning.

We need to find a way to return to our body and mind, to softly touch our experience and allow communication to blossom again.

While sex should be a space of impermanence that allows (and encourages!) the infinite arising of sensations, we instead are forced to function in a limited space in which our bodies and our minds perform happily and simply without sadness, or fear, or confusion. Though a sense of permanence during sex is limiting, it can take hold and imprison our mind and body.

We need to find a way to return to our body and mind, to softly touch our experience and allow communication to blossom again.

The key is to listen closely to whatever arises, and meet these sensations with kindness. If we can take the time to listen, openness and clarity will soon arise, leading to greater joy and happiness.
I have practiced this myself. A previous partner and I were having sex. We were both very turned on and I said something seductive. She said something back to the effect of, “Stop speaking.”

Immediately something shifted. I went from aroused to turned off, scared, and upset. I felt like I did something wrong, that my voice was ugly, that I ruined the moment, and that I was unwanted. But applying mindfulness helped me recognize the anxiety in my chest, the deep sensation that something was wrong, and that I was distraught.

Bringing mindfulness to sex is a brilliant way to deepen the connections between mind and body, self and other.

I also could quickly recognize where these sensations hailed from. I’d once had an abusive partner who shushed me or scolded me, or ordered me not to speak, if I made sounds during sex. No wonder, then, that sensations of fear and shame arose with my more recent partner.

Seeing clearly the origins of my troubled feelings, I was now able to stop and articulate my experience of panic to my partner in the moment. She apologized and clarified what she meant by her words — simply, that my voice turned her on and she playfully could not handle any more of that! We were back to feeling excited, present, and in touch with one another.

Bringing mindfulness to sex is a brilliant way to deepen the connections between mind and body, self and other, and to transform moments of pain and trauma into experiences of understanding, kindness, and connection.

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Via Daily Dharma / Making Amends after Mistakes

To repent is not to feel remorse, but to face one’s faults, realizing they are faults, and try one’s best not to make the same mistake again. If one does that, one is already making amends.

—Master Sheng-Yen, “How To Be Faultless”

Via Daily Dharma / A Buddhist Teaching in a Cup of Tea

In a way, a perfect cup of tea is a miracle of causes and conditions, and when one meets our lips, we should give praise.

—Noa Jones, “A Perfect Cup of Tea”

Via Daily Dharma / Life Is an Awkward Struggle

I suspect there will never be answers. Instead, there will be only the awkwardness of the struggle—and perhaps the struggle is a sublime kind of grace in itself, which merely disguises itself as awkwardness.

—Rick Bass, “Bonfire”

Via Ram Dass

I’m allowing myself more and more to trust my intuitive wisdom rather than my analytic mind as to how I should proceed. Because the more analytical mind can’t really handle the complexity of the situation so you go from moment to moment just listening...

 

- Ram Dass

Via Daily Dharma / Honoring Your Mother(s)

All sentient beings have at one time been your mother—birthing you, nursing you, caring for you through a helpless stage of life. Imagine this and generate appreciation and goodwill for all sentient beings, whether they cut you off in traffic, compliment your smile, or walk past you without a glance.

—A Tibetan teaching recounted in Sarah Aceto’s, “As If I Were Your Mother”

Via Daily Dharma / What You Can Learn from a Toothache

When I have a toothache, I discover that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing. That is peace. I had to have a toothache in order to be enlightened, to know that not having one is wonderful.

—Thich Nhat Hanh in Pamela Gayle White’s, “Skunked by Gratitude”

Via Daily Dharma / Learning to See Clearly

The practice of bearing witness is to see all of the aspects of a situation including your attachments and judgments...  When you bear witness you open to the uniqueness of whatever is arising and meet it just as it is.

—Wendy Egyoku Nakao Roshi, “Hold to the Center!”

Via Departures / 10 Labyrinths Worth Exploring

Sylvain Sonnet/Corbis

 

Mythical, historical and altogether intriguing, these far-flung mazes are journeys in and of themselves.

By Maud Doyle on August 07, 2013

 

The wonder of travel lies equally with adventure and misadventure—there is nothing like getting thoroughly lost in a riddling country or culture that is not your own. But it is hard these days, with our ultra-planned excursions, fixers and 4G service, to get properly disoriented. Labyrinths, however, can remind us how it's done.

These mazes have appeared in various corners of the world throughout history. One can be found in a petroglyph on a river shore in Goa, India; cut into the stones of Ireland's many medieval churches; and arranged in a contemporary land-art installation at Lands End in San Francisco. Traditionally, they kept evil in and invaders out. They have been used as pleasure walks, meditative journeys and symbolic life-into-death pilgrimages.

Classical thinkers Herodotus, Pliny and Strabo each praised the Egyptian maze of Middle Kingdom that Pharaoh Amenemhat III constructed in the 19th century B.C. to protect his Hawara tomb. (Strabo called it a wonder of the world.) Before taking to the high seas, Scandinavian sailors built stone labyrinths to trap sinister winds that might follow them. Daedalus famously used one to trap a minotaur.

Literary figures also embraced the labyrinth. Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges's peculiar love of them is well known—he wrote once of gods who lived in them, encircled by forking paths. Lesser known is Jane Austen's affinity, particularly for the large rambling hedge maze at Sydney Garden in Bath, England (since gone), where she wished to walk every day.

Proust once wrote, "The only true voyage of discovery...would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another." That heightened sense isn't developed so much by traveling the world as by remembering to focus on where we stand. And the wonder of unexpected encounters, the anticipation of what might lie around the next corner, is a charm of labyrinths of all kinds, from the underground city of Derinkuyu in Cappadocia, Turkey, to the overhanging gardens of Marqueyssac in Périgord, France.

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Via Goodman Project: 5 Honest Questions to Ask Yourself About Being Good

Author Jay Cradeur poses questions he asks himself and which every man might ask himself to stay true to his masculine path.

I have been in hundreds of men’s groups and men’s weekend events, sitting in a sacred circle, asking this tough question. My answer and your answer are a good indicator, akin to taking your masculine temperature, of how things are going. Note to women: the majority of men do not feel very good about themselves as a man in the world today. If we men are honest, we fall short. If we did not fall short somewhere, our lives would not be very interesting. We men like projects. We like to have a goal toward which we can march . We men may be confused by our dual and seemingly incompatible roles of being strong and being sensitive at the same time. We are challenged by the demands of family and work, and very often mired in self doubt and fear. Are we living up to our own expectations?  Can we?

These are questions I struggle with and thought, what the hell, why not share these with the world? That is a big “gulp” moment, but such is the life of an author. Remain vulnerable and humble and grateful.

I offer 5 questions I ask myself. These are on my wall and I see them every day. I find it helps me to get a bearing on my life path. There are no right or wrong answers. Like meditation, all there is to do is observe what comes up. If something is triggered, then you may chose to take some actions to rectify that which is at issue. These are questions I struggle with and thought, what the hell, why not share these with the world? That is a big “gulp” moment, but such is the life of an author. Remain vulnerable and humble and grateful.  On to the questions.

Am I an honest man?

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything” – Mark Twain
Let’s jump beyond the obvious forms of dishonesty such as an affair or material theft. The real question for me is, do I tell the truth? When it comes to telling the truth, I admit that I am a liar to myself. I tend to tell myself things are better than they really are. I tend to be dishonest when it comes to assessing and taking action to resolve problems that come up in my life. Rather than address key challenges head on, I push them to the side until they reach crisis mode. This is a subtle, yet pernicious form of lying.

My internal lying shows up in the way that I appear ungrounded. I don’t carry a certain weight. That makes me a lightweight. I am not a solid man. I am inauthentic.

Here is the ridiculous thing I observe about lying to myself.   For a long time, I actually thought I was fooling everyone around me! I have come to realize everyone close to me can see when I lie to myself. My internal lying shows up in the way that I appear ungrounded. I don’t carry a certain weight. That makes me a lightweight. I am not a solid man. I am inauthentic. I appear to be a bit of a con artist. I suffer from imposter syndrome.   This all leads to a lack of trust in myself, which bleeds out to everyone in my life. Are you honest?

Am I trustable?

“Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Clearly, if I cannot be honest with myself, how can anybody trust me? In social situations, I am trustable. I can show up on time. I can share my honest opinions. I can do what I say I will do. However, when the going gets tough, those close to me do not feel confident that I can truly, no bullshit, be counted on. In our men’s group, we often discussed the scenario of being in a war during a firefight with two men, literally back to back, with life on the line. 

Can you trust your brother to have your back? Can you trust yourself to have your brother’s back? This is a serious question. Are you the man who will stand in the fire and endure the heat, or will you throw in your cards and walk away?

“When the shit hits the fan, some guys run and some guys stay.”

There is a great scene of Al Pacino in The Scent of a Woman (video link below) in which he expands upon this.   “When the shit hits the fan, some guys run and some guys stay.” When you made the commitment to love her till death do you part, was that a conditional promise in your mind, based on your wife being a certain way? What if things change, as they often do? How much can your woman share of herself and trust that you will stick around? Are you trustable?

Am I taking full responsibility for my life?

“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.” — Richard Bach

Do you realize all your emotions, thoughts and feelings are your own? When your woman says that thing (and we all have that thing, don’t we?) that sets you off, are you willing to sit with the feelings, and accept them as your own? Are you going to deal with the issue internally rather than blaming someone else? During men’s group sessions, men often rail against their wives or girlfriends or partners. A man may say, “She told me __________, and that really pissed me off. And then she did this ______________ and I was even more livid!” At this point, I tell the man to stay with the feelings, and forget about her. She is not the issue. She is the catalyst (and a wonderful teacher), but all the feelings are our own to manage and process. This is a tough lesson, and it usually takes hold for just a few minutes, for ours is a culture of blame. Do you blame someone else for your feelings and emotions?  Are you still blaming your parents? I ask myself, am I a responsible adult male who accepts that all the stuff that gets stirred up within is my own? In fact, it is the source of my greatest moments of awakening.  Am I truly responsible?

Am I a solid provider?

“What does a man do Walter? A man provides for his family.
And a man, a man provides. And he does it even when he’s not appreciated, or respected, or even loved. He simply bears up and he does it. Because he’s a man.” — Gus Fring, Breaking Bad.

This is a tough question for most men that I know. It is the toughest question for me. I have earned great sums of money in my life, but I have also spent great sums of money. I am not a solid provider. 

The answer to this question is also a strong indicator of your capacity to be a good husband and a good father? Are you? When your child asks for financial assistance, are you there for him or her? If your good friend in Madagascar needs your presence, can you drop everything, jump on a plan, and spend some time with him in his dire moment of need? When you retire, will you and your partner be set for life? Does your partner live with financial stress? Does she live with the burden of your shortcomings? Are you solid like a brick house? Or are you financially shaky like a house of cards?

In most relationships, providing is the man’s job. Chris Rock presents a great comedy skit about this exact scenario.  He shares how nobody seems to appreciate the man for providing. “Nobody ever says, Thanks Daddy for knocking out the rent!” (Video link below).  It is a great 3 minutes of comedy and truth.   It is our job to provide. Are you doing your job? Are you a solid provider?

Am I a man of knowledge?

“A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it might never live to regret it” — Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

I have observed that the greatest men in my life, and the greatest men I have admired through their words, all have a powerful unquenchable desire to learn more about themselves and about all human beings. Naturally as a writer, most of my heroes are authors. 

These men like Thoreau and Whitman lived with a few seminal questions: What does it mean to be a human being? What exactly is this experience on Earth? Why am I here? Who am I? What is a right and honorable way to live?

When you come to the end of your days, will you look back and marvel at how far you have come, or will you instead wonder where the time went? Are you a man of knowledge?

I have found meditation, group workshops, writing, reading, interaction with the feminine, and my close male relationships are all sources of greater awareness and self-knowledge. Women can tell the difference between a man of depth and a man just piddling about in life. What is your big picture path? Do you have one? When you come to the end of your days, will you look back and marvel at how far you have come, or will you instead wonder where the time went? Are you a man of knowledge?

◊♦◊

These are my questions. I share them with you. I invite you to live within the question. How do you fare? As I ask these questions, I am guided to keep striving forward, making tweaks in my life as I see necessary.  I once heard Werner Erhard call this trim tabbing, making small adjustments, or iterations in life, and over time, great things are accomplished. I hope you experienced some value from these questions, and find some areas that you might trim tab as well. Finally, I invite you to be gentle with yourself. These questions are not designed to make you feel bad or shameful or guilty. If you find an area that resonates as an area for improvement, it is a time to be grateful for such a huge opportunity in your life.  You would not be reading this article unless you wanted some little piece of wisdom. Reading an article on this website is a good sign that you are on your way, as we all are, to being good and honorable men!

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Via Daily Dharma / Awakening Takes Work

We do have the potential to awaken, but we must do the hard work of distinguishing when we are motivated by greed, hatred, and delusion, and when we are motivated by their opposites—generosity, kindness, and wisdom.

—Lynn Kelly, “First Thought, Worst Thought”

Via Ram Dass

It’s only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.

- Ram Dass

Via Daily Dharma / Accepting Pain Can Help You Grow

Acceptance often means fully acknowledging just how much pain we may be feeling at a given moment, which inevitably leads to greater empowerment and creative change.

—Christopher K. Germer, “Getting Along”