Via Daily Dharma: A Mother’s Love

 Our potential for equanimity can be modeled in and learned from the love parents show children. Listen to the person in traffic, the person who smiles, the person who never glances our way. Listen for the echoes of your crying child. What does she need? Go to her. Pick her up. Wrap her in your acceptance and rock her to sleep.

Sarah Aceto, “As If I Were Your Mother”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Mind

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 the mind is devoid of confusion, one is aware: “The mind is devoid of confusion.”… One is just aware, just mindful: “There is mind.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

There are moments in meditation practice when one stumbles upon a “sweet spot” and the mind becomes clear, if only for a moment. When the mind is not too restless and not too sluggish, not drawn toward or away from whatever is happening, for a moment it seems to emerge from confusion. It is good to acknowledge such moments and abide in them "ardent, fully aware, mindful." It is good to feel content.

Daily Practice

As you sit quietly today for ten or twenty or sixty minutes—or maybe, since it’s Sunday, for much longer—notice the flow of events in your field of experience with heightened awareness. Many different factors arise and pass away, all impermanent. We forget sometimes that confusion too is impermanent; we are not always in its thrall. Notice the times when the mind gets free of confusion and knows and sees things as they are.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Third Phase of Absorption (3rd Jhāna)

With the fading away of joy, one abides in equanimity; mindful and fully aware, still feeling pleasure with the body, one enters upon and abides in the third phase of absorption, on account of which noble ones announce: “One has a pleasant abiding who has equanimity and is mindful”. (MN 4)

Reflection

Remember that jhāna practice is not something that can be undertaken lightly or sporadically and usually requires the protected conditions of a retreat center and the guidance of an experienced teacher. The jhānas are mentioned a lot in the early texts, and form the core discussion of right concentration. But mostly we just hear the standard formula repeated in various contexts, without much detail on how to practice.

Daily Practice

The transition from the second to the third phase of absorption has to do with the mellowing of joy, which is an almost effervescent energetic upwelling of pleasant bodily sensation into the experience of mental and emotional equanimity. The body still experiences pleasure, but the mind settles into an even and balanced awareness of the pleasant feeling tone that is not attached to it in any way.

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and Abiding in the Fourth Jhāna

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 8, 2022 💌

 
 

“What happens is, when the grief runs its natural course… you come to the point where you realize that you’ve tasted something with that person that was such a living moment that that moment still exists independent of death. There’s a moment when we recognize that love transcends death. And that has to happen experientially, and it has to happen when grief runs its natural course.”

- Ram Dass -

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Ram Dass – Here and Now – Ep. 199 – The Continuity of Consciousness
May 04, 2022 In this dharma talk from 1975, Ram Dass talks about how a taste of awakening makes it possible for us to tune into the...

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  Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 438 – The Human and The Wild with Susan B. Eirich
May 06, 2022 This week on the Mindrolling podcast, Raghu Markus invites Susan B. Eirich, Ph.D. to share her wisdom on the connections between the wild and...

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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 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 develop the arising of unarisen healthy mental states. One develops the unarisen equanimity awakening factor. (MN 141)

Reflection

If you just “go with the flow” of your own mind and let whatever happens happen, often you will drift in the direction of unhealthy or unskillful states. You may have noticed this from time to time. This is why effort is important and right effort is a friend rather than an adversary. When we consciously develop helpful qualities of mind, such as mindfulness and equanimity, we are better off in the long run.

Daily Practice

Equanimity is the last of the seven factors of awakening and completes the preceding series of mindfulness, investigation of states, energy, joy, tranquility, and concentration. Equanimity is the culmination of skillful states of mind because it neutralizes craving, occupying the midpoint between its two forms, greed and hatred. Equanimity is in the middle where one gazes upon what is happening without entanglement.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: The Art of Dharma

 The practice of dharma is akin to the practice of art. With the tools of ethics, meditation, and understanding, one works the clay of one’s confined and anguished existence into a bodhisattva. Practice is a process of self-creation.

Stephen Batchelor, “A Democracy of the Imagination”

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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) Food is of two kinds: to be cultivated and not to be cultivated. Such food as causes, in one who cultivates it, unhealthy states to increase and healthy states to diminish, such food is not to be cultivated. But such food as causes, in one who cultivates it, unhealthy states to diminish and healthy states to increase, such food is to be cultivated. (MN 114)

Reflection

Here is an approach to food we are probably unfamiliar with. The issue is not what kind of nutrients the food provides but what kind of emotional states the consumption of it evokes. What is unhealthy here is greed, not sugar or cholesterol. If eating kale—to randomly pick a healthy food—were to provoke greed and lust for more, that would be encouraging sensual misconduct. Even if the food is healthy, greed is unhealthy and bad for you.

Daily Practice

Practice mindful eating by cultivating an attitude of equanimity when you eat. Some things taste good, some things taste bad. You are not forced to relish one and detest the other. Take your attention off the object of taste itself and place it instead on the experience of eating it. The problem with pleasure and displeasure is that they provoke craving, either for or against the object. Try remaining attentive but unattached.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: The Fruit of Giving

 Loss itself is not a gift; loss is just loss. Pain is not okay just because we can grow from it. We never need to be blown apart just because we can learn from the act of piecing ourselves back together.

Teri Dillion, “Making Our Own Jewels”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Mental Action

 

RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Mental 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 mental action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) When you have done an action with the mind, reflect upon that same mental action thus: “Has this action I have done with the mind 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

We are used to hearing that Buddhist teachings encourage us to stay in the present moment, and this is true of meditation generally. But it is also appropriate to learn from the past, and reflecting on your past actions is one way to do this. Notice that actions include mental actions, so even what you have thought in the past is to be investigated to see if any of it has caused harm to another person.

Daily Practice

Think back on the quality of your thoughts directed toward other people in the recent past. Have you felt jealousy, ill will, or repressed anger, for example? Have you plotted in some small way to undermine the success of someone, even if you did not put the plan into action? This is intrinsically unhealthy and potentially harmful behavior, and bringing such thoughts to light by confessing them to a friend can be helpful.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures
One week from today: Reflecting upon Social Action

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.