About GBF

 

Inclusivity

As practicing Buddhists, we cherish the unique potential of each individual, and each individual’s unique mission in the world that only they can accomplish. We believe that each person has the ability to contribute positive value to society in their own unique way.  

GBF welcomes people of all races, backgrounds, and gender and sexual identities: BIPOC, men, women, LGB, Trans People, differing educational and economic backgrounds, and differently abled.  

 

“Do the best you can until you know better. 

Then when you know better, do better.”

– Maya Angelou

 

Our Practice

As a Buddhist organization, GBF undertakes the study and practice of living with mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom toward all beings, including those with whom we don’t agree. We do not experience this as being weak or passive. On the contrary, Buddhism is a path of courage, discipline, and deep commitment to truth and right action. Living with mindful awareness requires we first examine our own hearts and minds to become aware of unconscious internal biases and assumptions; in order to avoid the very dynamics of division and objectification which we strive to end. 

Courage, compassion, and a commitment to truth are required to acknowledge our thoughts and feelings, and self-discipline is required to change, regardless of the guilt and shame we may feel in identifying our own prejudices against others, based on race, gender, social class, etc. This is a practice of turning toward greed, hatred, and ignorance, in order to end the unnecessary suffering that they cause to ourselves and others. It is a path based on the disciplined application of moral principles of non-harm, development of community, and liberation for all beings – not just those who are privileged.

 

Via LGBTQ Nation // Same-sex marriages have happened on every continent now after Antarctic ceremony

 

The two men were the first same-sex couple to marry in Antarctica.

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 neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling in the body, one is aware: “Feeling a bodily neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling … one is just aware, just mindful: 'There is feeling.'” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Of the three kinds of feeling tone—pleasant, painful, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful—it is this third, neutral feeling that is the most challenging to the practice of mindfulness. Feeling tones arise in a steady stream, just like the stream of consciousness; the practice is to pay close enough attention to the textured sensation of each moment. The object is one thing (sight, sound, etc.), and the feeling tone that arises with it is another.

Daily Practice

Sit quietly for some stretch of time and attend carefully to all the neutral sensations in the body. You might even scan systematically from head to foot looking for all the feeling tones that are occurring. Some are obviously pleasant, some are clearly painful. What about the rest? These are the neutral sensations—you feel them, but they do not feel good or bad. They are just there. Feel what it's like to feel what is just there.

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)

Reflection

The mind is capable, through training, of becoming more concentrated than is usual in ordinary daily experience. The Buddha describes this as a natural process, unfolding as the body and mind become gradually happier and more tranquil while the mind is focusing upon a single object. In the second phase of this process, discursive thinking gradually fades away as the feeling of pleasure and well-being grows stronger and deepens.

Daily Practice

As you sit quietly and focus on your breathing, the thoughts and memories and plans that so habitually inhabit the mind begin to settle, and the mind becomes calmer. At a certain point thoughts may cease altogether. Awareness of sensory experience remains strong, but it is no longer mediated by words, images, or concepts. The need to re-engage the mind with an object and hold it there is no longer needed, so these functions drop away.

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

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Let the Winds Blow

Desirable things do not have to beguile the mind, and undesirable ones do not have to bring endless resistance. We can let the winds blow through us instead of letting them buffet us about. 

Mark Epstein, “How Meditation Failed Me”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 1, 2022 💌

 
 

You are listening as well as you can to the universe, and often you will see that when things start to happen a certain way, your mind will focus in on that because you’re looking for patterns, which we call ‘synchronicity’.

Often you will just get caught in your desire to find a pattern that will give you an external validation for what you’re doing. You just end up using the universe again to do it to yourself.

So stay with your truth from moment to moment, and get the clues wherever you can. I mean, I’ll open up the Chuang-tzu and read something when I have a question, and if it doesn’t feel good, I say, “Well, that was interesting,” and I close it. If it feels like what I wanted to do anyway, I say, “Ohhh, wow, synchronicity!” And I do it, so I’ve learned that I’m a complete phony anyway, so I might as well just honor it and get on with it.

- Ram Dass - 

Via IMS Book Club: A Queer Dharma

 

IMS Book Club A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation Thursday, June 16, 7 pm - 8:15 pm ET

Jacoby Ballard provides an empowering and affirming guide to embodied healing through yoga and the Dharma, grounded in the brilliance, resilience, and lived experiences of queer folks. Enhanced with stories from Ballard's personal practice and professional experience teaching yoga in schools, prisons, conferences, and his weekly Queer and Trans Yoga class, A Queer Dharma is a guidebook, reclamation, and unapologetically queer heart offering for true healing and transformation. Open to all.

Enroll Today

Via Be Here Now Network

Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 437 – Emotions, Mindfulness, & Metta w/ Sharon Salzberg & Noah Markus
April 28, 2022 Sharon Salzberg & Noah join Raghu for a metta-steeped conversation around emotions, mindfulness, self-compassion, and real change. Explore the intersection of Buddhism & Bhakti at...

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Via Be Here Now Network

  Ethan Nichtern – The Road Home Podcast – Ep. 72 – Zen Practice and Collective Ceremonies w/ Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel
April 29, 2022 This week on The Road Home Podcast we hear from Ethan Nichtern and Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel. They discuss the overlap of science and...

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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 all five arisen hindrances. (MN 141)

Reflection

Having worked through all five hindrances one at a time, we now focus on treating sense desire, ill will, restlessness, sluggishness, and doubt as a group. These are the five kinds of mental states that obstruct the ability of the mind to gather strength and become unified. Unhealthy states breed more unhealthy states, and it is helpful to abandon, not suppress or resist, them when you notice them arising in your experience.

Daily Practice

Become familiar with these unhealthy states and notice them at any point during your day when they come up—which is bound to be often. Just notice them one by one, recognize each as being not helpful, and let it go. That’s all. Gently guide your mind away from states that obstruct the mind toward states that are free of these obstacles. You will come to know your own mind better, and the practice will become easier to do.

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

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Doing What We’re Doing

Life is a very simple matter. We’re just doing what we’re doing.

Charlotte Joko Beck, “Mute the Commentary”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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 cognized by you, in the cognized there will be just the cognized.“ When, firmly mindful, one cognizes a mental object, one is not inflamed by lust for mental objects; one experiences it with a dispassionate mind and does not remain holding it tightly. (SN 35.95)

Reflection

Five of our sense doors open onto the world, while the sixth, the mind door, opens inwardly to draw on sensory experience and mental objects such as memories, imagination, and thoughts. The mental objects are cognized, or known to us, one after another in a stream of consciousness. Here we are encouraged to encounter our thoughts without elaboration, as phenomena arising and passing away.

Daily Practice

See if you can regard your mental activity—the thoughts and images and words passing through the mind—with equanimity. That is, observe them closely but without becoming entangled in their content and without favoring some and opposing others. Thoughts are merely objects that, like sights and sounds and physical sensations, come and go based on various conditions. See if you can abide without “holding them tightly.”

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

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

 

Via Daily Dharma: Balancing Discipline with Joy

 Without spiritual discipline, we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.

Joan Gattuso, “The Balancing Buddha”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Tumblr

 

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 have done an action with speech, reflect upon that same verbal action thus: “Has this action I have done with speech led to the affliction of another?” If, upon reflection, you know that it has, then tell someone you trust about it and undertake a commitment not to do it again. If you know it has not, then be content and feel happy about it. (MN 61)

Reflection

Let’s not overlook the last line of this passage. If you reflect upon what you have said to people in the past and on review you realize you have not said anything harmful, you should feel happy about that. Feeling happy and content about your own behavior is not only allowable but encouraged. Positive feedback is as valuable as criticism, and acknowledging your own self-worth is healthy. We forget this sometimes.

Daily Practice

Confide in a friend some instance in which you have spoken badly in the past and give that misdeed a chance to come into the open and be encountered with awareness. Perhaps you told a lie or spread a rumor or otherwise said something that caused harm. By revealing this openly you are able to acknowledge that it was wrong, that you know better now, and that you undertake a commitment to not do it again.

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 Daily Dharma: Accept Your Shortcomings

 Being ashamed of our cravings doesn’t help, but justifying or denying them doesn’t help, either. Instead, we should learn to be with our situation as it is rather than moving away from it.

Michael Liebman Grady, “Practicing with the Five Hindrances”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via FACEBOOK // Lama Rod Owens

 At the end of the day, when we’ve done what we can, whatever happens will happen. We understand that everything doesn’t work out for the good of all. This is something that we must mourn as well.

#meditationpractice #loveandrage #meditation #dharma #mourning #grief

Via Lion's Roar // The Pure Land Is in the West

 

The Pure Land Is in the West

In the face of racism and oppression, they’ve made their practice communities their refuge. Jean-Paul Contreras deGuzman on the hidden history of Pure Land Buddhists in America.

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Malicious Speech

 

RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from Malicious Speech

Malicious speech is unhealthy. Refraining from malicious speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning malicious speech, one refrains from malicious speech. One does not repeat there what one has heard here to the detriment of these, or repeat here what one has heard there to the detriment of those. One unites those who are divided, is a promoter of friendships, and speaks words that promote concord. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak maliciously, but I shall abstain from malicious speech.” (MN 8) Disputes occur when a person is contemptuous and domineering. Such a person dwells disrespectful and undeferential towards others, causing harm and unhappiness for many. If you see any such root of a dispute either in yourselves or externally, you should strive to abandon it. And if you do not see any such root of dispute either in yourselves or externally, you should practice in such a way that it does not erupt in the future. (MN 104)

Reflection

You may have noticed that some people are more argumentative than others. There are certain character traits that account for this, and being contemptuous and domineering is certainly among them. The fact is that human conflicts are rooted in human qualities of mind, and these need to be addressed if any kind of transformation is to happen. The place to begin this process is in yourself. Do you see any roots of dispute in yourself?

Daily Practice

One of the ways to practice refraining from malicious speech is to clear your mind of the mental and emotional traits that give rise to it. Do you ever catch yourself being contemptuous or domineering? Do you ever dwell disrespectful and undeferential towards others? This is the place to start: “Others might tolerate these qualities in themselves, but I shall not.” Honest self-reflection is a challenging but rewarding practice.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Verbal Action One week from today: Refraining from Harsh Speech Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.