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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Frivolous Speech

RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from Frivolous Speech

Frivolous speech is unhealthy. Refraining from frivolous speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning frivolous speech, one refrains from frivolous speech. One speaks at the right time, speaks only what is fact, and speaks about what is good. One speaks what is worthy of being overheard, words that are reasonable, moderate, and beneficial. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak frivolously, but I shall abstain from frivolous speech.” (MN 8) An authentic person is one who, even when asked, does not reveal the faults of others—and still less does not do so when not asked. When asked, however, and obliged to reply to questions, one speaks of other’s faults hesitatingly and not in detail. (AN 4.73)

Reflection

Refraining from focusing on the faults of others is not meant to hide the truth but is a way to practice non-harming and non-violence in your communications. Refrain from unnecessary speech that is driven by ill will, jealousy, or resentment. This only brings out and reinforces your own unhealthy tendencies, and it often causes harm. By abstaining from avoidable critical pronouncements, you develop better speech habits.

Daily Practice

Take a break from criticizing people today. Notice when the impulse to do so comes up and choose instead to refrain from saying what is on your mind. See what it feels like to be able to monitor your speech, understand when it is unhelpful, and hold back from letting it loose. If you do this often, you will be retraining your habits of speech and will gradually develop new, healthier patterns of communication.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Social Action
One week from today: Refraining from False Speech

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Via Daily Dharma: Overthrowing Ignorance

 Ignorance is like the king, and clinging attachment and hostility are his ministers. To rid ourselves of the king’s minions we must get rid of the king. And so it is of greatest importance to identify ignorance properly.

Geshe Sonam Rinchen, “Like a Pig In…”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation -- Words of Wisdom - May 11, 2022 💌

 

“I certainly think that there are ways of using energies in the universe to extend the duration of physical life. Whether or not one wants to do that is another question; whether one hears it to be in the harmony of the way of things. The deeper I get into parts of my identity, the less I am attached to keeping this physical body eternally – because it just seems like a certain classroom or a level and I really find that there are more interesting aspects of existence beyond that of incarnation in a physical body.”  

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Why We Need Sangha

 Many have said to me that they do not need Sangha. My response has been, ‘Then where will you go when you begin to experience liberation? Who will know the journey you have taken and your vow to be awake?’

Interview with Zenju Earthlyn Manuel by Tricycle,
“Difference and Harmony: An Interview with Zenju Earthlyn Manuel”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Equanimity

 

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Equanimity

Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis upon which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on equanimity, for when you develop meditation on equanimity, all aversion is abandoned. (MN 62)  Equanimity fails when it produces the ordinary indifference of the uninformed. (Vm 9.96) Having thought a mental object with the mind, one is neither glad-minded nor sad-minded but abides with equanimity, mindful and fully aware. (AN 6.1)

Reflection

Equanimity is often confounded with indifference or detachment, but this is far from accurate. These two are mild forms of aversion in which a person chooses to push their interest away from an object or deliberately remove awareness from attending to what is present. Equanimity is the opposite of these, engaging the object with heightened awareness but without being pulled by attraction or pushed away by aversion.

Daily Practice

See if you can cultivate the attitude of equanimity, so important to the practice of mindfulness, as a refined state of mind. Equanimity is not a lack of interest but a state of heightened curiosity. It does not mean that you don’t care about something but that your caring about it is not driven by likes and dislikes. As you regard the thoughts flowing through your mind, abide with equanimity, mindful and fully aware.

Tomorrow: Refraining from Frivolous Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Lovingkindness

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Via FB // Exposing homophobia and intolerance online

 

Arcade Fire - Unconditional II (Race and Religion) (Official Audio) ft. ...

Via Rachael - Love Serve Remember Foundation

 

Via Followit / Adam & Andy

 

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

Via L. A. Times

 

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.