Via Daily Dharma: You Are Compassion

 

Our whole life and all parts of it, every moment of it, and all of existence is nothing but compassion and love. We don’t need to produce compassion. We already are compassion.

—Norman Fischer, “We Are Our Relationships”

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Via Dhamma Wheel // Reflecting Upon Bodily Action

 

RIGHT ACTION Reflecting Upon Bodily Action

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 bodily action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) When you wish to do an action with the body, reflect on that same bodily action thus: "Would this action I wish to do with the body lead to my own affliction?" If, on reflection, you know that it would, then do not do it. If you know that it would not, then proceed. (MN 61)

Reflection

The word for action is kamma in Pali, karma in Sanskrit, and the quality of our actions is a matter of great concern in the Buddhist tradition. We act with the body, speech, and mind, and each of these will be considered in turn. The teaching here is partly to learn how to pay close attention to what we are doing and partly to notice the ethical consequences of our actions.

Daily Practice

To reflect on our actions is to bring conscious awareness to them. Most of what we do is done unconsciously, so the practice is to become conscious of what we are doing instead of doing it automatically. Start here with intention. Pay careful attention to the process of making simple choices, such as moving your hand or not, and see if you can catch when intention arises. Also note the ethical quality of your choices: Is a choice healthy or unhealthy?

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings
One week from today: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

My Aunties

Via Daily Dharma: Becoming Genuine

 

[The Buddhist path] is a balance of awareness, insight, and action, working harmoniously together. In that way our energy is no longer divided or scattered, but we are fully present in whatever we do. That is what it means to be a genuine human being.

—Judy Lief, “Meditation Alone Is Not Enough”

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Via White Crane Institute // WORLD AIDS DAY

 

Noteworthy

World AIDS Day

2017 -

WORLD AIDS DAY: dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people, with an estimated 38.6 million people living with HIV, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. Despite recent, improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claimed an estimated 3.1 million (between 2.8 and 3.6 million) lives in 2005 of which, more than half a million (570,000) were children.

The concept of a World AIDS Day originated at the 1988 World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programs for AIDS Prevention. Since then, it has been taken up by governments, international organizations and charities around the world.

From its inception until 2004, UNAIDS spearheaded the World AIDS Day campaign, choosing annual themes in consultation with other global health organizations. In 2005 this responsibility was turned over to World AIDS Campaign (WAC), who chose Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise as the main theme for World AIDS Day observances through 2010, with more specific sub-taglines chosen annually. This theme is not specific to World AIDS Day, but is used year-round in WAC's efforts to highlight HIV/AIDS awareness within the context of other major global events including the G* Summit. World AIDS Campaign also conducts “in-country” campaigns throughout the world, like the Student Stop AIDS Campaign, an infection-awareness campaign targeting young people throughout the UK.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson

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

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - December 1, 2021 💌

 
 

In this culture, we are rewarded for knowing we know. It’s only when we come to the despair of seeing that the rational mind just isn’t going to be enough – it’s only when you see the assumptions you’ve been working with are not valid that there is the possibility of change. Albert Einstein said, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move towards higher levels.” And again, “Man must be able to develop a higher form of thought if he’s ever going to be able to use his energy with wisdom."

- Ram Dass -

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27000@25 - When We Were Boys (Short Film) [World AIDS Day 2021]

 

 

https://www.queerty.com/andy-bell-27000-music-video-hiv-stigma-25-years-later-20211130?utm_source=Queerty+Subscribers&utm_campaign=f7a3c7aff3-20211130_Queerty_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_221c27272a-f7a3c7aff3-431297161

Via Dhamma Wheel // Cultivating Lovingkindness

 

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Lovingkindness

Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis on which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on lovingkindness, for when you develop meditation on lovingkindness, all ill will will be abandoned. (MN 62) Suppose there were a pond with lovely smooth banks, filled with pure water that was clear and cool. A person scorched and exhausted by hot weather, weary, parched, and thirsty would come upon the pond and quench their thirst and their hot-weather fever. In just the same way a person encounters the teachings of the Buddha and develops lovingkindness, and thereby gains internal peace. (MN 40)

Reflection

Intention has to do with the volitional and emotional states of mind that condition experience and influence the quality of action. Some mental states are helpful and healthy, others are harmful and unhealthy. One of the most beneficial is lovingkindness, which can be developed by generating friendliness and care toward living beings. Compared with the harshness of so many of our other experiences, the practice of lovingkindness feels refreshing and leads to peace.

Daily Practice

Friendliness and lovingkindness can be practiced at any time. Simply direct the mind to the thought of a particular person or group of people and allow the emotional tone of caring for their well-being to arise in your heart or mind. By thinking of the person steadily, with the help of supporting phrases and images, you can sustain this kindly quality of mind over time. It feels refreshing, like a cool pond on a hot day. Try it.

Tomorrow: Refraining from False Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Compassion

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Apply Your Knowledge

 

It’s not enough just to know the definition of bodhisattva. What’s much more important is to study the actions of a bodhisattva and then to behave like one yourself.

—Kosho Uchiyama, “What Is a Bodhisattva?”

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Via White Crane Institute // OSCAR WILDE

 

Died

Oscar Wilde having lunch with Lord Alfred Douglas near Dieppe in 1898, after his release from Reading Gaol

1900 -

OSCAR WILDE, Irish writer, wit and raconteur died (b. 1854); Prison was unkind to Wilde's health and after he was released on May 19, 1897 he spent his last three years penniless, in self-imposed exile from society and artistic circles. He went under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth, after the famously "penetrated" Saint Sebastian and the devilish central character of Wilde's great-uncle Charles Robert Maturin's gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer.

Nevertheless, Wilde lost no time in returning to his previous pleasures. According to Douglas, Ross "dragged [him] back to homosexual practices" during the summer of 1897, which they spent together in Berneval.

After his release, he also wrote the famous poem The Ballad of Readying Gaol. Wilde spent his last years in the Hôtel d'Alsace, now known as L’Hôtel, in Paris, where he was notorious and uninhibited about enjoying the pleasures he had been denied in England. Again according to Douglas, "he was hand in glove with all the little boys on the Boulevard. He never attempted to conceal it." In a letter to Ross, Wilde laments, "Today I bade good-bye, with tears and one kiss, to the beautiful Greek boy. . . he is the nicest boy you ever introduced to me." Just a month before his death he is quoted as saying, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go."

His moods fluctuated; Max Beerbohm relates how, a few days before Wilde's death, their mutual friend Reginald 'Reggie' Turner had found Wilde very depressed after a nightmare. "I dreamt that I had died, and was supping with the dead!" "I am sure," Turner replied, "that you must have been the life and soul of the party." Reggie Turner was one of the very few of the old circle who remained with Wilde right to the end, and was at his bedside when he died. On his deathbed he was received into the Roman Catholic church for some odd reason. Perhaps he really had lost his mind. Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900.

Wilde was buried in the Cimitiere de Bagneaux outside Paris but was later moved to Père Lachaise in Paris. His tomb in Père Lachaise was designed by sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein, at the request of Robert Ross, who also asked for a small compartment to be made for his own ashes. Ross's ashes were transferred to the tomb in 1950. The numerous spots on it are lipstick traces from admirers.

The modernist angel depicted as a relief on the tomb was originally complete with male genitals. They were broken off as obscene and kept as a paperweight by a succession of Père Lachaise cemetery keepers. Their current whereabouts are unknown. In the summer of 2000, intermedia artist Leon Johnson performed a forty minute ceremony entitled Re-membering Wilde in which a commissioned silver prosthesis was installed to replace the vandalized genitals.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson

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

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Via IMS

 

Via Just a Bahai Blog // Would Abdul-Baha approve of this message?

 

Via Daily Dharma: Meeting Discomfort

 

Dharma practice is not an escape: it’s an intimate meeting with the discomfort and suffering of the first noble truth. Life contains suffering.

—Sarah Conover, “Lost at Sea”

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

 

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)

Reflection

The fourth foundation of mindfulness involves looking at various aspects of our experience as episodes of phenomena arising and passing away in the stream of consciousness. Unhelpful habits of mind, acting as hindrances to inner clarity, come and go along with helpful mental factors, such as those guiding us to awakening. We learn to observe these changing states with calm and focused equanimity, without grasping.

Daily Practice

Sit quietly on a regular basis and take an interest in watching what goes on in your mind. The challenge is to observe it all without latching on to the content of your thoughts but simply noting them as events arising and passing away. Become mindful of mental objects rather than becoming entangled in them. If you can do this with ardent energy, fully aware and mindful, you will likely find yourself very content.

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 upon 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)

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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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Tricycle // Finding Spirit in the Ordinary

Finding Spirit in the Ordinary
By Rev. Dr. Kenji Akahoshi

The Shin Buddhist practice of gratitude starts with shifting our everyday mindset from “please” to “thank you.”

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