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)   Mindful, one breathes in; mindful, one breathes out. . . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is body." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection The path factor of right mindfulness will be explored by going carefully through the meditation instructions found in the classic text Satipatthāna Sutta, or Establishment of Mindfulness Discourse. The first thing we notice about it in this introductory section is how deliberate and intentional the practice is: one goes to a quiet place, sits down, and engages deliberately in the establishment of mindfulness. Daily Practice Mindfulness of the body begins with breathing. Take some time to sit quietly and just breathe in and out. Breathing mindfully simply means bringing full awareness to the various micro-sensations that accompany every in-breath and out-breath. As the refrain prompts us, see if you can attend to these sensations directly, without thinking about them and without clinging in any way by favoring or opposing any sensation.  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) Reflection Since there are seven days in the week and eight path factors, we dedicate Sundays to practicing both kinds of meditation: mindfulness and concentration. Concentration practice involves focusing the mind on a single object, such as the breath, and returning attention to this focal point whenever it wanders off, which it will do often. All forms of meditation involve some level of concentration, so it is a good thing to practice. Daily Practice Formal concentration practice, involving absorption (Pali: jhāna) in four defined stages, requires more time and sustained effort than occasional practice generally allows and would benefit from careful instruction by a qualified teacher. You may begin on your own, however, simply by practicing to abandon the five hindrances, since jhāna practice only really begins when they temporarily cease to arise.  Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second 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: Recognizing Your Self-Worth

 You have not been put here to be judged or to prove your self-worth. Your self-worth is that you exist. 

Yoshin David Radin, “Left Foot, Right Foot”

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Via White Crane Institute // ARNOLD LOBEL

 

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1987 -

ARNOLD LOBEL was an American author of children's books who died on this date (b: 1933); He is best known for his  Frog and Toad series and Mouse Soup. He wrote and illustrated these picture books as well as Fables, a 1981 Caldecott Medal winner for best-illustrated U.S. picture book. Lobel also illustrated books by other writers, including Sam the Minuteman by Nathaniel Benchley published in 1969.

Lobel was born in Los Angeles, California, but was raised in Schenectady, New York, the hometown of his parents. Lobel's childhood was not a happy one, as he was frequently bullied, but he did love reading picture books at his local library. He attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In 1955, after he graduated, he married Anita Kempler, also a children's writer and illustrator whom he'd met while in art school. The two worked in the same studio and collaborated on several books together. They had two children: daughter Adrianne and son Adam Lobel, and three grandchildren.

Following college, Lobel was unable to support himself as a children's book author or illustrator and so he worked in advertising and trade magazines, which he did not like.

But he loved his writing and illustration work, saying "I cannot think of any work that could be more agreeable and fun than making books for children" and described his job as a daydreamer. He began drawing during a period of extended illness as a second grader. On the October 25, 1950 episode of "Kukla, Fran and Ollie", Oliver J. Dragon presented "poems by Thomas Smith and drawings by Arnold Lobel from Schenectady." 

His professional career began during the 1960s, writing and illustrating "conventional" easy readers and fables. His style could be described as minimalist and frequently had animals as the subject matter. Lobel used animals as characters because he felt it helped with the suspension of disbelief. 

His second book, A Holiday for Mister Muster, and perhaps others were inspired by the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn, which the Lobels lived across the street from. Cartoons his children watched were also an inspiration, as were popular television shows like Bewitched and The Carol Burnett Show.

Lobel's writing and illustrations went through several phases in his career. His early works had a broad humor often in verse, a style that he would return to at other points in his career. In 1977 interview for The Lion and the Unicorn, Lobel explained that he wrote these books by imagining what children would want to read. However, as he continued to write, he realized the books he was writing didn't have the "weight" to them he wished and that he was going to have to use tap into himself in order to create better writing. 

Following that epiphany, he began taking inspiration from his own experiences and emotions, and acknowledged that he was writing "... adult stories, slightly disguised as children's stories." In the 1970s Lobel's illustrations shifted from primary colors to a broader spectrum of pastel colors. The solitary individual, whether played seriously or for comic relief, was common in Lobel's work, as were two people who were complementary. 

Lobel's illustrations served to visualize the rhythm and emotions of the text in a way that could be "cinematic." His chosen vocabulary, subject matter, and writing style helped to re-conceive what an easy reader book could be. Lobel identified the exploration of his own feelings as a reason that he improved as a writer.

In his 1977 The Lion and the Unicorn interview, Lobel discussed the ways he would work through his emotions while still maintaining his children's audience. This was part of Lobel's belief that adult and children emotions were more similar than different. His work was described as "sunny, warm, even cosy." Despite this, the process of writing was "painful" for Lobel, who was far more inclined to want to illustrate than write and only started writing because of the increased royalties. As late as 1983, Lobel felt he was beginning to trust his instincts as a writer. In fact, he never felt comfortable enough with his technical writing skill to consider writing a novel for adults, or a longer book for children.

Lobel illustrated close to 100 books during his career which were translated into dozens of languages. Despite the awards he won, Lobel wasn't always recognized during his lifetime.

In 1974, he told his family that he was gay. In the early 1980s, he and Anita separated, and he moved to Greenwich Village. He died of cardiac arrest  at Doctors Hospital in New York, after suffering from AIDS for some time.

The musical A Year with Frog and Toad (workshopped 2000, premiered 2002), by Adrianne Lobel and others, played on Broadway in 2003 and has toured nationally since.

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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 - December 4, 2022 💌

There is no dishonor in working with personality stuff. The only thing is that it is like the garden of infinite delight. It is very seductive. You have to balance it with very deep spiritual practice in order not to get sucked in.    - Ram Dass - From Here & Now Podcast - Ep. 141 – Practice Makes Perfect

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders unhealthy states, one has abandoned healthy states to cultivate unhealthy states, and then one’s mind inclines toward unhealthy states. (MN 19) Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to restrain the arising of unarisen unhealthy mental states. One restrains the arising of the unarisen hindrance of sense desire. (MN 141)

Reflection One of the most fundamental ideas of early Buddhism is the distinction between healthy and unhealthy states. These terms are not meant to suggest that these states are good and bad or right and wrong: sometimes they are translated as wholesome and unwholesome or skillful and unskillful. The issue is whether or not the state leads away from suffering, and whether or not it leads toward wisdom. Seeing this distinction clearly is important. Daily Practice A simple list of unhealthy states includes the five hindrances, which we will walk through one at a time. These are mental and emotional states that are unhelpful to the process of seeing things clearly; they may be either "arisen"—in present experience—or "unarisen," meaning latent. Here the practice is to prevent the conditions for the arising of the unhealthy state of sense desire by taking care not to indulge in sensual objects. Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna One week from today: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy 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: The Path of Reasoning

 When faith arises as a result of analysis, it is much more stable, because that analysis will astutely detect and be able to resolve whatever doubts one might have.

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, “The Path of Faith and the Path of Reasoning”

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Via Facebook // How the Nazis Were Inpired by Jim Crow

 

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

RIGHT LIVING Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Harming Living Beings Harming living beings is unhealthy. Refraining from harming living beings is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the harming of living beings, one abstains from harming living beings; with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, one abides with compassion toward all living beings. (MN 41) One practices thus: "Others may harm living beings, but I will abstain from harming living beings." (MN 8) There is a gift, which is a great gift—pristine, long-standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated—that will never be suspect. Here a noble person gives up the destruction of life and refrains from it. In doing so, one gives freedom from fear, hostility, and oppression to an immeasurable number of beings. (AN 8.39)

Reflection The path factor of right living is often called right livelihood, and it has to do with the practical effects of how we work in the world. Right livelihood is primarily a teaching for laypeople, as monks and nuns engage in no worldly affairs. Here we will focus on the so-called "ethical precepts," the first of which is to take care not to kill or cause injury to other living beings. This is the central organizing principle of all Buddhist ethics. Daily Practice Ethical integrity can be seen as a gift that you give to others, the gift of harmlessness. It is not a set of rules you have to follow but a set of guidelines to help you calibrate your behavior toward promoting welfare, both your own and that of others, and avoiding harm. Try to gradually develop this attitude so that you will be gentle with other creatures as an act of generosity rather than of forced discipline. Tomorrow: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States One week from today: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given 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: Perfect Wisdom

 Perfect wisdom is a deep understanding that breaks free of our normal habits of thinking and speaking, habits that compel us to both conceive and perceive individual things as either this or that. 

C. W. Huntington Jr., “The Invention of Nothing”

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Via Via the Hill //Cities led the way in LGBTQ equality this year, HRC report says

 

Via White Crane Institute // WORLD AIDS DAY

 

Noteworthy

World AIDS Day

2021 -

WORLD AIDS DAY: dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people, with an estimated 38.6 million people living with HIV, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. Despite recent, improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claimed an estimated 3.1 million (between 2.8 and 3.6 million) lives in 2005 of which, more than half a million (570,000) were children.

The concept of a World AIDS Day originated at the 1988 World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programs for AIDS Prevention. Since then, it has been taken up by governments, international organizations and charities around the world.

From its inception until 2004, UNAIDS spearheaded the World AIDS Day campaign, choosing annual themes in consultation with other global health organizations. In 2005 this responsibility was turned over to World AIDS Campaign (WAC), who chose Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise as the main theme for World AIDS Day observances through 2010, with more specific sub-taglines chosen annually. This theme is not specific to World AIDS Day, but is used year-round in WAC's efforts to highlight HIV/AIDS awareness within the context of other major global events including the G* Summit. World AIDS Campaign also conducts “in-country” campaigns throughout the world, like the Student Stop AIDS Campaign, an infection-awareness campaign targeting young people throughout the UK.

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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 Action: Reflecting upon Bodily Action

 

RIGHT ACTION Reflecting Upon Bodily 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 bodily action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) When you wish to do an action with the body, reflect on that same bodily action thus: "Would this action I wish to do with the body lead to my own affliction?" If, on reflection, you know that it would, then do not do it. If you know that it would not, then proceed. (MN 61)

Reflection The word for action is kamma in Pali, karma in Sanskrit, and the quality of our actions is a matter of great concern in the Buddhist tradition. We act with the body, speech, and mind, and each of these will be considered in turn. The teaching here is partly to learn how to pay close attention to what we are doing and partly to notice the ethical consequences of our actions.  Daily Practice To reflect on our actions is to bring conscious awareness to them. Most of what we do is done unconsciously, so the practice is to become conscious of what we are doing instead of doing it automatically. Start here with intention. Pay careful attention to the process of making simple choices, such as moving your hand or not, and see if you can catch when intention arises. Also note the ethical quality of your choices: Is a choice healthy or unhealthy? Tomorrow: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings One week from today: Reflecting upon Verbal Action Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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