Via Daily Dharma: Understanding Mind and Reality

 If you use your mind to study reality, you won’t understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you’ll understand both.

Bodhidharma, “Bodhidharma’s Teachings”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Intoxication

 

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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) One of the dangers attached to addiction to intoxicants is weakening of the intellect. (DN 31)

Reflection Right living means understanding the things that cause us harm and directing our lives away from these things toward those that bring out our best and contribute to our well-being. Just as certain foods strengthen the body and others weaken it, so too certain things strengthen the mind and others weaken it. Negligence, for example, weakens the mind, while its opposite, diligence, strengthens it. Understanding this is important. Daily Practice See if you can identify the toxins in your life that weaken the mind, and then work toward reducing their influence. Many things can be toxic and intoxicating, including substances, activities, relationships, views, and emotional habits. Take an honest inventory of what you intuitively know to be harmful and helpful, and take steps to abandon the things that are toxic and cultivate those that are wholesome. Tomorrow: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States One week from today: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings 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 Reflection

 If you’ve never seen your image before, looking in a mirror you’d think you were gazing through a window, encountering someone altogether independent of you. But a mirror, like the mind, is reflective—it only shows you yourself.

Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, “Prayer: Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Social Action

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RIGHT ACTION Reflecting Upon Social 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 social action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) One reflects thus: “Others may think in unhealthy ways; I shall refrain from thinking in unhealthy ways.” (MN 8) One lives with companions in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes. One practices thus: “I maintain mental acts of lovingkindness toward my companions both openly and privately.” (MN 31)

Reflection The mental state of actively caring about someone and wishing them well is not to be taken for granted but is something to remind yourself of and practice doing often. The more seeds of kindness you plant, even with your thoughts alone, the more healthy fruit of goodwill and love you will reap. When these thoughts spill over into words and deeds expressing lovingkindness, all the better. Daily Practice Take on the task of consciously forming thoughts of lovingkindness toward your friends, family, and associates. Don’t just assume, “Of course I care for them,” but form an intention of goodwill toward them regularly and deliberately. This is the difference between your lovingkindness being just an idea and being an emotion that actively expresses itself in your heart on a consistent basis. Tomorrow: Abstaining from Intoxication One week from today: Reflecting upon Bodily Action 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: Realizing Emptiness as Love

 The fullness of the spiritual path is the understanding that love, that compassion, is the expression of emptiness. These are not two separate things; one is an attribute of the other.

Joseph Goldstein, “Love as the Expression of Emptiness”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Frivolous Speech

 

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RIGHT SPEECH Refraining from Frivolous Speech Frivolous speech is unhealthy. Refraining from frivolous speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning frivolous speech, one refrains from frivolous speech. One speaks at the right time, speaks only what is fact, and speaks about what is good. One speaks what is worthy of being overheard, words that are reasonable, moderate, and beneficial. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak frivolously, but I shall abstain from frivolous speech.” (MN 8) An authentic person is one who, even when asked, does not reveal the faults of others—and still less does not do so when not asked. When asked, however, and obliged to reply to questions, one speaks of other’s faults hesitatingly and not in detail. (AN 4.73)

Reflection Refraining from focusing on the faults of others is not meant to hide the truth but is a way to practice non-harming and non-violence in your communications. Refrain from unnecessary speech that is driven by ill will, jealousy, or resentment. This only brings out and reinforces your own unhealthy tendencies, and it often causes harm. By abstaining from avoidable critical pronouncements, you develop better speech habits. Daily Practice Take a break from criticizing people today. Notice when the impulse to do so comes up and choose instead to refrain from saying what is on your mind. See what it feels like to be able to monitor your speech, understand when it is unhelpful, and hold back from letting it loose. If you do this often, you will be retraining your habits of speech and will gradually develop new, healthier patterns of communication. Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Social Action One week from today: Refraining from False Speech Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 10, 2023 💌

 

"You go from using the spiritual journey in the service of your psychodynamics to using your psychodynamics in the service of your spiritual journey."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Analyzing Our Assumptions

 To not take things for granted is the essence of Buddhist spiritual practice.

C. W. Huntington, “Seeing Things as They Are”

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Via George Takei

Tragically, mass shootings have become such a prevalent part of American life that The FBI even released a PSA on how to survive one.

The video serves as a harrowing recreation of a shooting at a bar while also providing essential instructions for anyone caught in such a scenario.

The sad thing, of course, is that we live in a country where this video ever had to be made. And that one of our political parties has no interest in doing anything about it.

[GBF] TALK: 'Indra's Net and Our Interconnectedness' - Lien Shutt

Listen at https://gaybuddhist.org/podcast/lien-shutt/

Rev. Liên Shutt shares thoughts on how to 'be with' suffering, such as the harm brought about by climate change.

Liên shares an approach to reframing the 4 Noble Truths as a restorative model to suffering and harm reduction. She describes the Eight-fold Path in terms that are actionable and active rather than passive.

Reframing our view in more holistic terms, we can consider Indra's Net described in the Flower Ornamental sutra. It is a representation of the cosmos, similar to an infinitely large spider's web, with each living being represented as a multi-faceted jewel at the intersections of the threads, thus connected to and also reflecting all of the other jewels.

Often we over-emphasize the individual jewels and ignore the net of interconnectedness. A jewel may shine so brightly that it obscures the other jewels, or use up so many resources that it swells and weighs down the net itself, perhaps even to the point of breaking. Focusing on the net of interconnectedness rather than the individuals, we can look at how we can restore the connections between us and the well-being of the collective.
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Liên Shutt (she/they) is a priest lineage holder in the Shunryu Suzuki tradition. Born to a Buddhist family in Vietnam, she received her meditation training in the Insight and Soto Zen traditions in the U.S., Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam. She was a founding member of the Buddhists of Color in 1998 and currently is the guiding teacher of Access to Zen, an inclusive, anti-oppression sangha and non-profit in the SF Bay Area. She lives on Ohlone land, currently called San Francisco, with her partner, exploring waterways and forests as often as they can. 

 

Visit AccessToZen.org for ways to connect and practice together.