Via Daily Dharma: Loving Yourself First

 Until you are able to love and take care of yourself, you cannot be of much help to others.

Thich Nhat Hanh, “Cultivating Compassion”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT
Developing Unarisen 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 state, 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 develop the arising of unarisen healthy mental states. One develops the unarisen energy awakening factor. (MN 141)

Reflection

The mental and emotional states that are healthy, leading away from suffering and toward greater clarity of understanding, do not always arise on their own and sometimes need a little help. In the sequence of awakening factors, investigation of states naturally gives rise to energy, because everything becomes so interesting, but the development of energy can also be instigated and encouraged as a deliberate practice.

Daily Practice

Interesting how it is put in the text: that we need to stir up energy to develop energy. What this is pointing to is that sometimes we just have to reach down and decide that we will bring more energy to bear on a given situation. Perhaps it is blinking the eyes to overcome drowsiness or gritting the teeth boost our willpower to avoid a temptation. Energy is a factor that can be weak or strong. Here we practice strengthening it.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third Jhāna
One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

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Via White Crane Institute // From Harry Hay's Radically Gay

 

Today's Gay Wisdom

2018 -

TODAY’S GAY WISDOM

From Harry Hay's Radically Gay, edited by Will Roscoe:

Harry Hay's Gay politics represent an alternative to postmodernist, queer theory and dogmatic Constructionism. Indeed, Hay is the only contemporary Gay thinker who could be said to offer a unified theory of Gayness -- one that begins by defining its subject in multidimensional terms and then accounts for its individual and historical origins, its diverse forms and their history, the psycho-social development of Gay individuals, and the nature and sources of Gay oppression. Postmodernism offers at best a politics of resignation, one that rejects the possibility of an "outside" to power, of a subject-SUBJECT alternative to subject-OBJECT social relations, and the means of getting there is through a politics that affirms Queer identities and cultures.

Hay is not bothered if his ideas are called Essentialist or if his activism is deemed "identity politics" — he is happy to emphasize his differences with Social Constructionism and Queer theory — provided that the word radical precede these labels. The original meaning of this word, "to the root," serves well to convey the underlying theme of his philosophy and politics. The key principles of Harry's radical Essentialism can be summed up as follows:

• It is, first and foremost, Gay-centered — a "situated knowledge" (to borrow Donna Haraway's terminology) reflecting the social standpoint of contemporary sexual minorities. It is not neutral on the question of Queer well-being; it seeks to create knowledge that contributes to that end.
• It posits Gay presence rather than absence in the usual state of human society.
• It conceives of its subject in multidimensional terms — not merely as sexual preference but as a difference manifest in gender roles, social identity, economic roles and sometimes religious roles, as well.
• It seeks to tell history from the bottom up, using those documents, records and artifacts that reveal the common experience of the largest number of Queer folk and not only the discourse of elite heterosexuals and social institutions.
• It recognizes various levels of meaning — individual, social, trans-cultural, and spiritual. It does not assume that the way an individual describes herself will be identical to the institutional definition of labels that have been applied to her.
• It is multicultural and comparative. Rather than a unitary instance — "the modern homosexual" — it employs the notion of a family tree (like Wittgenstein's concept of "family resemblance") to conceptualize the relationship between the Queer identities and roles of different cultures and historical periods.
• It views history as a process of continuity-within-change rather than as a series of sharply defined periods of ruptures. Concept/labels like "Sodomite" and "Urning," "homosexual," and "Gay," have overlapped in their usage. Neither can be defined without reference to the other.
• It focuses on praxis. It seeks to analyze the interaction between individuals and their societies and cultures. It looks for instances of symbols and ideas in action as well as in discourse.

The mass coming-out that transformed the quiescent homophile movement of the 1960s into the dynamic Lesbian/Gay liberation and civil rights movements of the 1970s and 1980s was in large measure a function of joining a community where a negative label could be replaced with an affirmative identity. Hay's writings show that this was no accident. The cultural minority model was a carefully thought out political analysis and strategy on the part of the Mattachine founders.

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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 Daily Dharma: Emotions Unlock Wisdom

Tibetan Buddhism teaches that we find the antidotes to our most painful states of mind by leaning directly into the emotion itself. Our emotions are full of wisdom. They are the keys for deepening our practice and our relationships with our world.

Judith Simmer-Brown, “Transforming the Green-Ey’d Monster”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

Sensual misconduct is unhealthy. Refraining from sensual misconduct is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning sensual misconduct, one abstains from misbehaving among sensual pleasures. (MN 41) One practices thus: "Others may engage in sensual misconduct, but I will abstain from sensual misconduct." (MN 8) Sensual conduct is of two kinds: to be cultivated and not to be cultivated. Such sensual conduct as causes, in one who cultivates it, unhealthy states to increase and healthy states to diminish, such sensual conduct is not to be cultivated. But such sensual conduct as causes, in one who cultivates it, unhealthy states to diminish and healthy states to increase, such sensual conduct is to be cultivated. (MN 114)

Reflection

Misbehaving among sensual pleasures can include various forms of harmful sexuality, such as exploitation, causing humiliation, or sexual predation. It can also include all sorts of activities that are not sexual but involve sensual gratification. Our ability to inhabit a sensory and sensual world is not in itself a problem. The problem is that our senses can so easily lead us into attachments and aversions that cause difficulties.

Daily Practice

This practice is about the skillful use of the sense apparatus. Notice when sensory stimulation leads to craving and thus to grasping behavior. This is the path to suffering, as our senses lead us to wanting things we cannot have or hating things that are unpleasant. Notice also that there are ways to engage the senses that do not automatically lead to craving and grasping, and thus do not lead to suffering. Explore this.

Tomorrow: Developing Unarisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Intoxication

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Via Lion's Roar // How I Stopped My Panic Attacks

 

How I Stopped My Panic Attacks

Stricken with anxiety as a child, Buddhist teacher Mingyur Rinpoche learned how to heal his panic with awareness. He teaches us three techniques that helped him.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - February 9, 2022 💌

 
 

When you stand back far enough, all of your life experiences, independent of what they are, are all learning experiences. From a human point of view, you do your best to optimize pleasure, happiness, all the nice things in life. From your soul’s point of view you take what comes down the pike. So from the soul’s perspective, you work to get what you want and then if you don’t ‘ah, so, I’ll work with what I’ve got.’

- Ram Dass

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Harsh Speech

 

RIGHT SPEECH Refraining from Harsh Speech

Harsh speech is unhealthy. Refraining from harsh speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning harsh speech, one refrains from harsh speech. One speaks words that are gentle, pleasing to the ear, and affectionate, words that go to the heart, are courteous, and are agreeable to many. (DN 1) One practices thus: "Others may speak harshly, but I shall abstain from harsh speech." (MN 8) When one says, "All those disengaged from the pursuit of the enjoyment of sensual pleasures have entered upon the right way," one thus extols some people. But when one says instead, "The disengagement from the pursuit of the enjoyment of sensual pleasures is a state without suffering, and it is the right way," then one is not extolling anyone but is simply stating the truth. (MN 139)

Reflection

One of the common patterns of speech that causes difficulty is the tendency to extol some people and disparage others. We judge and label people as good or bad, right or wrong, based on what they do and then use speech to overpraise some people and overly blame others. This leads to a form of harsh speech that is directed at individuals, who will naturally take it personally and respond by retaliating against the blaming.

Daily Practice

Practice actively framing everything you see people around you doing as impersonal actions of body, speech, and mind rather than as qualities of the people as individuals. It is not that people are kind or cruel but their actions may be kind or cruel. Praising the person may elevate their sense of self and contribute to such things as inflated pride, while praising their actions will encourage further good action.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Mental Action
One week from today: Refraining from Frivolous Speech

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Via Daily Dharma: Nourish Your Practice

 Your sangha—family, friends, and copractitioners—is the soil, and you are the seed. No matter how vigorous the seed is, if the soil does not provide nourishment, your seed will die. A good sangha is crucial for the practice. Please find a good sangha or help create one.

Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Fertile Soil of Sangha”

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