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02/28/22

by jamesasaljr May 9, 2022

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

And what is the way leading to the cessation of suffering? It is just this noble eightfold path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. (MN 9) One perfects their ethical behavior by abandoning false speech. (DN 2)

Reflection

The traditional path toward the cessation of suffering works on many fronts simultaneously, integrating healthy modes of living with practices for mental development and the slow but steady growth of understanding. In this passage the importance of telling the truth is emphasized as a crucial form of ethical behavior. Developing the wisdom of right view is built on a foundation of truthfulness.

Daily Practice

Practice telling the truth. Refrain from stretching it, bending it, obscuring it, avoiding it, shading it, and all the other ways we have learned to handle the truth that are other than entirely straightforward. You may notice that this is actually quite difficult, since we regularly speak falsely in little ways. Try being absolutely scrupulous about saying what is accurate and not intended to mislead anyone in any way.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: A Most Essential Journey

 If, like the Buddha, we are to succeed in realizing our full humanity, we have to let go of what lies between us and our authentic selves. Hard as it may be to undertake, this journey is the most essential and human of all, a fulfillment of our story as travelers on this earth.

Ann Tashi Slater, “Leaving the Palace”

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Via Tricycle // Ocean Vuong

Getting Close to the Terror with Ocean Vuong

In this episode of Life As It Is, Tricycle editor-in-chief James Shaheen and co-host Sharon Salzberg sit down with Buddhist poet Ocean Vuong to discuss his new collection, Time Is a Mother.

 

May 7, 2022

Writing through Loss

 
Writing is a way of grieving for Ocean Vuong, the 33-year-old poet, best-selling author, and Buddhist practitioner. 

After losing his mother to breast cancer in 2019 and then being forced into pandemic lockdown, he realized, as he says, that he is “always grieving.” Vuong describes his poetry as a form of death meditation, a contemplation of loss reminiscent of the Buddhist rituals he grew up with. 

“It’s a place where death doesn’t even have to be mentioned in order to be felt, which is something that I’m really interested in as an artist: how do I have a felt-absence effect in the work?” he says. “Sometimes you can feel that death and dying haunt the work without it having to be named.”

On the latest episode of our Life As It Is podcast, Vuong joins Sharon Salzberg and Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, for an intimate conversation on loss, creativity, and his latest collection of poetry, Time Is A Mother.
 

Listen to the full episode now »

 

 

LGBTQ Baha'i Experience Episode 1: Dan and Alexis Ware story

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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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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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 -

Prick Up Your Ears - official 30th anniversary trailer (HD)

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Via Be Here Now Network

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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Via Be Here Now Network

  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

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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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