Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

 

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects 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)   When the energy-awakening factor is internally present, one is aware: “Energy is present for me.” When energy is not present, one is aware: “Energy is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen energy occurs, one  is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen energy-awakening factor occurs, one is aware of that . . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is a mental object.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection Energy is a mental factor, like so many others, that arises and passes away in the mind from one moment to another. We all know what it feels like to have too little energy and to give it a boost to accomplish a task, and what it feels like to have too much energy and to try to calm down using relaxation exercises. One way of practicing mindfulness of mental objects is to learn to look at and develop this awakening factor. Daily Practice See if you can gain an intuitive understanding of what the energy factor feels like in your own direct experience. Do this by noticing when it is present and when it is absent. Like isolating a muscle in the body for strengthening exercises, see if you can identify and strengthen the means of deliberately increasing or decreasing mental energy. This is an awakening factor because it is a crucial tool for developing the mind toward awakening. RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna) With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters upon and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4) One practices: “I shall breathe in tranquilizing mental formations;” one practices: “I shall breathe out tranquilizing mental formations.” This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated  so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (SN 54.8) Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of  Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna 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 Words of Wisdom - July 9, 2023 💌

 

"When we first understand there’s a journey, a path, we tend to get somewhat hysterical. We want to sell it to everybody, change everybody, and whichever path we buy first, we try to convert everybody to it. The zeal is based on our lack of faith, 'cause we’re not sure of what we’re doing, so we figure if we convince everybody else... But we’re all kind of moving into a new space, we’re sort of finished with the first wild hysteria, and we’re settling down into the humdrum process of living out our incarnation as consciously as we know how to do. If in the course it turns out this is your last round to get enlightened, fine. If not, that’s the way it is. Nothing you can do about it. You can’t bulldoze anybody to beat the system – you are the system. The desire to beat the system is part of it." - Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: More Than Meditation

More Than Meditation

To end suffering, the Buddha prescribed a compound of three essentials: morality, meditation, and wisdom. Meditation practice without morality and wisdom is like a stool with only one leg—it is bound to fall over. Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, “Don’t Just Sit There” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Via White Crane Institute \\ HAVELOCK ELLIS

 

Died

Havelock Ellis

1939 -

HAVELOCK ELLIS, British physician, died (b. 1859); A British sexologist, physician, and social reformer, his Sexual Inversion, the first English medical text book on homosexuality, co-authored with John Addington Symonds, described the sexual relations of homosexual men and boys, something that Ellis did not consider to be a disease, immoral, or a crime.

The work assumes that same-sex love transcends age as well as gender taboos, as seven of the twenty-one examples are of inter-generational relationships. A bookseller was prosecuted in 1897 for stocking it. Although the term itself is attributed to Ellis, he writes in 1897, “‘Homosexual’ is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it.” Other psychologically important concepts developed by Ellis include auto-eroticism and narcissism, both of which were later taken up by Sigmund Freud. Alas, he was also a proponent of eugenics.

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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!
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Via White Crane Institute \\ FRED HOLLAND DAY

 This Day in Gay History

July 08

Born

Fred Holland Day

1864 -

FRED HOLLAND DAY American photographer and publisher, born (d: 1933). He was considered by many to be the first in the U.S.A. to advocate that photography should be considered a fine art. Day's life and works had long been controversial, since his photographic subjects were often nude male youths. Pam Roberts, in F. Holland Day (Waanders Pub, 2001; catalog of a Day exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum) writes: "Day never married and his sexual orientation, whilst it is widely assumed that he was homosexual, because of his interests, his photographic subject matter, his general flamboyant demeanor, was, like much else about him, a very private matter." At the turn of the century, his influence and reputation as a photographer rivaled that of Alfred Stieglitz, who later eclipsed him.

The high point of Day's photographic career was probably his organization of an exhibition of photographs at the Royal Photographic Society in 1900. He was a major patron of Aubrey Beardsley. Now that the attitudes toward homosexuality have changed so radically, since the 1990s Day's works have been included in major exhibitions by museum curators, notably in the solo Day retrospective at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 2000/2001 and similar shows at the Royal Photographic Society in England and the Fuller Museum of Art.

Art historians are once again taking an interest in Day, and there are now significant academic texts on Day's homoerotic portraiture, and its similarities to the work of Walter Pater and Thomas Eakins.

 

 

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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 Daily Dharma: Make Space to Find Freedom

 

Make Space to Find Freedom

Mindfulness (or vipassana meditation) is the technology for shifting from being ensnarled in suffering to being curious about it. Ruth King, “Wholeness Is Not Trifling Matter” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

 

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RIGHT EFFORT Maintaining Arisen 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 the healthy state, and then one’s mind inclines to the healthy states. (MN 19) Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to maintain arisen healthy mental states. One maintains the arisen investigation of states-awakening factor. (MN 141)

Reflection Because the mind is inclined in the direction of whatever you frequently think about and ponder, influencing your own mind becomes the way of changing yourself for better or worse. When healthy states arise, such as kindness or insight or mindfulness, or when the factor of awakening called the investigation of states is present, this is beneficial and needs to be maintained through the deliberate and skillful application of effort. Daily Practice When mindfulness is present enough to give rise to the awakening factor of the investigation of mental and emotional states, do what you can to strengthen and maintain this quality of mind. Investigating your own experience is the primary way of gaining wisdom, but like so many other habits of value in our lives, it does not just happen by itself and requires the application of effort. This is worthwhile to do, so do it. Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna One week from today: Restraining Unarisen 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 White Crane Institute // TANABATA

 

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Tanabata decorations

2018 -

TANABATA, meaning "Evening of the seventh" is a Japanese star festival, derived from the Chinese star festival, Qi Xi "The Night of Sevens.” It celebrates the meeting of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair). The Milky Way, a river made from stars that crosses the sky, separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the luni-solar calendar.

Since the stars come out at night, the celebration is held at night. The festival originated from The Festival to Plead for Skills. In the Edo period, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship, and boys wished for better handwriting by writing wishes on strips of paper. At this time, the custom was to use dew left on taro leaves to create the ink used to write wishes.

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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 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) There are these two worldly conditions: fame and shame. These are conditions that people meet—impermanent, transient, and subject to change. A mindful, wise person knows them and sees that they are subject to change. Desirable conditions do not excite one’s mind nor is one resentful of undesirable conditions. (AN 8.6)

Reflection The “worldly winds” are aspects of life that are as inevitable as the blowing of the wind, and we are better off accepting and adapting to them rather than attempting to avoid them. Among these are fame and shame, meaning sometimes we are a hero and sometimes a chump. In either case, we may not deserve the label placed on us by others, so the advice here is to see both fame and shame as the result of changing circumstances and view them with equanimity. Daily Practice One form of intoxication we are susceptible to is being influenced overmuch by what other people think of us. If people raise you up unrealistically or put you down undeservedly, try not to let it sway your own sense of who you are. As the text says, “A mindful, wise person knows them” to be the passing opinions of others, subject to capricious change. Practice remaining balanced, independent of the judgment of others. 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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