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Via Dhamma Wheel // Cultivating Appreciative Joy

 

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Appreciative Joy

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 appreciative joy, for when you develop meditation on appreciative joy, any discontent 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 appreciative joy, and thereby gains internal peace. (MN 40)

Reflection

When lovingkindness encounters the good fortune and happiness of another, it transforms into appreciative joy. This is the emotion of feeling good for another person, of being glad that good things are happening for them. Appreciative joy arises easily for the people we care about, but so often its opposite—some form of jealousy, envy, or resentment—comes up for us. The antidote for these forms of discontent is learning how to feel good for others, which generally takes a lot of practice.

Daily Practice

Try reminding yourself on a regular basis that the world is ruled by impersonal laws of cause and effect, also known as karma. Sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things, and we often have little control over these things. Why not feel happy for other people when they experience good fortune or reap the rewards of their hard work? Like a cool drink on a hot day, feeling happy is more beneficial than feeling bad.

Tomorrow: Refraining from Harsh Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Equanimity

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Via Daily Dharma: Compassionate Transmutation

Buddhism is a path of supreme optimism, for one of its basic tenets is that no human life or experience is to be wasted or forgotten, but all should be transformed into a source of wisdom and compassionate living.

—Taitetsu Unno, “Number One Fool”

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SHAMANIC DRUMS + DEEP TRANCE HUMMING MEDITATION ❯ Shamanic Meditation Mu...

Via BBC // Ani Choying Drolma : The Singing Star Nun from Nepal Outlook

 

Ani Choying Drolma decided to become a Buddhist nun when she was 13 after witnessing violence from her father in her childhood home. Whilst learning songs for the spiritual ceremonies Ani discovered a love for singing and was noticed by a music producer who recorded her singing and took it back to the US. Ani was offered a record contract and a tour and has gone on to become one of the most celebrated musicians to emerge from Nepal.

 

Pure Positive Vibes, Bamboo Flute Music, Positive Energy Vibration, Clea...

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A panel from a Tibetan scroll that shows direct correlations between the universe and the human body. Wheel of Time (Kalachakra) Tantra.

Ruben Museum

 

 

Via Dhamma Wheel // Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

What is the cessation of suffering? It is the remainderless fading away and ceasing, the giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of craving. (MN 9) When one knows and sees visual forms as they actually are, then one is not attached to visual forms. When one abides unattached, one is not infatuated, and one’s craving is abandoned. One’s bodily and mental troubles are abandoned, and one experiences bodily and mental well-being. (MN 149)

Reflection

The third noble truth declares that once suffering has been identified (the first noble truth) and its origin has been discovered (the second noble truth), it is possible to bring that suffering to an end. This is the great promise of the Buddhist path: that any time we are experiencing suffering, we can reverse or neutralize it with insight and practices that loosen the specific craving that causes the particular instance of suffering.

Daily Practice

Let's begin with focusing on the sphere of visual experience. So many of the things we see give rise to impulses of attachment, infatuation, and craving. When we want what we see, that visual object becomes the trigger for a brief episode of suffering. Notice, however, that this impulse to crave what we see need not have irresistible power over us. Practice noting the craving, then letting go of it. Notice the ensuing sense of well-being.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Appreciative Joy
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

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Via GBF // Pameal Weiss

 "[I THANK YOU GOD FOR MOST THIS AMAZING]

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings;and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

+ E. E. Cummings

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Powerful words from Pema Chodron "When Things Fall Apart," p.37 

 

Via Dhamma Wheel // Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders unhealthy states, one has abandoned healthy states to cultivate unhealthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to unhealthy states. (MN 19) Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to abandon arisen unhealthy mental states. One abandons the arisen hindrance of sense desire. (MN 141)

Reflection

Unhealthy states arise in human experience all the time. This is not your fault; you are not to be blamed for it or to feel guilty about it. What is important is first of all to notice when an unhealthy state is arising—hence the value of mindfulness training—and then to understand that it is unhealthy, which comes gradually with wisdom, and finally to let go of it—not suppress it or ignore it but simply let it pass through the mind and go away.

Daily Practice

One of the most persistent and common of the unhealthy states is sense desire. There is a natural tendency for the senses to lean in to experience, to subtly seek out and attach to things that give us a sense of gratification. Make an effort to recognize when this is happening, and respond with letting go. Notice, understand, and release. Repeat often.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna
One week from today: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

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Via Dhamma Wheel // Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling

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)    When feeling a pleasant feeling, one is aware: "Feeling a pleasant feeling." . . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is feeling." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

The second basis on which mindfulness is established is feeling tone. This does not refer to our emotional life—feelings of affection or anger or dismay—but rather to the valence of feeling as pleasant or unpleasant or neutral (not obviously pleasant or unpleasant). The practice is to sit down deliberately for some time—even five minutes, if that is all you can manage—and simply notice pleasant and unpleasant sensations as they occur.

Daily Practice

As with mindfulness of breathing, the attitude with which you are aware of feeling tone is of great importance. The text is guiding us to be fully aware of a painful feeling, for example, without analyzing it or wishing it was not happening. Simply notice it as a brief episode of a particular feeling tone, without clinging in any way either to its going away if it is painful or to its coming again if it is pleasant. Just be aware of it.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)

With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which brings inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought but with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4)

Reflection

The teachings around right concentration have to do with four phases of absorption, also known as jhānas. When the mind rests steadily on a single object of attention—which is quite difficult to do at first—it gradually disentangles itself from the various hindrances and becomes unified, peaceful, and stable. With this comes inner clarity and the dropping away of the internal use of language.

Daily Practice

You will know when you have entered into absorption of the jhānas because the state is accompanied at first by a great deal of physical and mental pleasure. The physical pleasure is described as being fundamentally different from any sensual gratification, and the mental pleasure comes naturally when the mind is free of the hindrances (phase one) and when it becomes concentrated or one-pointed (phase two).

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna

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Via Daily Dharma: Our One True Choice

 

At our Zen center, we often chant the words: “Just this moment; compassion’s way.” Just this moment, including perhaps terror, but also potentially liberation. For in truth, “just this moment” is the only moment, and being open to it is the only true choice we ever really have.

—Diane Eshin Rizzetto, “In Brief”

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Via Tricycle // Teachers You May Not Know But Should

 

Teachers You May Not Know But Should

Ross Nervig on some teachers past and present whose lives and teachings have a lot to offer us.

Qiyuan Xinggang was a legendary female Chan master who amassed thousands of devotees in seventeenth-century China, resisting family pressure to marry and skepticism from male Buddhist leaders. As a child, Qiyuan Xinggang demonstrated a strong interest in Buddhism. Fated to marry, she yearned to train under a Chan master instead. Even after her fiancé died, her parents still refused to allow her to seek a religious life, so she went on a hunger strike until they gave in. Seeking spiritual direction from a series of masters, Qiyuan Xinggang encountered abuse, setbacks, and frustrations as she struggled with the difficult questions put to her by the masters, but nonetheless, she persisted.