Via Daily Dharma: Exposing the Mind

 Much like a cloud that hides the warming brilliance of the sun, the superficial dimension of the mind conceals the mind’s deeper possibilities. It is the superficiality of this conventional dimension of mind, as well as the deeper possibilities that exist beneath this dimension, that the process of meditation works to expose and reveal.

Will Johnson, “How to Sit—And Why It Matters”

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Via LGBTQ Nation: Disney declines

 

Disney declines to condemn Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill after donating to GOP backers

The House of Mouse says that producing "inspiring content" is the most they can do to stop the GOP attacks on elementary school children. The profits would then presumably flow back into the pockets of anti-LGBTQ politicians. 

 

 

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second 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 bodily pleasant feeling, one is aware: Feeling a bodily pleasant feeling … one is just aware, just mindful: "There is feeling." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

In every mind moment, consciousness takes a single, particular object to be aware of, and a particular feeling tone coarises with that moment of consciousness. While knowing the object, we also know whether it feels good or bad, or has a feeling tone that is not obviously one or the other. This sensation becomes a focus point for establishing the presence of mindfulness. Just be aware of that feeling tone, arising and passing.

Daily Practice

In this passage we are focusing only on pleasant bodily feeling tones. Yes, we are allowed to experience pleasure and even to focus on it exclusively. As you sit in meditation, notice what feels good in your body. Even if there is discomfort in some parts of the body, there will also be comfort in other parts. Seek out the pleasure in your bodily experience, noticing its texture and how it changes, arising and passing away.

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 has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4) When one sees oneself purified of all these unhealthy states and thus liberated from them, gladness is born. When one is glad, joy is born; in one who is joyful, the body becomes tranquil; one whose body is tranquil feels pleasure; in one who feels pleasure, the mind becomes concentrated. (MN 40)

Reflection

When the mind is temporarily free of afflicted states, it enters upon a natural path towards concentration. Whether or not you practice the jhānas, some degree of focus is an essential part of meditation practice, and this passage describes how you can gently follow the process of relaxing into concentration.

Daily Practice

See if you can tread the path of gladness, leading to joy, leading to peace. This is not the enthusiastic joy of winning the lottery or dancing at a wedding, but is a more subtle and deeper joy that comes from gladness, from a softening of the mind in response to its being free for some time from restlessness, sluggishness, sense desire, ill will, and doubt. Subtract, as you sit, and see if you can refrain from adding anything.

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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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: The Umbrella Mind

 A closed mind causes separation and suspicion. Like an umbrella, a mind is only useful when it is open. The first step toward maintaining an open mind is to understand the nature of mind or self.

Gerry Shishin Wick Sensei, “Zen in the Workplace”

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Via White Crane Institute // GLENN GREENWALD

 

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Glenn Greenwald

1967 -

GLENN GREENWALD is an American lawyer, journalist and author born on this date. He was a columnist for Guardian US from August 2012 to October 2013. He was a columnist for Salon.com from 2007 to 2012, and an occasional contributor to The Guardian. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator.

At Salon he contributed as a columnist and blogger, focusing on political and legal topics. He has also contributed to other newspapers and political news magazines, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The American Conservative, The National Interest and In These Times. In 2014 he became, along with Laura Poitrasand and Jeremy Scahill, one of the founding editors of The Intercept.

Greenwald was named by Foreign  Policy Magazine as one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013" and The Advocate named him as one of the "50 Most Influential LGBT Persons in 2014".

Four of the five books he has written have been on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Greenwald is a frequent speaker on college campuses, including Harvard Law, Yale Law, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, UCLA School of Law and the University of Wisconsin. He frequently appears on various radio and television programs.

In June 2013 Greenwald became widely known after The Guardian published the first of a series of reports detailing United States and British global surveillance programs, based on classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden. The series on which Greenwald worked, along with others, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

His reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA) won numerous other awards around the world, including top investigative journalism prizes from the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting, the 2013 Online Journalism Awards, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting in Brazil for his articles in O Globo on NSA mass surveillance of Brazilians (becoming the first foreigner to win the award), the 2013 Libertad de Expresion Internacional award from Argentinian magazine  Perfil, and the 2013 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Greenwald lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the hometown of his partner, David Michael Miranda. Greenwald has said his residence in Brazil was the result of an American law, the Defense of Marriage Act, barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages, which prevented his partner from receiving a visa to reside in the United States with him.

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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 - March 6, 2022 💌

 
 

Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga are usually grouped together, because Karma Yoga really is serving others as a way of serving God. You serve others as a way of putting flowers at the feet of God, honoring God, and so doing your ‘seva,’ or service, becomes a technique of doing this.

So doing your ‘seva’, your service, can work in a devotional sense, where you are consciously considering your action as an offering, saying, “This is my Karma Yoga, I am doing this now as service to you, as an offering to God, and it’s work on myself.”

Or, I can do it from a meditative point of view called “meditation in action;” discussed in Trungpa Rinpoche’s book Meditation In Action. In this instance, when I am washing a pot, I don’t wash the pot as an offering to God, I just come into the process of washing the pot until I’m fully in the moment, and I quiet my mind into washing the pot until there is just “washing of the pot-ness,” and that is also Karma Yoga.

Once you are starting to awaken, you look around for practices to purify and help awaken. Most people see meditation as this practice. It’s a clear and simple yoga, and you say, “Well, while I do yoga, I do my meditation, and then I go to work, or then I live life, or then I’m gonna do good or something like that.”

Karma Yoga is taking all of the “good or something” that you are going to do after your meditation, and making it into an offering and practice for awakening.

So it’s a perspective, an attitude of offering and seeing how the actions you are performing are much more than the actions themselves. 

- Ram Dass

Via Tumblr

 

"Peace Train" featuring Yusuf / Cat Stevens | Playing For Change | Song ...

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: 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 restlessness. (MN 141)

Reflection

One of the key strategies of Buddhist practice is to abandon unhealthy states that have arisen in the mind. This word abandon is used in a particular way—as an alternative to either accepting or rejecting the experience. If you act out an unhealthy state of mind, you are only strengthening it, and if you repress it, you are only postponing its impact. The middle way is to be aware of the unhealthy state of mind, understand it is harmful, and gently release your hold on it.

Daily Practice

Restlessness comes up a lot, particularly in a busy daily life. It wants something different from what is happening in order to either get something desired or escape something undesired. It is important to recognize the unhelpfulness of this mental state. Restlessness is not bad or wrong, but it does hinder the mind’s ability to act skillfully. Develop the ability to recognize when you feel restless and then shake off its hold on you. Instead, just be with what is.

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: A Process of Discovery

 Sometimes as Buddhists, we can develop an orientation that somehow we need to go beyond our sense of self or get rid of it. But I’d say the process is more about discovering through inquiry how the sense of self arises.

Laura Bridgman, “Seeing the Emptiness of Self”

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Via Discover the Art of ‘Micro-Meditation’ with Loch Kelly

Support Tricycle with a donation »

March 5, 2022

Small Glimpses, Many Times

 
The state of calm, loving awareness that we seek to cultivate through meditation practice isn’t something outside of ourselves to achieve—it’s already always present within us.
 
We may catch glimpses of it while sitting on the cushion—or seemingly out of nowhere while going about our daily lives. Meditation teacher Loch Kelly refers to these tiny shifts of awareness as “mindful glimpses” or “micro-meditations” and says that they can help us to live from a place of greater ease, clarity, and joy.
 
Discover the art of micro-meditation with Loch Kelly, author of The Way of Effortless Mindfulness, in Tricycle’s upcoming virtual workshop Small Glimpses, Many Times. In this 90-minute Zoom workshop, Kelly will offer simple, powerful practices for unlocking access to the “nature of mind” as spoken of across Buddhist traditions.
 
This event is offered by donation. Register now to join us on Zoom March 9, 4:30-6 p.m. ET. 

Via Daily Dharma: Return to Wholeness

 If we start from this knowledge of wholeness as already possible, returning to wholeness—like coming back to that point in the body or breath—is a supportive way to frame how we can aim our practice, this investigation of harm and harming, or hurt and suffering.

Rev. Keiryu Liên Shutt, “Returning to Wholeness”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Taking What is Not Given

Taking what is not given is unhealthy. Refraining from taking what is not given is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the taking of what is not given, one abstains from taking what is not given; one does not take by way of theft the wealth and property of others. (MN 41) One practices thus: "Others may take what is not given, but I will abstain from taking what is not given." (MN 8) One is to practice thus: "Here, regarding things heard by you, in the heard there will be just the heard." When, firmly mindful, one hears a sound, one is not inflamed by lust for sounds; one experiences it with a dispassionate mind and does not remain holding it tightly. (SN 35.95)

Reflection

The precept against stealing can be taken figuratively as well as literally. Yes, it means not to take the property of others, but it can also mean not to read more into what is said or take away more than is uttered. A casual comment can be amplified and complexified by the hearer far beyond what was originally intended by the speaker, and doing this is a kind of psychological appropriation that can be viewed as a form of “taking what is not given.”

Daily Practice

See if you can practice being fully in the present moment, hearing only a sound and not spinning out into a wide pattern of association, interpretation, or projection. As a meditation practice, hearing only a sound requires strong mindfulness and non-attachment. Develop the ability to note what is happening and only what is happening as sense data, without turning it into a story. This is not easy to do, but it can be done.

Tomorrow: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

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#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Plum Village // Dharma for Your Day: Meditation Is Not a Luxury

 

 

“I have arrived, I am home is your practice to survive. It's not a luxury. If you cannot be yourself, if you do not know how to handle the fear, the anger, the despair in you, you are lost. You cannot help any other people. You cannot help your country."   In this powerful short teaching video, Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us that our mindfulness practice is not a luxury, but a necessity for us to have peace as a global society. Calling on us to connect to our common sense of humanity, Thay shares inspiring examples from his personal life to illustrate how to draw from our spiritual ground to save lives, including in the face of legal and cultural barriers (20 mins).

Via LGBTQ Nation // New study shows the surprising reason gay men excel at school more than straight men

 

New study shows the surprising reason gay men excel at school more than straight men

 

 

 

The Book of Queer | Official Trailer | discovery+

Via Daily Dharma: Opening the Hand

 By opening the hand, we let go of whatever was in its grip, and refrain from grasping something new. With time, meditation practice makes it easier to choose what to focus on, let go of, linger with, indulge in, turn away from, enhance, or reiterate.

Jill Satterfield, “Mindfulness at Knifepoint”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

 

RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Verbal 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 verbal action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) When you wish to do an action with speech, reflect upon that same verbal action thus: "Would this action I wish to do with speech lead to the affliction of another?" If, upon reflection, you know that it would, then do not do it; if you know that it would not, then proceed. (MN 61)

Reflection

Often a conversation is like a chess game, in which it is beneficial to be able to think a few moves ahead. Are you just expressing what is on your mind, or do you want to have the other person hear you so you can have an impact on what they are thinking? Considering the impact your words have on others is a skill that can be learned, and it increases the effectiveness of your speech. It is good to be aware of what you are saying.

Daily Practice

Try slowing down your speech pattern and taking that extra moment to pause and check in on your emotional and mental state before you respond. With what quality of mind will you speak the next words: annoyance? agitation? benevolence? equanimity? Normal speech patterns are often very rapid, not giving us much time for reflection, but being more reflective is an extremely valuable practice.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given
One week from today: Reflecting upon Mental Action

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via ADAM and ANDY