Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Harming Living Beings

Harming living beings is unhealthy. Refraining from harming living beings is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the harming of living beings, one abstains from harming living beings; with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, one abides compassionate to all living beings. (M 41) One practices thus: “Others may harm living beings, but I will abstain from the harming of living beings.” (MN 8) A layperson is not to engage in the livelihood of trading in poison. (AN 5.177)

Reflection

The guideline calling for laypeople to earn their livelihood in ways that do not inflict harm on themselves or others can be taken literally, as in not producing or deploying pesticides, but the scope of what is meant by poison can be expanded beyond a physical substance to include a wide range of mental toxins as well. For example, trading in misinformation or prejudice, or conducting all sorts of unethical enterprises could also be considered toxic.

Daily Practice

Take stock of what you do for a living and inquire into how much harm it may cause. If the answer is “none” then take joy in that and carry on. But if your profession causes harm, even from subtle toxic activity, be aware of that and do what you can to diminish the harm. It is a blessing to engage in a harmless profession and even more of a blessing to do work that actively contributes to the welfare of others.

Tomorrow: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given

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Via Daily Dharma: Braving the Unknown

 As spiritual practitioners we need to have some curiosity about the unknown. When unexplored territory frightens us, we need to ask ourselves, “Where’s our sense of adventure?”

Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, “Open Stillness”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Bodily Action

 

RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Bodily 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 bodily action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) When you wish to do an action with the body, reflect upon that same bodily action thus: “Would this action I wish to do with the body lead to both my own affliction and 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

Not only is it wise to think before you speak, it is also important to think before you act. Another way of putting this is to act consciously instead of automatically, from habit. Conscious action is mindful action, and there is no activity that can't be done mindfully rather than mindlessly. Every action is accompanied by an intention, and this practice trains us to pay attention to this aspect of experience.

Daily Practice

Try going through your day as if you are holding a mirror up to yourself in your mind and you are able to see what you're thinking and reflect what you're about to do. Take that extra moment to be aware of yourself, aware of your actions, and aware of their impact on the world around you. This practice involves bringing mindful awareness to intention—to the impulse to act—in the moment before you follow through into action.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings
One week from today: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

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Via Daily Dharma: Let Your Thoughts Come

 All meditators have thoughts arising during their practice—it’s what you do with them that matters.

Bob Sharples, “Do the Thoughts Ever Stop?”

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Bros | Official NSFW Trailer [HD]

Via Facebook // Dr. Who

 

Via Lion's Roar / Pico Iyer

 

My Flight From the Real

Pico Iyer thought he would find what is truly real by going off to a monastery, but he was really fleeing it. Dropping his spiritual romaticism, he found it in ordinary life.

Via Lion's Roar

 

US president Joe Biden, White House extend warm wishes to Buddhists with second annual Vesak celebration

On Monday, a second annual Vesak celebration was held at the White House honoring the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha.

Via Lama Rod Owens

 

 

Dear Friends, 

As we move deeper into the spring, we are experiencing an awakening of the natural world into the vibrancy of summer. 

We are also experiencing an awakening to the struggle of so many folks around us to be well, safe, and cared for.

We are still deep in the apocalypse, and while I am confident that we are moving in a direction of profound rebirth into a more compassionate and loving world, we still must do the work of meeting the intensity of the violence around us with an open heart that allows us to do the essential work of grieving and dreaming the world we most need to see. 

I offer the following prayer that I have shared often on my platform to you for your practice. Prayer is an essential practice for me. I begin and end my day with prayer. May this prayer nourish and tend to your brokenheartedness.

Here is what my prayer sounds like right now: 

I evoke all those beings and sources of refuge who have ever loved me to come sit with me because it is now that I feel most alone. 

I evoke the Blessed Mother, the Sacred Father, Spirits of Light, the essence of wisdom, my teachers and elders, the communities who have always caught me when I have fallen, the ancestors who have never stopped holding me, all the elements, including the sacred earth, who help me to stand, silence which wraps me in the space to be with my heart. I call upon my own innate compassion.

To all those I have evoked, I offer my grief and what seems like my perpetual mourning in this body. I offer my fear, my numbness, and I offer my inability to dream beyond my shutting down. Most of all, I offer my fatigue. I am tired. Today precious earth, let me lie upon you and remind me of my body and my heart.

I want many things, but I need only one thing now- to give up what I cannot hold to you. I pray that I evolve past my belief that my pain is mine alone to carry.

To my sources of refuge who have been evoked, you have taught me over and over again that this is not the truth. You have taught me over and over again that it is not my pain but our pain. You remind me that my worship of isolation is not conducive to my liberation.

I want to be free, and so I offer what I struggle to hold to you right now, knowing that you are only here to share this heaviness with and to love me. I am afraid of the world. I am afraid of people. I am afraid of what I must do to survive in the world. Even these fears, I offer to my sources of refuge.

Today my precious sources of refuge, in your love, offer me rest. In your love, never abandon me. In your love, haunt all others who feel lonely and tired.

Please continue to haunt me in this life, in death, and into all my lives to come until one day I become a source of refuge for other beings.

Yet it is also my prayer to become a source of refuge for beings right now in this life. May I and all others in this realm and beyond be blessed forever.

I dedicate this labor to my descendants, who will one day lead me into my ancestorhood. 

These are my prayers right now.

With love, Lama Rod

Video: Going to the Edge - Exploring Death and Radical Resiliency During the Apocalypse In this 49 minute video, Lama Rod Owens explores the radical practices of skillful mourning, self-care, and refuge practice to support resiliency in the face of death and uncertainty.

Watch

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from False Speech

 

RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from False Speech

False speech is unhealthy. Refraining from false speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning false speech, one dwells refraining from false speech, a truth-speaker, one to be relied on, trustworthy, dependable, not a deceiver of the world. One does not in full awareness speak falsehood for one’s own ends or for another’s ends or for some trifling worldly end. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak falsely, but I shall abstain from false speech.” (MN 8) When one knows covert speech to be untrue, incorrect, and unbeneficial, one should on no account utter it. (MN 139)

Reflection

This text makes a distinction between overt and covert speech—that which is open and public and that which is whispered in private. The point is that all false speech is harmful, even if it is uttered covertly, even if nobody else hears it, and even if it is only in your thoughts. The act of speaking falsely injures the speaker, regardless of whether or not the words are spoken aloud and heard by others.

Daily Practice

Practice always being truthful, not only when you speak openly but also in all your private conversations. Take it even farther and speak only what is true, correct, and beneficial when you're talking to yourself or going over in your mind what you would like to say to someone, even if you remain silent. The act of false speech itself causes harm to the speaker; it is not just the effect of the words on other people.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Bodily Action
One week from today: Refraining from Malicious Speech

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 18, 2022 💌

  

I think in relationships, you create an environment with your own work on yourself, which you offer to another human being to use to grow in the way they need to grow. Parents are environments for their children, lovers are an environment for their partners.

You keep working – you become the soil – moist and soft and receptive so the person can grow the way they need to grow, because how do you know how they should grow?

- Ram Dass -

Via FB // Alexandre Kurth - Ciências

 

Durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, Turing foi responsável pela criação da “Bombe”, uma máquina que descriptografava os códigos n4z1st4s da Enigma. Ela é conhecida como o protótipo dos computadores modernos.

 

Graças a sua brilhante mente, foi possível derrotar a extrema-direita alemã. Infelizmente, como naquela época, a homossexualidade era crime no Reino Unido, Turing foi quimicamente castrado e, não aguentando toda a homofobia, ele tirou sua própria vida.

Via Daily Dharma: Not Fooling Ourselves

 When we cultivate the practice of paying close attention to the way we talk to ourselves, we won’t fool ourselves too much.

Norman Fischer, “Beyond Language”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Lovingkindness

 

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Lovingkindness

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 lovingkindness, for when you develop meditation on lovingkindness, all ill will will be abandoned. (MN 62)  Lovingkindness fails when it produces sentimentality. (Vm 9.93)

Reflection

Believe it or not, lovingkindness is impersonal by nature. The feeling of care for another is not dependent on the specific qualities of that person but can be directed to anyone and everyone. This is what makes lovingkindness unsentimental. You don’t love only if the person is a family member or a friend. And you don’t love difficult people only if they deserve it or you have forgiven them. Lovingkindness rises above the personal.

Daily Practice

See if you can discern, in your own experience, the difference between a feeling of lovingkindness that is laced with a sense of self and one that is not. See if you can sense the difference between the love you have for someone dear to you and the universal lovingkindness you cultivate while doing mettā practice. Personal connections are sentimental in a good sense, while lovingkindness transcends the personal.

Tomorrow: Refraining from False Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Compassion

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Via Daily Dharma: Let Loose and Dance

 Letting go of the small self opens the way to moving forward from a deep, organismic sense of rightness. It is not just about having more space, but how to dance in the space!

David Rome, “Focusing and Meditating”

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Via Tumblr

 

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

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering

When people have met with suffering and become victims of suffering, they come to me and ask me about the noble truth of suffering. Being asked, I explain to them the noble truth of suffering. (MN 77) What is suffering? (MN 9) Mental pain is suffering. Mental pain, mental discomfort, painful, uncomfortable feeling born of mental contact. (MN 9)

Reflection

Under normal circumstances it is okay to make excursions into the realm of mental pain, as long as you are reinforced with the power of mindful equanimity. (Do not do this, however, if you are suffering from serious trauma.) When sitting just be aware, “I am sitting.” When walking just be aware, “I am walking.” And when experiencing mental pain simply be aware, “I am experiencing mental pain.” Equanimity makes suffering bearable.

Daily Practice

Losing someone you love really hurts. Feel the mental pain of that loss without elaborating a story around it. Feel the pain and nothing else. Being emotionally injured by someone really hurts. Feel in your body how that hurt manifests: tightness in the chest? Heat? Pain hurts, but it is ultimately just a passing sensation. Equanimity allows us to open to pain without being overwhelmed by suffering.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: The Vast Dignity of Awakening

 Each of us may be nothing more than a moving wave of change, but we are waves able to know this fact. We rise and fall in an infinitely deep and timeless sea, upright and undisturbed. We share the vast dignity of awakening.

Sallie Jiko Tisdale, “On Dignity”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects

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 mindfulness awakening factor is internally present, one is aware: “Mindfulness is present for me.” When mindfulness is not present, one is aware: “Mindfulness is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen mindfulness occurs, one  is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen mindfulness awakening factor occurs, one is aware of that . . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is a mental object.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Mindfulness is a mental state that comes and goes, like all mental states. Sometimes it arises and passes away on its own, and sometimes you “establish its presence” by putting forth energy with an intentional act of will. As your experience and skill in meditation increases, you will find it easier to arouse mindfulness, will it more often, and will find that it remains established for longer periods of time.

Daily Practice

The easiest way to notice the presence of mindfulness is in that instant when you become mindful after not being mindful. When mindfulness is established in your mind after being absent the moment before, you can best discern its texture and quality. That is harder to notice when mindfulness has slipped away. Practice noticing when your mind is wandering and gently guide it back to the breath.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna)

With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters upon and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure, and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4)

Reflection

This state of mind is the culmination of the four stages of absorption and represents the consummation of the meditative enterprise of focused, one-pointed awareness. With the mind thus purified of its imperfections it is capable of seeing clearly, and by becoming "malleable" and "wieldy" it can be used as a tool to penetrate the many distortions and delusions that normally prevent us from understanding the true nature of things.

Daily Practice

Allow your Sunday sitting meditation to slowly and gently mellow into a profound state of equanimity. The mind is steady and bright but also imperturbable in the sense that there is nothing in your inner or outer experience that is going to evoke an episode of yearning or aversion. Equanimity is balance, an evenly hovering attention. Notice also in this passage that equanimity is said to be the means of purifying mindfulness.

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna

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