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

Reflection

The point here is not that some things smell good and some smell bad. Rather it is that some odors provoke unhealthy states in us and some incline us toward healthy states. As usual, the emphasis is on the mental and emotional response to sensory input and not on the quality of that data. The key is to avoid the tendency for the odor to give rise to craving, either craving for more pleasure or craving for pain to go away.

Daily Practice

Here you have another invitation to abide in your experience with equanimity, to be acutely aware of something, in this case an odor, without being driven by that information into responding with attraction or aversion. Smells are a good way to practice equanimity, since it is so easy to observe the mind being automatically hijacked by pleasure or displeasure into liking or not liking the smell.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: Be a Beginner

 Christian mystic Meister Eckhart wrote: “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” Beginners are comfortable with not-knowing and the impossibility of knowing. It is this admission that allows you to relax and think clearly and creatively.

Fabrice Desmarescaux, “The Power of Not-Knowing”

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[GBF] new GBF talks

 

New talks have been added to the audio archive at the GBF website:

2022_07_24 Eugene Cash Fear and Courage.mp3

2022_07_17 Anne Gleig The Shifting Landscape of Buddhism in America.mp3

Via Daily Dharma: Delighting in Others’ Success

I intentionally ask myself the question, “What would I gain from this person’s loss?” and it is quite clear to me that I don’t benefit at all. The true benefit is in stepping off of center stage, and experiencing the kindness of delighting in someone else’s good experience.

Sharon Salzberg, “A More Complete Attention”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Mental Action

 

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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 have done an action with the mind, reflect upon that same mental action thus: “Has this action I have done with the mind led to both my own affliction and the affliction of another?” If, upon reflection, you know that it has, then tell someone you trust about it and undertake a commitment not to do it again. If you know it has not, then be content and feel happy about it. (MN 61)

Reflection Mental action is at least as important and influential as physical and verbal action. Every thought, memory, or image that goes through your mind constitutes a mental act, and it is based on these mental events that other actions are put into play. It is okay to reflect from time to time on what has gone through your mind and inquire whether on the whole it has been healthy or unhealthy. This is a form of mental housekeeping. Daily Practice Now and then, step out of merely thinking thoughts and reflect on them. A mirror creates an image of whatever passes before it and reveals what it looks like from another perspective. Learn to do that with your own mind by stepping back and gazing on your thoughts rather than “inhabiting” them, as you normally do. This is one way of understanding the practice of mindfulness—becoming aware of what is happening. Tomorrow: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures One week from today: Reflecting upon Social Action Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via White Crane Institute // The Reverend Elder Troy Deroy Perry

 

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Reverend Troy Perry

1940 -

TROY PERRY, Metropolitan Community Church founder born; Happy Birthday Troy! The Reverend Elder Troy Deroy Perry is the founder of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a Protestant denomination devoted to ministering to the spiritual needs of GLBTQ people.

A charismatic preacher and leader, Perry has built the religious organization into one of the fastest growing denominations in the world, with over 300 churches in some 18 countries. Perry obtained a GED and enrolled at a Bible college in Illinois, at the same time serving as pastor of a congregation of the Church of God.Perry was excommunicated from the Church of God after church officials learned that he had had a consensual sexual relationship with a man.

After reading Donald Webster Cory's The Homosexual in America (1951), Perry decided that he could no longer live as a "pseudo-heterosexual." He revealed his sexual orientation to a church official. Shortly thereafter he was dismissed by his bishop. Perry's wife left him, taking their sons with her. She eventually divorced Perry and remarried. She kept the boys from having any contact with Perry until 1985, when the younger son, James Michael Perry, sought out his father and was happily reunited with that side of his family. Perry soon began to discover the Gay community in Los Angeles and to become acquainted with other Gay men, whom he viewed "as part of [his] extended family."

When Perry was drafted into the United States Army in 1965, he acknowledged that he was Gay, but the Army inducted him anyway. He was stationed in Germany, where he worked as a cryptographer, a job requiring a high-level security clearance. Eventually, Perry felt called to start a new church. He spoke to members of the Gay community and took out an advertisement in a newspaper announcing a worship service.

Twelve people attended the first meeting of the Metropolitan Community Church, which was held in Perry's living room. Perry preached a sermon entitled "Be True to You," enunciating three important tenets of his faith: 1) salvation--which comes through Jesus Christ and is unconditional; 2) community--which the church should provide, especially to those without caring family and friends; and 3) Christian social action--a commitment to fight oppression at all levels. These principles have guided the Church as it has matured from an evangelical, Pentecostal organization into a more liturgical and ecumenical denomination that welcomes heterosexuals as well as homosexuals and that empowers women and minority groups.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 27, 2022 💌

 

 

What is the best way you can prepare to be in a situation of illness or loss? You learn the best way to deal with a situation is to be fully present in the moment, hear it all, and then do whatever you do. Since that’s what you want to be when you’re dying, and it’s what you want to be in all the moments up to then—the best way to practice it is to start doing it now.

- Ram Dass - 

 

Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center February 15-16th 1997 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Harsh Speech

RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from Harsh Speech

Harsh speech is unhealthy. Refraining from harsh speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning harsh speech, one refrains from harsh speech. One speaks words that are gentle, pleasing to the ear, and affectionate, words that go to the heart, are courteous, and are agreeable to many. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak harshly, but I shall abstain from harsh speech.” (MN 8) How does there come to be non-insistence on local language and non-overriding of normal usage? In different localities they call the same thing by different words. So whatever they call it in such and such a locality, without adhering to that word one speaks accordingly, thinking: “These people, it seems, are speaking with reference to this.” (MN 139)

Reflection

One way of speaking harshly is to dominate how words are used and understood. Too often we listen to others barely enough to project our own meaning onto their words and wait impatiently for the opportunity to jump back in and speak again. Right speech is a two-way street and involves learning from others at least as much as conveying our own perspectives to them. Refraining from speaking without listening is healthy.

Daily Practice

Practice listening when you are talking with people. Actively attend to what they say and try to understand in their own terms what they mean. Assume you don’t automatically understand them and practice inquiring into their words and phrases and attending to their non-verbal clues with an open mind. It may be that people are saying things from which you can learn something new. Right speech includes right listening.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Mental Action
One week from today: Refraining from Frivolous Speech

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Via Daily Dharma: Make Room in Your Heart

 The more the ego diminishes, the more love can come from the heart. When other people are taken into the heart, the self has to step aside to make room.

Ayya Khema, “Love Is a Skill”

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Via Daily Dharma: Mindfulness Off the Cushion

 Practice needs to be weaved into the fabric of our lives so that every moment and place is an opportunity for practice and progression.

Grace Song, “Zen All Day”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Appreciative Joy

 

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Appreciative Joy

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 appreciative joy, for when you develop meditation on appreciative joy, any discontent will be abandoned. (MN 62)  The near enemy of appreciative joy is ordinary joy. (Vm 9.100)

Reflection

The “sublime state” of appreciative joy does not simply mean joy as a pleasant mental feeling or the emotion of uplifted joy. It is not just feeling good but feeling good in a particular set of circumstances—when you observe or contemplate good things happening to others. Ordinary joy is self-referential, while appreciative joy is more universal and focused on the good fortune of others.

Daily Practice

Learn to discern the different ways joy can manifest in your experience. In particular, see if you can get a good felt sense of what the special quality of appreciative joy feels like. This is the emotion of feeling good about good things happening to other people. Practice calling to mind the goodness of others, and then settle into the emotion of wishing them well and appreciating their success in a way that is not about you.

Tomorrow: Refraining from Harsh Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Equanimity

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Via Daily Dharma: Sharpening the Mind

 Much of the time our mind is thick, with thoughts and emotions and cognitive content, but when focused on the breath or on some other object it narrows, gets sharper and more precise, and is increasingly capable of becoming aware of just that thin sliver of experience presenting itself in the present moment.

Andrew Olendzki, “Giving Pain the Slip”

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

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

What is the cessation of suffering? It is the remainderless fading away and ceasing, the giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of craving. (MN 9) When one knows and sees perception as it actually is, then one is not attached to perception. When one abides unattached, one is not infatuated, and one’s craving is abandoned. One’s bodily and mental troubles are abandoned, and one experiences bodily and mental well-being. (MN 149)

Reflection

Last week the emphasis was on how not knowing and seeing perception accurately can lead to attachment and the difficulties that it brings. Here the focus instead is on the benefits of understanding perception appropriately. Perception, the mental function of interpreting sensory data, is a natural and useful thing for the mind to do. In fact, it is a great ally helping us bring insight and understanding to the world of our experience.

Daily Practice

Practice making the step from mindfulness to insight. That is, when you are mindful of the sensations of the breath, for example, go on to notice that they are constantly changing and that it is the characteristic of all sensations to be impermanent and in flux. When observing the thoughts flowing through the mind, recognize they do not belong to anybody, but are interdependently arisen. This is perception facilitating right view.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Appreciative Joy
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling

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 feeling a mental neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling, one is aware: “Feeling a mental neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling”. . . one is just aware, just mindful: “There is feeling.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Of the three kinds of feeling tone—pleasant, painful, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful—it is the neutral feeling that can be the most difficult to discern. Pleasure and pain are obvious, especially at the extreme ends of the continuum, but as each gets more and more subtle they merge into the middle ground of a feeling tone that is not obviously either. Hold your attention on this neutral zone and simply notice what is there.

Daily Practice

See if you can become aware of the feeling tones that are arising in conjunction with the thoughts and mental images that pass through your mind. Some things feel good to imagine or think about, while some feel really bad. Bring your attention to the middle ground, where your thoughts are present but don’t have a strong feeling tone associated with them. Be content to simply be aware of thoughts coming and going.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)

With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4) One practices: “I shall breathe in gladdening the mind;” one practices: “I shall breathe out gladdening the mind.” 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 Cessation of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna

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Via Daily Dharma: Love the World

 The deep happiness of well-being comes from caring for yourself and loving the world. It comes from offering what’s good in you to others, giving your gifts to a world that needs it.

- Jack Kornfield, “Finding Freedom Right Here, Right Now”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 24, 2022 💌

 
 

This is our problem: The myths in our culture, which are based on individuality, have led us down a path that has isolated us very profoundly from each other.

- Ram Dass -