Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from False Speech

 

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RIGHT SPEECH Refraining from False Speech False speech is unhealthy. Refraining from false speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning false speech, one dwells refraining from false speech, is a truth-speaker, one to be relied on, trustworthy, dependable, not a deceiver of the world. One does not in full awareness speak falsehood for one’s own ends or for another’s ends or for some trifling worldly end. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak falsely, but I shall abstain from false speech.” (MN 8) Such speech as you know to be true, correct, and beneficial, and which is welcome and agreeable to others—know the time to use such speech. (MN 58)

Reflection Of course it is important to refrain from false speech, but even right speech is to be wielded carefully. Generally it is appropriate to speak when what you are saying is beneficial—that is, when it is helping people emerge from what is unhealthy and become established on a healthy course. But even in this case there is something to be said for knowing when to speak up and when to remain silent. Daily Practice As you pay attention to your own speech patterns, notice if you ever find yourself praising people or telling them what they want to hear as a way of seeking favor. It is good to say things that please people, especially when it is true and beneficial, but you should still take care not to do so frivolously. The basic message here is just to take care to speak skillfully, even when you have positive things to say. Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Bodily Action One week from today: Refraining from Malicious Speech 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: Don’t Just Read About Meditation

When we read or hear about the benefits of meditation, it is tempting to dwell on the stories of wonderful outcomes instead of doing the work of actualizing these possibilities ourselves. Sitting is a way of putting our bodies behind our aspirations.

Narayan Helen Liebenson, “The Refuge of Sitting”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - April 19, 2023 💌

 
 

Spiritual practices help you move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you, too. It spiritualizes people naturally.

Aging gives you a chance to learn to use the shadows in your life as vehicles for your awakening - and the longest shadow of all is death. How you relate to death is the key spiritual work of aging. And how you see death is a function of how much you identify with that which dies. Egos die. Souls don't die. 

- Ram Dass -

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Lovingkindness

 

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RIGHT INTENTION Cultivating Lovingkindness 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 lovingkindness, for when you develop meditation on lovingkindness, all ill will is abandoned. (MN 62)  Lovingkindness succeeds when it makes ill will subside. (Vm 9.93)

Reflection Ill will is a generic term for all kinds of aversion, from mild annoyance to raging hatred. These emotions make up a good deal of our daily experience, and generally we are not too happy when we are aversive. The danger is that if we allow these states to persist and even grow, we are ensuring that our minds will become more inclined toward them. On the other hand, developing lovingkindness will incline the mind in the other direction. Daily Practice It may feel like you have no protection against ill will, but you do. Lovingkindness is its antidote, and it can be applied at any time. Because we cannot experience two emotions at the exact same time, all healthy states will block out all unhealthy states and vice versa. Try dosing yourself with kindness every time you feel annoyed and see what happens. Any aversion you might feel will immediately subside. Tomorrow: Refraining from False Speech One week from today: Cultivating Compassion Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Tricycle // Fruit Fly Dharma

 

Fruit Fly Dharma
By Kent Jarratt

A practitioner learns a lesson in bodhichitta from welcoming an undesired guest.

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Via Daily Dharma: Who Are You?

 Who are you? Which of all the things that make up your mind and body is you, the true you?

John Dunne, “The Essence of Awakening”

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

 

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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) Bodily pain is suffering: bodily pain; bodily discomfort; painful, uncomfortable feeling born of bodily contact. (MN 9)

Reflection We don’t need much help in understanding this point—that suffering can present itself in the form of bodily pain. A natural reaction to this pain is to resist it, push it away, or find a way to either avoid it or avoid being aware of it. While pain is an inevitable part of the human situation, the Buddha teaches that we can modify how much we suffer when experiencing pain by how much awareness we bring to the experience. Daily Practice When you are in pain, try turning toward it and observing it with interest rather than resenting it or trying to avoid it. It is happening, so it won’t help to deny it. Look pain in the face and examine its texture and how it presents itself in your experience. See when it is sharp or dull, fleeting or constant, pulsing or steady. Turning toward the actual sensation of pain is the first step toward mitigating the suffering it brings. Tomorrow: Cultivating Lovingkindness One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin 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: Between Real and Not Real

A place of practice is like the reflection of the moon in the water. It’s not real, but we still build monasteries so we can deliver sentient beings.

Master Sheng Yen, “The Wanderer”

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Via White Crane Institute // CHAVELA VARGAS

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Chavela Vargas

1919 -

ISABEL VARGAS LIZANO (d: 2012), better known as CHAVELA VARGAS, was a Costa Rican-born Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican rancheras, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of popular Latin American music. She has been an influential interpreter in the Americas and Europe, muse to figures such as Pedro Almodovar, hailed for her haunting performances, and called "la voz áspera de la ternura", the rough voice of tenderness.

She is featured in many Almodóvar's films, including La Flor de mi Secreto in both song and video. She has said, however, that acting is not her ambition, although she had previously participated in films such as 1967's La Soldadera. Vargas recently appeared in the 2002 Julie Taymor film Frida, singing "La Llorona" (The Weeping Woman). Her classic "Paloma Negra" (Black Dove) was also included in the soundtrack of the film.

Vargas herself, as a young woman, was alleged to have had an affair with Frida Kahlo, during Kahlo's marriage to muralist Diego Rivera. She also appeared in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel, singing "Tú me acostumbraste" (You Got Me Used To), a bolero of Frank Dominguez. Joaquin Sabina’s song "Por el Boulevar de los Sueños Rotos" ("Down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams") is dedicated to Vargas.

Her heavy drinking and raucous life took their toll, and she vanished from public life in the 1970s. Submerged in an alcoholic haze, she said, she was taken in by an Indian family who nursed her back to health without knowing who she was. In 2003, she told The New York Times that she had not had a drink in twenty-five years.

In the early 1990s she began singing again at El Habito, the bohemian Mexico City nightclub. From there her career took off again, with performances in Latin America, Europe and the United States. At 81, she announced that she was a lesbian.

“Nobody taught me to be like this,” she told the Spanish newspaper El País in 2000. “I was born this way. Since I opened my eyes to the world, I have never slept with a man. Never. Just imagine what purity. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

On the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut in 2003, she looked back on how her singing had changed over her career. “The years take you to a different feeling than when you were 30,” she said in an interview with The Times. “I feel differently, I interpret differently, more toward the mystical.”

On the evening of her death in 2012, instead of holding a traditional Mexican wake, friends, fans and musicians gathered in the evening for a musical tribute at Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City, where Ms. Vargas had spent many a night drinking with Mr. Jiménez. She would have loved it.

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