Jesus said you will get to the kingdom of God and that’s where you’ll find the children. I like to believe in childhood or childlike qualities as a goal. Or a way to reach spiritual awareness. It’s not about going back to being a child, it’s to be childlike, in the sense of innocence, openness, freshness, and beginning.
- Ram Dass -
When
Buddhist teachings talk about emotions, such as love and hate, they are
describing our disposition toward the things we encounter.
—Andrew Olendzki, “What’s in a Word? Dukkha”
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To
meditate upon thoughts is simply to be aware, as thoughts arise, that
the mind is thinking, without getting involved in the content.
—Joseph Goldstein, “These Are Not ‘Your’ Thoughts”
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The
Poor People’s Campaign witnessed with heavy hearts the events of
January 6th, when a mob emboldened by hate, lies, and racism laid siege
to the US Capitol and other state capitols across the country in an
attempt to subvert our democracy. This
attack was carried out at the behest of a narcissistic President and
his enablers, who have followed a divisive political strategy that is as
old as the deconstructionists of the 1870s and the Southern strategy of
the 1960s. We know that the only antidote to this poison in our body
politic is a moral fusion coalition committed to reconstructing
democracy.
Such
violence always erupts when there is the greatest possibility for
change. Throughout history, Native and Indigenous people have seen this
kind of mob violence. Black people have seen it. Women have seen it.
Asians have seen it. Latino farm workers have seen it. Workers standing
for labor rights have seen it. What we saw this week is not the dream of
America, but it has too often been the practice of America. Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis |
In relationships, you create an environment with your work on yourself,
which you offer to another human being to use in the way they need to
grow. You keep working. You become the soil—moist and soft and
receptive—so the person can grow the way they need to grow, because how
do you know how they should grow?
After a while, you come to appreciate that what you can offer another
human being is to work on yourself, to be a statement of what it is you
have found in the way you live your life. One of the things you will
find is the ability to appreciate what is, as it is, in equanimity,
compassion, and love that isn’t conditional. You don’t love a person
more because they are happier in the way you think they should be.
What you cultivate in yourself is the garden where they can grow, and
you offer your consciousness and the spaciousness to hear it
- Ram Dass -
Pancha Sila: Five Precepts of Buddhist Morality
by Dr. Ari Ubeysekara
Introduction
Lord Gautama Buddha, who lived in India during the sixth and fifth century BC, gained enlightenement as a Samma Sambuddha having realized the four Noble Truths by His own efforts.
The four Noble Truths
The path leading to the cessation of suffering as discovered by Gautama Buddha is known as the Middle Path or the Noble Eight-fold Path.
The Noble Eight-fold Path
From the standpoint of practical training, there is a threefold division contained within the Noble Eight-fold Path, namely,
The Buddhist moral discipline (sila)
In the Buddhist spiritual path of liberation towards Nibbana, the state of complete freedom from all suffering, moral discipline (sila), is considered to be the basic foundation upon which the other two aspects of concentration and wisdom can be developed. Without proper morality, right concentration cannot be developed and without right concentration, wisdom cannot be developed. Moral discipline can be described as the avoidance of unskillful or unwholesome actions and engagement in skillful or wholesome actions. In Buddhist teachings, unwholesome actions are physical, verbal and mental actions in which the intention behind a particular action is based upon negative qualities of greed (lobha), hatred (dosa) and delusion (moha) resulting in negative or harmful consequences to oneself, to others or to both. Wholesome actions are those in which the intention is based on positive qualities of generosity (alobha), loving kindness (adosa) and wisdom (amoha) with positive or beneficial consequences to oneself, to others or to both.
In Buddhist teachings, there are different codes of moral discipline for the lay community and for the monastic community of Buddhist monks and nuns. For the lay community, the minimum code of morality expected of them is what is known as Pancha-sila, or five precepts, which they are expected to practise on a regular basis. The five precepts are the basic code of moral discipline in both of the two major traditions of Buddhism known as the Theravada and Mahayana traditions. There is also a higher code consisting of eight precepts which lay Buddhists may practise on special religious days such as the full moon day or the new moon day of the month and also during some meditation retreats. Those who enter the Buddhist monastic life are expected to observe ten precepts with 227 additional rules of discipline for Buddhist monks and 311 additional rules of discipline for Buddhist nuns. In the Theravada tradition of Buddhism practised mainly in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, the Buddhist teachings are preserved in the original language of Pali which is believed to have been the language spoken in those parts of India where Gautama Buddha lived and preached, and hence the different codes of morality are also preserved and recited in the Pali language.
The Five Precepts
Refuge in the Triple Gem of Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha
Before taking the above five precepts, most practising Buddhists will take refuge in the Triple Gem, namely the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, again in the Pali language. Within this context, Buddha means the “Awakened One” or “Enlightened One,” the Dhamma refers to Buddha’s teachings and the Sangha represents the monastic community of monks and nuns who have either attained the full liberation or are aspirants of the higher spiritual path. Refuge in the Triple Gem is taken by reciting the following formula:
Buddham saranam gachchami
I go for refuge in the Buddha
Dhammam saranam gachchami
I go for refuge in the Dhamma
Sangham saranam gachchami
I go for refuge in the Sangha
The five precepts, which refer to four bodily actions and one verbal action, are the minimum ethical code for lay Buddhists to develop the skillful virtues of bodily and verbal actions which they should ideally observe throughout their lives. They are not rigid and inflexible rules or commandments from God or any other higher divine authority with due punishments if not strictly adhered to or rewards for observing them correctly. They are guidelines or training rules that lay Buddhists adopt voluntarily and on their own initiative with an understanding of the benefits to both themselves and others. In Buddhism, each individual is responsible for his or her own happiness and suffering resulting from their actions based on the universal law of cause and effect. Those who observe the five precepts regularly and sincerely will be able to maintain their morality and develop their spiritual practice towards attaining ultimate liberation from human suffering.
When one becomes a Buddhist for the first time, in addition to going for refuge in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, one will also recite and undertake to observe the five precepts. The five Buddhist precepts are usually taken by practising Buddhists either by repeating them following recitation by a member of the Buddhist clergy or by reciting them in front of an image or a statue of the Buddha. They are expected to renew these precepts whenever they can and some do renew them regularly through their daily recitations. The purpose of the renewal is to remind oneself of the significance of observing them for their own good in both this life and in future lives, for the good of others as well as to facilitate their spiritual journey with a purified mind.
Observation of the five precepts merely in order to avoid social disrespect or for fear of punishment for breaking the existing laws of the land or of God or other higher divine authorities will not bring any moral or spiritual benefits to the practitioner. Some Buddhists do recite the five precepts on special occasions or even on a regular basis with little intention of observing them, but this will not bring any benefit whatsoever to either themselves or to others. The precepts by themselves possess no magical powers to confer any benefit upon those who recite them but do not observe them properly. In most Buddhist countries, it is customary to recite the three refuges and the five precepts prior to the commencement of any religious event. The presence or absence of the intention in carrying out a physical or verbal action included in the five precepts is the deciding factor in determining whether a particular precept is violated or not rather than the action itself.
What’s in a Word? Dukkha
By Andrew Olendzki
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Being
free of fear is not a matter of never feeling it, but of not being
flattened when we do. We can feel it and know it is a natural
phenomenon, also an impermanent one, which will have its say and be
gone.
—David Guy, “Trying to Speak: A Personal History of Stage Fright”
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RICHARD HALLIBURTON, American adventurer and author, born (d: 1939) If Halliburton was alive today he would be the guy in "The Most Fascinating Man in the World" ads. Halliburton was the quintessential preppie. And in the Ivy League of yore, preppiness and Gayness often went hand-in-hand. When Halliburton’s Chinese junk, Sea Dragon, was lost in the Pacific in 1939, he still looked very much as he had at Lawrenceville and Princeton – trim, muscular, and innocently handsome.
His athletic prowess and world-wide adventures had titillated a generation of vicarious thrill seekers and had been happily exploited by both the media and Halliburton’s many best-selling books. And it’s easy to see why. He climbed the Matterhorn in 1921; swam the Hellespont in 1925 and the Panama Canal (from the Atlantic to the Pacific) in 1928; and flew over 50,000 miles around the world in his own airplane, The Flying Carpet, between 1928 and 1931, thereby milking the adoration of an aviation-mad public.
Halliburton starred in his own documentary films and lectured, for stiff fees, to large audiences throughout the world. Between times, he managed to find time for men. As Roger Austen writes in Playing the Game, Halliburton “had a special fondness for YMCAs, spend the night with Rod La Roque, went flying with Ramon Navarro, and settled down with another bachelor in Laguna Beach.” And how was his adoring public to know? Hadn’t his books been filled with his appreciation of “Kashmiri maidens, Parisian ballerinas and Castillian countesses”? “Halliburton,” writes John Paul Hudson with acute insight, “certainly did a lot of straight-approved things, though his exploits were self-stretching and not competitive – which is the Gay way.”
We
know that someone like Michael Jordan trained for years to get as good
at basketball as he was, but we assume someone like Mother Teresa was
just born like that. Really, compassion is a skill you need to practice
having for other people and also for yourself.
—Interview with Laura Mustard by Emily DeMaioNewton, “The Sun Behind the Clouds”
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Robert Jones Jr. says his debut novel, The Prophets, came to him in whispers from people whose stories haven't been told, and whose history has often been wiped from the record: Black queer people who were enslaved in America. It is a love story set inside a tragedy, the story of Samuel and Isaiah, two Black men enslaved on a plantation in Mississippi who find love with each other.
"You know, a psychologist might say that's your own conscience speaking to you, but I wanted to be a little bit more spiritual in my thinking about it," Jones says. "And imagine that it was my ancestors sort of pushing me toward writing this story, toward being a witness to their testimonies that have not made it into the official record."
Make the jump here to listen to the full interview
And via Amazon:
"A new kind of epic...A grand achievement...While The Prophets' dreamy realism recalls the work of Toni Morrison...its penetrating focus on social dynamics stands out more singularly." --Entertainment Weekly
A
singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two
enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in
each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.
Isaiah
was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the
beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they
tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the
hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and
hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man--a
fellow slave--seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on
the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and
Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear
danger to the plantation's harmony.
With a lyricism reminiscent
of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of
slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating
slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who
have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions
build and the weight of centuries--of ancestors and future generations
to come--culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets masterfully
reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through
with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of
love.
