Via Daily Dharma: The Work to Transform

 As long as we’re using up our energy to resist our circumstances, we won’t be able to dedicate it to the work of true transformation. 

Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, “The Gift of Contemplation”

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Via Facebook \\ Sukhasiddhi Dag Shang Kagyu

Kyabje Karma Rangjung Khunkyab, Kalu Rinpoche:

Indian Buddhist master Shantideva emphasized in one of his works, that this precious human existence, with the opportunity and freedom for spiritual development, is very difficult to obtain, and if we have obtained it and do not make proper use of it How can we expect to get such an opportunity on the future? The question is that the human rebirth we are experiencing now, is not something random that takes place without meaning, nor effort. "It is something that happens with great difficulty, something that rarely happens."

 

Nineteen & Two
By Sofía Aguilar

I am mourning nineteen children I never knew.
I am mourning untied shoelaces and velcro straps, 

unzipped backpacks and incomplete homework. 

Their good grades in school
and the poor ones too.
Their gold stars and the bad marks,
their hair braided so tight with bolitas
before breakfast their head ached until dinner. 

How they scrunched up their faces at their baby studs and communion shoes,
straps marking their ankles skin-red.
How when crossing a street,
seeking solace from their fear
their fingers already knew
to clutch tight to another’s.
I am mourning their two teachers

who looked like my mother my tías
my abuelas
in an earlier life,

younger faces of the people I love. I am mourning the lost lunches and the lesson plans
left, laid out on their desks.

The notes and suggestions to their students,
spare thoughts they scribbled to themselves. Every day’s outfit planned before the week began ironed by hand and hung there in the closet,
the clothes they will never wear again.
In passing,
my father berates the Texas police
their lack of urgency
their defense of handcuffing
parents
families
tasing their bodies
to stop them from begging, ripping free
or breaking down the school doors in their fury.

I want to ask him,
If everyone had been white inside that school,
all blonde locks and fair faces,
the kind easily found and easily missed,
would the police have intervened?
Would they have risked their lives
to save a child they didn’t claim?
Or would they still have left nineteen children
and their two teachers for dead?
But already I know these are not the right questions. Instead,
What do we do
when we’re dying at the hands
of a shooter who was one of our own?
A boy who shared the rhythm of our name
and spoke the same language with
the same tongue in his mouth,
rather than a white man
with a colonized mind
and a gun in his hands
this country deems his right to wield?
I do not mourn him.

I don’t know how.
I mourn a community breaking from bullets
death
decay
deportation
assimilation
alienation
segregation
punishment for seeking a better life only to have it taken away instead.

I mourn the children who lived. Who remember those who didn’t.

Who now carry the burdens alone.

Sofía Aguilar is a Chicana poet based in Los Angeles and author of the forthcoming collection “STREAMING SERVICE: season two.” @sofiaxaguilar

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

Reflection

The word uplifted in the original text carries a sense of both greater and loftier. Applying that to mind states, we might think of some states as more open or spacious than others, because they are more expanded in scope, encompassing a wider view. Or we might think of some states as more ethically refined than others; kindness, for example, is more “uplifted” than selfishness.

Daily Practice

As you sit in meditation and observe mental states arise and pass away in your consciousness, notice their quality. Notice in particular when your mind feels contracted; see what that feels like exactly. Notice also when the mental states that are present are ignoble or less than uplifted. You are just noticing, not judging. Abide mindful and fully aware of these states, "not clinging to anything."

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) One practices: "I shall breathe in experiencing the whole body"; one practices: "I shall breathe out experiencing the whole body." This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (SN 54.8)

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 Daily Dharma: Fully Participate

If we bring our full identities into practice with others, we can function within our identities in a way that is participatory rather than self-involved, and so allows us something beyond.

Leora Fridman, “Healthy Boundaries”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - June 5, 2022 💌

 

At some point awakening begins. The awakening happens with trauma or it happens when somebody you love dies. In sexuality you transcend separateness. It can be drugs. It can be meditation. It can be a hymn. It can be a leaf falling. It can be lying under the stars. It can be trying to solve a problem where your mind gets so one-pointed it goes through the veil. Whatever it is, you open up into other planes of consciousness that have been there in all the splendor all the time. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Tricycle // The Radical Power of Just Showing Up with Shelly Tygielski

 

June 4, 2022

Thriving in Community

 
The communities that thrive are the ones that work together. 

That’s the premise behind Pandemic of Love, a South Florida–based mutual aid organization that is now 2 million donors strong. Pandemic of Love was established in March 2020, when meditation teacher and community activist Shelly Tygielski looked around and realized that in her community there were people with needs—and people with the ability to fill those needs. The organization has brought people together in communities of care, supporting one another through the pandemic, mass shootings, and hurricanes. 

“In any ecosystem… organisms all need each other, not just merely to survive, but in fact to thrive,” she says. “When they work together, when they cooperate, when they give and take, they actually do a lot better than merely just surviving. I think that points to a lot of what we can look to as human beings.”

On the latest episode of the podcast Life As It Is, Tygielski sits down with Sharon Salzberg and Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, to discuss her work with Ukrainian refugees in Poland, the connection between self-care and social transformation, and the radical power of just showing up.
 

Listen to the full episode now »

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 mindfulness-     awakening factor. (MN 141)

Reflection

Mindfulness can be an active state of mind when it is arising in the present moment in your lived experience, or it can be a personality or character trait lying dormant in the unconscious mind, waiting to be activated. In Buddhist language this is indicated by saying mindfulness is either arisen or unarisen, and a different strategy is needed for each situation. Here we are told how to awaken our innate mindfulness by an act of will.

Daily Practice

Develop your latent capacity for mindfulness by bringing it from a passive trait to an active state as often as you can. It is mostly a matter of remembering to do so. It is not difficult to be mindful, but it can be difficult to remember to be mindful. When you are able to do this more often, the habit of being consciously aware of your experience grows and mindfulness becomes the inclination of your mind. This is good for you.

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

 

Via Daily Dharma: Lasting Happiness

 You need strong determination to overcome harmful habits. But the payoff is happiness—not just for today but for always.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Getting Started

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Via L.A. Times // Newsletter: Why LGBTQ rights may be secure despite the Supreme Court

 

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Via Daily Dharma: A Wise Response in a Complex World

Making space for the truth of our feelings is essential for keeping the heart healthy and finding a wise response in this complex world.

Oren Jay Sofer, “Why We Need Both Grief and Gratitude”

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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) Forms cognizable by the eye are of two kinds: those to be cultivated and those not to be cultivated. Such forms as cause, in one who cultivates them, unhealthy states to increase and healthy states to diminish, such forms are not to be cultivated. But such forms as cause, in one who cultivates them, unhealthy states to diminish and healthy states to increase, such forms are to be cultivated. (MN 114)

Reflection

As humans we use our eyes a lot. Mostly we are free to choose what we gaze on, but in many cases our attention is hijacked by visual images directed at us from a billboard, a magazine page, or a computer screen. Sometimes this provokes craving of various sorts and is thus a way of engaging us in sensual misconduct against our will. Learning to resist being hijacked by images and to abandon it when it happens is a healthy skill.

Daily Practice

Notice the quality of your mind as you take in visual information. The more you look at something, does it increase or decrease your stress? Does it make you more calm and at ease or does it wind you up? What you look at is one thing; how you feel when you do so is something else. Learn to observe the inner state evoked by sensory inputs and to thereby learn what to cultivate and what not to cultivate for your own well-being.

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via SBMG //

 

Upcoming Retreat

Online: Half-Day Meditation Retreat, “Entering the Path of Chan”, with Guo Gu (Chan)

June 11 @ 9:30 am - 12:30 pm $20 – $100   GuoGu will be with us online via zoom. This half-day retreat extends his May 22 dharma talk (available on SBMG’s website Audio section) and builds upon the Silent Illumination approach to practice. Click here to register via Eventbrite. Registrants will receive the zoom link by email two days before the retreat with reminder and details about the day. Guo Gu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center, the founder of the socially engaged intra-denominational Buddhist organization, Dharma Relief, and a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at Florida State University. He was a monk for nine years and one of the late Master Sheng Yen’s senior and closest disciples. He is the author of Silent Illumination (2021), The Essence of Chan (2020), and Passing Through the Gateless Barrier (2016). To connect with Guo Gu, visit....READ MORE

REGISTER NOW

IMS Book Club: A Queer Dharma | Jacoby Ballard — June 16 at 7PM ET

After gay Pride flag flap, N.J. school fills windows with rainbow banners

 

Happy Pride 2022!

 

Via Daily Dharma: A Vast Improve Collective

 Once we see that we are not solo improv stand-up players but rather members of a vast improv collective, we can recognize that the only way that I can succeed is if we succeed. 

Jay Garfield, “Learning to Live Without a Self”

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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 wish to do an action with the mind, reflect upon that same mental action thus: “Would this action I wish to do with the mind 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

It may seem odd to us that we could be aware of our intention to think thoughts before actually doing so. Thinking before you speak is one thing, but thinking before you think? And yet in the Buddhist model of mind and body, actions of the mind are not so different from actions of body and speech. We can learn to be aware of them before, during, and after undertaking all forms of action.

Daily Practice

Identify some of your thought patterns that are familiar to you: the stories you tell yourself over and over, the episodes from the past you ruminate over. Now make the decision not to go there yet again. Some of this introspection can be helpful, but if it becomes repetitive and involuntary it can “lead to your own affliction.” There are ways to take more control over your mental action, and not ruminating is one of those ways.

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

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#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.