Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 25, 2022 💌

 

The first step of karma yoga is to get free of the attachments to your own life, to develop a witness. We have thousands and thousands of me’s and there is one me that watches all the other me’s, right? That’s the only game. It’s not trying to change any of the me’s. It’s not the evaluator, and it’s not the judge, it’s not the super ego. It doesn’t care about anything. It just notes, ‘hmmm, there he is doing that.’ That witness, that place inside you, is your centering device. And that begins to be the work one does on oneself. Once one understands there is a place in oneself that one is not attached, the first job is to extricate yourself from attachment. - Ram Dass

PINK GLASSES (A YouTube Exclusive)

Via Gatheists & Friends (Gay Atheists, NOT Gay Theists!) / FB

 

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

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering

What is the origin of suffering? It is craving, which brings renewal of being, is accompanied by delight and lust, and delights in this and that; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for nonbeing. (MN 9) When one does not know and see material form as it actually is, then one is attached to material form. When one is attached, one becomes infatuated, and one’s craving increases. One’s bodily and mental troubles increase, and one experiences bodily and mental suffering. (MN 149)

Reflection

As we proceed with a systematic investigation of the second noble truth—how craving gives rise to suffering—we begin looking at each of the five aggregates in turn: material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Material form includes everything constituted of matter, including the sense organs of the body and the substances in the environment giving rise to incoming data of sense experience.

Daily Practice

Pay attention to the point at which the subjective experience of the body meets resistance. Notice the physical sensations of your feet on the floor, your butt on the chair, your skin against your clothing. This is how we encounter material form in lived experience. Experience each of the four great elements: feel earth as resistance, air as movement, water as wetness, fire as heat. Notice how craving arises from each.

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: The Art of Living

 The art of living involves overcoming our head-trapped numbness, in becoming acutely sensitive to the cryptic messages of our feelings, no matter how painful. The more closely we listen, the more deeply we understand. Not just great but entirely unimagined treasures may then pour into our life and world.

David Edwards, “Burning Among Stars in the Night”

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SBMG will be having a three-hour mini-retreat with Guo Gu

 

On June 11, SBMG will be having a three-hour mini-retreat with Guo Gu, founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center.  This offering will only be online (no presence at the Dharma Center). Registration is on a sliding scale of $20 - $100 and includes a teacher donation.  Note, we do not turn away anyone for lack of funds. To learn more, read here.        You can find more at https://www.guogulaoshi.org.   You can find the audio files on the fourfold dimensions of transforming the self - in 1) Facing 2) Embracing 3) Transforming and 4) Letting Go of ourselves here: https://tallahasseechan.org/teachings/dharma-talks/special-talks/ Guo Gu has a listing of on-demand video lectures on Chan Buddhism at: https://courses.tallahasseechan.org

Register Now

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[GBF} Dedication of Merit

 

[GBF] Here is the latest newsletter from GBF

The summer 2022 Newsletter is here.  It features a recent talk by René Rivera to our sangha titled "Bringing Compassion to the Conflict in Our Hearts".

 

You can download the pdf version of the newsletter here:

 

https://gaybuddhist.org/wp-content/uploads/simple-file-list/newsletters/2022_2-Summer-Rene-Rivera-Bringing-Compassion-to-the-Conflict-in-Our-Hearts.pdf

Enjoy 700+ free recorded dharma talks at www.gaybuddhist.org

Via Lion´s Roar \\ Mirabai Bush and Ram Dass on Bringing Fear Close

 

Mirabai Bush and Ram Dass on Bringing Fear Close

As long as you think vulnerability is weakness, you’re going to be afraid. Medicine for Fear presenter Mirabai Bush, and Ram Dass, on the kind of vulnerability that’s actually strength.

Via Lion´s Roar \\ Pamela Ayo Yetunde on The Five Remembrances

 

Pamela Ayo Yetunde on The Five Remembrances

To change your life now and prepare for the inevitable, says Pamela Ayo Yetunde, regularly contemplate these five home truths.

Via Lion´s Roar \\ Mushim Patricia Ikeda

 

Meet a Teacher: Mushim Patricia Ikeda

The teacher of Buddhism and anti-racism gets personal with Lion’s Roar about what makes her tick.

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and the First Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Body

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 sitting, one is aware: “I am sitting.”. . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is body.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

The Zen meditation practice called zazen means “just sitting.” This is a form of the early Buddhist practice described here. The idea is to always do only one thing at a time. Not sitting and reading, or sitting and watching TV, or sitting at your computer—but just sitting. This is an exercise in being rather than doing. The only activity you are doing while sitting is “being aware.” Aware of what? Aware that you are sitting.

Daily Practice

Spend some time every day, either regularly or adventitiously, just sitting. At first the tendency might be to “sit and think about stuff,” or “sit and remember,” or “sit and plan.” But this is a mindfulness of the body practice, so it involves being aware of all the microsensations of the body as you sit. There is a lot going on when you just sit and take the time to notice. Notice it all without clinging to anything in the world.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the First Phase of Absorption (1st Jhāna)

Having abandoned the five hindrances, imperfections of the mind that weaken wisdom, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, one enters and abides in the first phase of absorption, which is accompanied by applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of seclusion. (MN 4) Breathing in long, one is aware: ‘I breathe in long’; or breathing out long, one is aware: ‘I breathe out long.’ This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated, so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (A 54.8)

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: The Mind Illuminates Itself

 Dismiss all the thoughts which bother your mind. Train yourself during many days, many months, many years, to retain this pure mind. One day, when your empty mind has become crystallized, suddenly it will be illumined by its own intrinsic wisdom. At that instant you will realize the state of pure awakening.

Sokei-An Shigetsu Sasaki, “Return to Your Original State!”

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