Via Daily Dharma: Uprooting Ignorance with Truthfulness

Think of truthfulness not just as the quality of speaking truth but also as the practice of devoting yourself to the clear seeing of reality. Paired with a sense of urgency, truthfulness shows us that our lives are fleeting, which means we don’t have time to waste on delusion. 

Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, “Truthfulness”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation II Words of Wisdom - August 10, 2022 💌

 
 

If you’re still becoming somebody, it’s too early to start your process to becoming nobody. You really have to solidify your somebodiness. Then, when you’re established in somebodiness, then explore your nobodiness. Then after you do that you can be nobody being somebody. That’s the game I play.

- Ram Dass -

Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center, February 15-16th 1997

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)  The far enemy of lovingkindness is ill will. (Vm 9.98)

Reflection

Ill will is the far enemy of lovingkindness because it is so clearly in opposition to it. These two polar opposites cannot occupy the mind at the same moment. This means that at any point we are are feeling kind or aversive or are experiencing a moment of mindful equanimity. Right intention means learning to use every opportunity to cultivate lovingkindness, since it is such a beneficial mind state.

Daily Practice

You cultivate mental and emotional states by encouraging them to arise and then working to maintain them as much as possible. Practice feeling friendly and kindly, if only in your mind, toward all the people and other beings you encounter each day. The more you do this, the more inclined your mind will be toward friendliness and kindness. One consequence of this is that the tendency toward ill will will diminish.

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

 

Via Daily Dharma: Accept What You Feel

 Perhaps the greatest irony of healing is that it occurs when we accept our felt experience, rather than rely on willpower or focused effort to get rid of the unwanted.

Josh Korda, “A Safe Container for Fear”

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Via NPR // Bashar Murad

 

Via LGBTQ Nation / Nurse Logan

 

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) Separation from the pleasant is suffering. Whoever has what is wanted, liked—pleasant sight-objects, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, or mind-objects—or whoever encounters well-wishers, wishers of good, of comfort, of security, such as mother or father or brother or sister or younger kinsmen or friends or colleagues or blood-relations, and then is deprived of such concourse, intercourse, connection, or union. (MN 9)

Reflection

One of the most obvious and common forms of suffering is the pain we feel when separated from something or someone we care deeply about and are thus attached to. In fact, the mental pain of loss that comes from caring is one thing, while the emotional pain of the loss grows in direct proportion to how much attachment there is. It is possible to care deeply about something or someone without being attached.

Daily Practice

Practice with easy things first, and work up to more challenging ones. See if you can feel equanimity instead of misery when you must separate from something like a favorite mug that breaks. Then see if you can apply that same approach to more serious matters, such as the breakup of a relationship or the loss of a dearly beloved person. Remember: Pain is inevitable, but how much suffering it causes depends on the level of attachment.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: The Beauty of Asking For Help

 To awaken to the awareness of being helped is to enter the path of humility and gratitude.

Reverend Patti Nakai, “You Can’t Go It Alone”

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Via White Crane Institute // David Nimmons - Manifest Love

 

Today's Gay Wisdom

Dave Nimmons

2017 -

Changing the World from the Margins

David Nimmons - Manifest Love

I really do believe that we as Gay people have an involved role in the world. I see Gays as a kind of perpetual Peace Corps. We are meant for something far beyond ourselves and our own selfish concerns. This is a part of the meaning of being Gay. --Reverend Malcolm Boyd

 

The national project by that name, Manifest Love, is a whole new kind of project for Gay/queer men. It exists to help Gay men find new ways to be with and for each other. Men who take part get a chance to explore our shared patterns, look at our values around community, nurturance, and affection. We offer concrete new ways to experience ourselves and conduct our relationships. By helping frame more nurturant patterns with each other, we envision and create the more sustaining queer world we want to live in.

There is no simple box for what we do. It is part social movement, part applied spirituality. Our gatherings are not encounter weekends, human potential groups, some dating service or sect. Nobody will ask you to loan your life's savings or tell you how to vote. You can go to the bathroom as often as you want and do whatever you want, when you're there.

The Manifest Love movement invites a range of queer men to create a new kind of world together, one that better reflects our best values and aspirations. Our focus is to craft the lives--social, intimate, sexual, communal, voluntary, moral--that we want to experience with each other. Call it a great Gay experiment in applied affection. To date, about 1,800 of us have taken part in these events from San Francisco to Providence; from Ukiah, California, to Ellsworth, Maine. You may have heard something of the discussions of these ideas now bubbling at Gay gatherings and conferences. If so, you may already be familiar with the basic thrust of this work. Men come because they are hungry for some changes in how we are with each other and what we can be for each other.

This work tries to link ethical analysis to action, to more mindfully foster creative forms of beloved community. Local chapters work to promote critical understanding of our cultural innovations and to find concrete ways to manifest sustaining values in our communities. A key focus is on creating individual and collective acts to help us reflect, experience, and practice values of care and nurture in new ways. We call them Loving Disturbances.

Loving Disturbances are just that: innovations and experiments in applied affection. They are concrete real-world experiments devised to nudge the patterns and practices of Gay lives in more affirming and humane directions. They are social actions that bring values into being, and are the action core of Manifest Love's local work. They may happen at a bar, on the street, or in a meeting, between friends or tricks or neighbors. They may happen alone or with others. The point is to broaden the habitual patterns of queer men's cultures to help us meet and interact in new ways, and have fun doing it. A Loving Disturbance aims to leave a corner of queer world just a little better off--a tad more affectionate or less defended, slightly more in line with the values discussed here, a moment aglow with an aura of promise fulfilled.

In local groups, we devote much time to helping men brainstorm all manner of new institutions and practices we could create with each other, to enlarge the possibilities of our interactions. In Providence, a group decided to do a "gang affection bang" when a gaggle of friends teamed up on one of their own to cook him a meal, bake him cookies, clean his house, give him massage, walk his dog, sing him a serenade, take him to a movie, and generally celebrate his presence in their lives. The Minneapolis troop invented the idea of a "group date." Troops in Boulder and Atlanta have experimented with creating various events for voluntary, nonsexual, touch that are free and available to all. In San Francisco, men experimented with using their eyes differently to cruise for affection, not just sex.  Each Loving Disturbance is an example of that shameless kind of love Plato talked about.

If we could somewise contrive to have a city or an army composed of lovers and those they loved. . . when fighting side by side, one might almost consider them able to make even a little band victorious over all the world. -- Plato, Symposium

Work in local troops affords a chance to reflect on yourself and the givens of your Gay world, why you sought it out in the first place, and how it's working for you. Most important, it is a chance to reflect on what all of us are doing here together, at a deeper level than we usually think about it. If the ideas here have struck a chord with you, you are invited to join the ongoing conversations of men talking with each other, seeking new ways of being for and with each other.

In an interview with a French Gay magazine, Foucault once made this observation: [Homosexuality] would make us work on ourselves and invent, I do not say discover, a manner of being that is still improbable.

It is to the invention of improbability we are now called. Its exact shapes and forms depend on us. But basically, it comes down to this: If we want to rewrite the code of conduct in this Queer Kingdom, everybody has to grab a pen. The only way to get a more trusting and affectionate queer men's world is to make it. Because, it turns out, when we're all being that way with each other, the next thing you know . . that's what we are to each other.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi

We cannot yet know what will happen when this confederacy of beloved men unabashedly claims our values before the world. If we better understood and celebrated our best practices, Gay lives would never look the same. Then, of course, all hell might break lose. In a world beset by violence, with male nurturance and caretaking in short supply, for a society confused and guilty in its sexuality, where practices of intimacy and the pursuit of pleasure are viewed with suspicion, where relations between the sexes are fraught with risk and confusion--in such a straining world, might not the lessons of such men help us all? As our distinct habits diffuse, how might that change the life of our larger culture?

Who knows what it could look like if our gender were less prone to violent solutions; if new varieties of communalism and caretaking now seen in many of our lives were a broader norm; if celebratory sexual exploration were a more accepted feature of our culture, enjoyed and explored, not hidden and lied about; if we structured our intimate communities in more inclusive ways; if our national life included more freely loving, publicly altruistic men; if we could find new understandings across gender lines. In a dozen demonstrable ways, our habits have the potential to shift the most deeply held values of the majority culture. How might that transform the experiences and fears of women, of children, and of men? What promise does it hold to sweeten the shared life of our planet?

If, as facts suggest, society harbors a hidden army of lovers in its midst, the challenge is to celebrate and nurture these gifts, this genius, It is a cultural patrimony we can offer to our shared life as a nation. Equally important, it is a gift to ourselves that will transform our own experience with and for each other. For now we know only this. A resolute community of fiercely loving males can only heal the world. We, whom Plato called the best of boys, the bravest of men, can compose his army of lovers. When we more fully manifest love in word and deed and we live out the values of our hidden hearts, the larger culture can only follow. It always has.

David Nimmons, formerly President of New York's Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, is founder of Manifest Love, a national project helping Gay men find new ways to be with, and for, each other. This text was excerpted by the author from his recent St. Martin's Press book The Soul Beneath the Skin.

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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 - August 7, 2022 💌

 

As one cultivates more and more of the levels of the strudel, then one sees the whole level of interpersonal relationships as just one level. When I first started to awaken, I would come home to visit my family and my father would say to me, “Do you have a job?” He didn’t ask me if I was the Buddha, or if I was enlightened. I would get very angry at him because he had caught me in a place where he made the plane real, and I said, “I cannot stay around my family, they bring me down.” Later when I would come home more strong in my faith and inner connections. My father would ask me the same questions, and I would, in the quietness of my being, appreciate his concern and the worldview that he held without becoming reactive, and so my response would not be reactive, and it responded instead to the deeper connection that we had, and it would open the dialogue in a new way. It is up to the most conscious person in the situation to break the chain of reactivity.  - Ram Dass

Via GBF // PACE

 

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 awakening factor of joy is internally present, one is aware: “Joy is present for me.” When joy is not present, one is aware: “Joy is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen joy occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen awakening factor of joy 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 practice is about looking very closely at the details of our experience. Every single moment something different is happening, and we train our mind to notice as much as we can, rather than running on automatic or making educated guesses. Here we are selecting one particular emotion, joy, and observing the dynamics of its arising and passing away and how it can be encouraged and developed with practice.

Daily Practice

Get in touch with the sensations that well up when you experience joy. To do this, call to mind something joyful and see how it feels. Remember: Joy is an emotion with mental as well as physical manifestations in experience. Then notice when these sensations are not present, when joy is absent. This is the kind of detailed investigation mindfulness practice entails. But remember not to cling to anything—just watch it pass through.

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) One practices: “I shall breathe in liberating the mind”;  one practices: “I shall breathe out liberating the mind.” This is how concentration through 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 Suffering 
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna

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Via Daily Dharma: What is Lovingkindness?

 Lovingkindness is a feeling that blesses others and oneself with the simple wish, “Be happy.” The Japanese poet Issa [1763–1828] expresses this openhearted feeling so well: “In the cherry blossom’s shade, there’s no such thing as a stranger.”

Joseph Goldstein, “Triumph of the Heart”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT
Maintaining Arisen 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 maintain arisen healthy mental states. One maintains the arisen energy-awakening factor. (MN 141)

Reflection

It is one thing to arouse energy when it is needed in order to persevere in some healthy practice, for example. It is something else to be able to sustain that extra energy long enough to see the endeavor through. Sporadic effort has some value, but it is sustained effort that is really effective in helping us develop healthy mental and emotional states. It is valuable to be able to maintain the awakening factor of energy.

Daily Practice

Let’s take a specific example. Say you are in an annoying discussion with an annoying person, and you want to respond with kindness rather than annoyance. Remember that each moment is a new beginning and that each moment you have to renew your intention and your resolve. If you find kindness once, you need to reapply it in every ensuing moment. Maintaining kindness involves reapplying it again and again.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna
One week from today: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States

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Via Daily Dharma: Facing Loss

 We are so busy running from loss, like a child hiding from the boogeyman, that we don’t care who we knock down along the way, so long as sorrow stays far enough behind. But loss doesn’t need to be feared, and neither do we, ourselves.

Breeshia Wade, “Loss Doesn’t Need to Be Feared”

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[GBF] new GBF talk

A new talk has been added to the audio archive at the GBF website:

2022_07_31 Daigan Gaither What Does It Mean to Practice.mp3

Via Daily Dharma: Make Joy an Offering

 We can reframe joy for ourselves by thinking of it as something that we can offer as a gift to the world rather than something that we take or have to wait to receive.

Christina Feldman and Jaya Rudgard, “Where to Find Joy and How to Cultivate It”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Intoxication

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Intoxication

Intoxication is unhealthy. Refraining from intoxication is healthy. (MN 9) What are the imperfections that defile the mind? Negligence is an imperfection that defiles the mind. Knowing that negligence is an imperfection that defiles the mind, a person abandons it. (MN 7) One practices thus: “Others may become negligent by intoxication, but I will abstain from the negligence of intoxication.” (MN 8) There are these two worldly conditions: praise and blame. These are conditions that people meet—impermanent, transient, and subject to change. A mindful, wise person knows them and sees that they are subject to change. Desirable conditions do not excite one’s mind nor is one resentful of undesirable conditions. (AN 8.6)

Reflection

The “worldly winds,” you will recall, are those conditions that are inevitably found in the world, things it is useless to object to or resist, and the best course is to learn how to adapt and live with them. Praise and blame are among these inevitable worldly conditions. No matter what you do, there are times you will be praised, justifiably or not, and there are times you will be blamed, justifiably or not. It is best to accept this.

Daily Practice

One thing that helps in dealing with praise and blame is not to take things personally. Having yourself be the focus of everything can be seen as a kind of intoxication, distorting your perception of things as they actually are. Remind yourself that conditions are transient, that peoples’ opinions are subject to change, and that they may not praise or blame you with any real understanding of who you are or what you had in mind.

Tomorrow: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

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Via Daily Dharma: Settle the Mind to Find a Solution

 We feel overwhelmed. The situation seems bigger than us. But meditation restores us to that calm, without which we cannot face the truth of our condition and think clearly about how we can get out of our predicament. 

Ben Okri, “The Role of the Artist in a Time of Crisis”

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