Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: The Noble Truth of Suffering

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering

When people have met with suffering and become victims of suffering, they come to me and ask me about the noble truth of suffering. Being asked, I explain to them the noble truth of suffering. (MN 77) What is suffering? (MN 9) Sickness is suffering. (MN 9)

Reflection

While nobody would wish illness on another person, times of ill health or affliction are often excellent opportunities for practice. The scope of our experience contracts, sometimes to a very small point of breathing in and out, or to a specific part of the body that is in pain. Illness and affliction focus our attention and force us to abandon much that is taken for granted in times of health. This is where we all come face to face with suffering.

Daily Practice

Scan your body with your awareness and check in to see if there is anywhere you are experiencing pain or discomfort. Few of us are entirely free of any instance of distress. Rather than trying to overlook or avoid the discomfort, turn your attention deliberately to it. There is something to learn here, something to see and understand. If you can’t find any pain, be grateful for that.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Lovingkindness
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Tricycle // Ask a Teacher: When Is a Buddha Statue Appropriate or Offensive?

 

Ask a Teacher: When Is a Buddha Statue Appropriate or Offensive?
By Vanessa Zuisei Goddard

Is the Buddha statue in your favorite yoga studio offensive? A Zen teacher turns to the Buddha’s own words for guidance in answering this question.

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Via Daily Dharma: What’s Done Is Done

 The future is an illusion, the past is now a dream, and the only reality we have access to is the present. In that light, self-forgiveness is the willingness to stop trying to fix our past or make it better. It is giving up all hope of improving that which has already happened. What is done is done.

Mark Coleman, “Why Are We So Hard on Ourselves?”

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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)   When ill will is internally present, one is aware: "Ill will is present for me." When ill will is not present, one is aware: "Ill will is not present for me." When the arising of unarisen ill will occurs, one is aware of that. And when the abandoning of arisen ill will occurs, one is aware of that. . . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is a mental object." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

The second of the five hindrances is ill will, which, like the first hindrance, sense desire, is a mental state that arises and passes away from time to time. Highlighting this factor in the swirl of experience and noticing when it is present and when it is not helps us realize that the annoyance we often feel is a fleeting phenomenon. This in turn gives us the ability to abandon that annoyance. We need not give in to it.

Daily Practice

Annoyance is a good way of practicing with ill will, because it is a mild form of it. Anger, hatred, and fear are more charged and thus more difficult to work with. See if you can notice when you are annoyed and also when you are not. See how annoyance is just a state that arises and therefore is a state you can let go of. Instead of holding on to the justification for the annoyance, see if you can just let it go and "abide without clinging."

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 into 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)

Reflection

This state of mind is the culmination of the four stages of absorption and represents the consummation of the meditative enterprise of focused, one-pointed awareness. With the mind thus purified of its imperfections it is capable of seeing clearly, and by becoming "malleable" and "wieldy" it can be used as a tool to penetrate the many distortions and delusions that normally prevent us from understanding the true nature of things.

Daily Practice

Allow your Sunday sitting meditation to slowly and gently mellow into a profound state of equanimity. The mind is steady and bright but also imperturbable in the sense that there is nothing in your inner or outer experience that is going to evoke an episode of yearning or aversion. Equanimity is balance, an evenly hovering attention. Notice also in this passage that equanimity is said to be the means of purifying mindfulness.

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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#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Thich Nhat Hanh Memorial Ceremony Day 2 | Live from Hue, Vietnam | 2022 ...

Namo Avalokiteshvara 🙏 Plum village Chanting 🙏 THICH NHAT HANH

Stanford University CCARE w Thich Nhat Hanh and James Doty, MD

Can we communicate with the ones who have passed away? (Thay's Memorial)

No Birth No Death | Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindfulness as a Foundation for Health | Thich Nhat Hanh | Talks at Google

The Four Noble Truths | Thich Nhat Hanh (short teaching video)

[1 HOUR NON-STOP] (Meditation - Affirmation) UPLIFTING SOULFUL HEALING -...

Tablet of Ahmad

Via Plum Village /FB

"Our actions [are] our continuation. We cannot die. We can never die. Like a cloud, we continue with our actions. And our actions will take forms, many kinds of forms. It can take very beautiful forms." - Thich Nhat Hanh 

One of the short Dharma Talk clips we featured on our https://plumvillage.org/memorial-practice-resources/ - selected chants, meditations, teachings, readings, songs, calligraphies & photos, to support your practice at home or with a local sangha, as we generate the energy of mindfulness and compassion in memory of our teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

 https://fb.watch/aJqAoxDtle/

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Yale Sociologist Nick Christakis: COVID-19 Will Reshape Humanity | Amanp...

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT
Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

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

Reflection

Practice is not just about abandoning the mental and emotional states that get in the way of a peaceful mind; it has equally to do with encouraging and supporting all the beneficial states. When kindness, generosity, compassion, or wisdom arises, this is a good thing, partly because it encourages further healthy states and partly because it blocks out unhealthy states. Only one state at a time can occupy the mind.

Daily Practice

When you are able to arouse the interest and curiosity that characterize the awakening factor of the investigation of states, see what you can do to maintain or sustain such interest. Mindfulness is a supporting condition, as is energy or relaxed effort. It is a matter of taking interest in the phenomenology of the inner life and inquiring deeply into the texture, not the content, of experience. What does it feel like to be aware of what is actually going on?

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna
One week from today: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.