Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Compassion

 

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RIGHT INTENTION Cultivating Compassion Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis on which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on compassion, for when you develop meditation on compassion, any cruelty will be abandoned. (MN 62) The manifestation of compassion is non-cruelty. (Vm 9.94)

Reflection We are all born with the innate capacity for compassion, but that does not mean we will naturally express compassion. Like everything else, expressing compassion is something we learn to do or not do. The practice of right intention involves the deliberate development of benevolent states of mind such as compassion, and that will only happen when we do so again and again. Seeking out opportunities to be compassionate, we strengthen that muscle.  Daily Practice Each of the brahma-viharas, the sublime states of mind, is paired with an opposite to which it is the antidote. Compassion is the antidote to cruelty, one of the most heinous human emotions. Cruelty is the wish for beings to experience greater suffering; compassion is the wish for them to be relieved of their suffering. Look for instances of suffering around you and direct to each the healing power of a compassionate mind. Tomorrow: Refraining from Malicious Speech One week from today: Cultivating Appreciative Joy 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: Let Your Body Lead Your Mind

 When you notice yourself leaning into the future, tensing up, trying to predict what will happen, straining to figure out what to do, whether on your own or with others, see if you can actually physically rest back….This can support your mind to rest back, release, and let be.

Kaira Jewel Lingo, “Trusting the Unknown”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - February 26, 2023 💌

 
 

You exist on many planes simultaneously at this moment. The only reason you don't know of your other identities is because you're so attached to this one. But this one or that one, don't get lost, don't stick anywhere. It's just more stuff. Go for broke - awake totally. 

- Ram Dass -

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

 

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RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering What is the origin of suffering? It is craving, which brings renewal of being, is accompanied by delight and lust, and delights in this and that; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for non-being. (MN 9) When one does not know and understand flavors as they actually are, then one is attached to flavors. When one is attached, one becomes infatuated, and one’s craving increases. One’s bodily and mental troubles increase, and one experiences bodily and mental suffering. (MN 149)

Reflection Working systematically through the six different sense modalities, here we come to working with the flavors discernible by the tongue that give rise to moments of “tasting.” Here too we can easily get caught by wanting or craving some experiences of taste over others. A moment of suffering is born when we dislike the taste of something we are eating, or when we like something so much that we want to eat it again and again. Daily Practice See if you can get free for just a moment from the reflex to pursue pleasure and avoid displeasure. Try taking a few bites of something you traditionally don’t like and see if you can regard tasting it as simply a different experience. Try taking one bite and not another of something you really like and investigate that too as an experience. In this exercise you practice equanimity: tasting something without getting entangled in it. Tomorrow: Cultivating Compassion One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation 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: No Thing to See

 When the mind recognizes itself, there is no thing to see there. It’s just wide open.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche, “Dissolving the Confusion”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and the First Jhāna

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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)   Breathing in and out, tranquilizing bodily activities … one is just aware, just mindful: "There is a body." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection Sunday is a good day to get in the habit of spending some time in mindful meditation. When the quality of mind called mindfulness is nurtured and developed, the mind inclines toward contentment, as this passage points out. This might even be a good definition of mindfulness: feeling content with whatever is happening by not wanting it to be anything other than it is. Daily Practice The text that teaches meditation begins with learning to breathe in and out, long and short, mindfully, but here it shifts with a more intentional directive. The instruction is to "tranquilize"—calm or relax—the breathing and all bodily activity. In other words, we are now not simply being aware of what is happening but also trying to direct our experience toward deeper and deeper states of calm. With each breath, relax. 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 We dedicate Sundays to practicing 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 surely 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 these temporarily cease to arise. Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin 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: How to Be Faultless

 It is possible to feel that one has no faults. Why? Because after discovering that one’s ideas and behaviors are imperfect, if one always immediately corrects them, this is maintaining a state of faultlessness.

Master Sheng-Yen, “How to Be Faultless”

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Via [GBF] A Talk from the Archive: Wes Nisker

A recording from the archive dating back 2 decades has just been added to the website: 

The 3 Marks of Existence and The Path of Meditation - Wes Nisker

DESCRIPTION:

The Buddha outlined the '3 Characteristics of Existence' as Impermanence, Unsatisfactoriness, and Non-Self (or anatta).
In this talk, Wes shares how these are foundational to the path of meditation.

Highlights include:

• The concept of “Radical Impermanence”
• The Tibetan appreciation for our precious existence as human beings.
• How non-self stems from the interdependence with everything,
• That our consciousness is the consciousness of the Universe.
• That human beings are the only creatures that can see ourselves in context.
• Mindfulness is a non-interfering awareness, a clear knowing.
• Freud's view that our personality can be viewed as a pet.

______________
Wes Nisker, the co-founder and editor of the international Buddhist journal Inquiring Minds, has practiced Vipassana meditation for 30 years. He is the author of "Buddha's Nature: Evolution as a Guide to Enlightenment," "Crazy Wisdom: A Romp Through the Philosophies of East and West," and "The Buddha, the Big Bang, and the Baby Boom: The Spiritual Experiments of My Generation."

In addition to leading a regular sitting group in Berkeley, he teaches classes in meditation and philosophy at Spirit Rock and at other locations around the country.
Learn more at https://wesnisker.com/

Via Daily Dharma: Directing Your Effort

The effort isn’t in trying to stop the mind but in paying attention in a receptive way to what’s actually happening. 

Mark Van Buren, “Accept Whatever the Mind Is Doing”

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