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

 

RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering And what is the way leading to the cessation of suffering? It is just this noble eightfold path: that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. (MN 9)

Reflection Understanding that suffering has a cause and can be cured is one thing, but managing to bring about that cure is a formidable challenge: “Just stop craving, and your suffering will disappear! How hard can that be?” As it turns out, it can be very hard indeed. The way out of suffering, woven from the elements of the eightfold path, needs to be crafted anew by each culture, each generation, each person. Daily Practice The practice of walking the path leading to the cessation of suffering has always been a creative project. Since every moment of every person’s experience is new and unique, the blueprint of the eightfold path has to be interpreted flexibly. Find your own distinctive way of understanding these timeless universal principles and applying them to the many challenges of your life and its unique set of changing circumstances. Tomorrow: Cultivating Equanimity One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Daily Dharma: Understanding Morality

 Ultimately, Buddhist “morality” is a no-morality. It represents a shifting mental structure that we understand only to the degree that we grasp its essential formlessness. 

Bodhin Kjolhede, “Pain, Passion, and the Precepts”

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Via White Crane Institute // PEDRO SEGUNDO MARDONES LEMEBEL

 

Pedro Lemebel

1952 - 

PEDRO SEGUNDO MARDONES LEMEBEL  was an out Gay Chilean essayist, chronicler, novelist, and LGBT activist born on this date (d: 2015); He was known for his cutting critique of authoritarianism and for his humorous depiction of Chilean popular culture, from a queer perspective. Imagine a cross-pollination between RuPaul, Larry Kramer and Antonin Artaud. He was nominated for Chile's National Literature Prize in 2014, and was a 1999 Guggenheim Fellow.

Lemebel attended writing workshops to hone his skills and network with other writers, his first writing recognition was in 1982, when he won an award for his short story, Porque el tiempo está cerca ("Because time is short"). In 1986, he published as his first major work, the book Incontables, a compilation of short stories under the feminist publication label, Ergo Sum. A year later, he co-founded a performance collective that used the tactics of intervention and disruption of events to raise public consciousness about the struggles of minorities in Chile. The disruption and performances of the collective brought Lemebel into public awareness in Chile. In 1986, he disrupted a meeting of Chile's left wing groups opposed to Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, entering the meeting in high heels and in facial makeup depicting an hammer and sickle extending from his mouth to his left eyebrow. At the event, he spoke about his manifesto, ‘Manifest: I Speak for my Difference’ criticizing homophobia in left wing politics. Though widely known to be a communist, he was estranged from the party because of his homosexuality (not unlike Harry Hay.)

Lemebel is beloved for his influence in the fight for homosexual rights, his work as a writer, and his strong political side. Lemebel was much more than a writer; he was a free man, an artist, a political and popular icon, but more than anything a rebel and a voice for the LGBTcommunity.

Lemebel was born Pedro Mardones Lemebel, but  he too k the last name of his mother, as the first big political decision that reaffirmed his commitment towards his Gay side, a side that was extensively incorporated into his literary works. Lemebel was able to envisage a hidden reality of Gay people; he was able to unmask the violence of which Gay people were victims in Chile. The importance of Pedro Lemebel is not only value for his talent as a writer, but also as a person of defiance in a conservative and machista country. Journalist Óscar Contardo described Lemebel as a “popular figure: a figure that is suppose to be disgusted in our society, which is the "loca" (queen), he managed to make that figure as the center, and then transform it into a popular icon."

Some of his works include: La esquina es mi corazón, Loco afán: Crónicas del sidario (chronicles). Santiago: LOM, (1996); De perlas y cicatrices ("Of Pearls and Scars"). Santiago: LOM, (1998); La esquina es mi corazón, Santiago: Seix Barral, (2001.) Tengo miedo torero (novel). Santiago: Grupo Editorial Planeta, (2001) (translated as My Tender Matador, published by Grove)

Lemebel died in 2015 of laryngeal cancer.

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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 Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third 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)

Reflection The third foundation on which mindfulness is established, mindfulness of mind, involves noticing the impact of various emotions and attitudes on the mind. Consciousness simply reflects whatever object comes before it, but then we respond to the object with love or hate, wanting or not wanting, and all kinds of judgments favoring or opposing it. With mindfulness we are content with watching this as it occurs. Daily Practice After you gain skill in observing the bodily sensations that accompany breathing in and out and then bringing mindfulness to bear on pleasant and unpleasant feeling tones, next focus on the influence craving and aversion may or may not have on your mind in any given moment. When you like something, be aware of that. When you dislike something, be aware of that. This is the starting point of mindfulness of mind.  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) 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 Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Daily Dharma: The Body Is a Gift

 Through the lens of the dharma, the body is revealed to be a precious gift with which we may pursue the great opportunity of awakening. 

Matthew Gindin, “The Body in Buddhadharma: Three Perspectives”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - November 20, 2022 💌

 
 

Spiritual practices, compared to having sex or compared to taking coke or something, is more like delayed gratification versus immediate gratification. So when you start to stand back and see your predicament and see what you’re doing, there’s a way, from a spiritual perspective, in which you begin with that slight bit of awareness to extricate yourself from the chain of reactivity that we’re talking about.


From Here & Now Podcast - Ep. 186 – The Chain of Reactivity

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)

Reflection What do you do when you are in the grip of an unhealthy mood, filled with a steady stream of unhealthy mental and emotional states? Sometimes you just have to take the initiative and change the channel, so to speak. Just as you might decide to prepare and eat a meal if you are hungry or take a walk if you are restless, so too you can decide to develop healthy states and, by various means, invite them to arise in your mind. Daily Practice You might adopt the practice of each day choosing a healthy state to develop and then working to deliberately bring it to mind. Maybe generosity one day, kindness another, or compassion all week. It is just a matter of making a decision to call to mind that particular positive quality. Choose to think kind thoughts about someone or decide to do a kind act, and you will find that the emotional state of kindness will naturally arise. Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third Jhāna  One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Daily Dharma: Listening Without Distinction

 Our minds, not our hearing organs, make the distinction between sound and silence. But if you practice listening until you no longer make distinctions, you develop a power that is liberating. 

Dharma Master Hsin Tao, “Listening to Silence”

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