Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Appreciative Joy

 

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RIGHT INTENTION Cultivating Appreciative Joy 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 appreciative joy, for when you develop meditation on appreciative joy, any discontent will be abandoned. (MN 62)  Appreciative joy is like a mother with a son who is young, for she just wants him to long enjoy the benefits of youth. (Vm 9.108)

Reflection Appreciative joy is what lovingkindness transforms into when we witness something good and beneficial happening to another person, just as it turns to compassion when we see harm being done. Appreciating the good fortune of others is a readily available source of joy, as there are many blessings that can be counted. You can choose to focus on the harm or the good in the world around you and thereby feel either joy or sorrow. Daily Practice Practice focusing on the good things around you, the many ways other people can experience good fortune and well-being. Notice how your mind is uplifted when you appreciate the positive aspects of others' experience. This is a skill that can be developed with practice. It is not about shutting out the misfortunes that abound in the world but about balancing them with recognizing the many blessings that also exist. Tomorrow: Refraining from Harsh Speech One week from today: Cultivating Equanimity 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: Meditate Your Ideologies Away

Meditate Your Ideologies Away

Meditation practice is a way of loosening our solidity. Without practice, even the most inspired view can become rigid ideology. The practice of meditation brings out the futility and limitations of holding any rigid view. Judy Lief, “Meditation Alone is Not Enough” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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

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RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering What is the cessation of suffering? It is the remainderless fading away and ceasing, the giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of craving. (MN 9) When one knows and sees the five aggregates as they actually are, then one is not attached to the five aggregates. When one abides unattached, one is not infatuated, and one’s craving is abandoned. One’s bodily and mental troubles are abandoned, and one experiences bodily and mental well being. (MN 149)

Reflection The five aggregates are the medium in which human experience unfolds, like the water in which fish swim or the air in which birds fly. At every moment all five aspects of experience co-arise: material form, feeling tones, perceptions, volitional and emotional formations, and consciousness. The skill to learn is how to be in this world without attachment, without infatuation, and with craving and troubles abandoned.  Daily Practice When you know and see these aggregates as they actually are—that is, as impermanent and interdependently conditioned processes with no essential core—it is natural to no longer feel attached to them and thereby driven by them. Try deconstructing your troubles by recognizing the extent to which they all eventually boil down to experiential components of the aggregates and as such are inherently empty. Tomorrow: Cultivating Appreciative Joy One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to 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: Know Your Boundaries

Know Your Boundaries

​​Preserving yourself and knowing your boundaries is not the same thing as exclusively seeking your own happiness. It’s about the healing process of learning to skillfully discern what will and will not serve all beings, yourself included. Pilar Jennings, “Boundaries Make Good Bodhisattvas” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation //

"What grace turns out to be is all the forces that exist in the universe that are free agents, that are available to support the process of your going back into the source. All the gurus, all the beings on astral planes, all of the elements, all of the forces in the universe."  - Ram Dass - From Here & Now Ep. 236 - The Relationship Between Karma & Grace

Via Tricycle // Practicing Mindfulness of Death

Practicing Mindfulness of Death
With Nikki Mirghafori

Pulling from the Buddha’s discourse in the Maranassati Sutta, dharma teacher Nikki Mirghafori leads a guided meditation on mindfulness of death.

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Via Daily Dharma: Forget Dualistic Ideas

Forget Dualistic Ideas

When you forget all your dualistic ideas, everything becomes your teacher, and everything can be the object of worship.

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, “Bowing”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna

 

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling 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 feeling a common neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling, one is aware: “Feeling a common neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling.” When feeling an uncommon neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling, one is aware: “Feeling an uncommon neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling.”. . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is feeling.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection A feeling tone accompanies every moment of experience, and it changes at every moment. We generally just accept this and are influenced by it but without conscious awareness. The stream of feelings flows as constantly as the stream of consciousness, and modulates on a spectrum from extremely pleasant through moderately pleasant, mildly pleasant, neutral, mildly painful, and moderately painful to extremely painful. Daily Practice The second of the four foundations on which mindfulness practice is established is the mindful awareness of feeling tones. This requires isolating them in your experience, since they are usually blended in with everything else. Make a point of selecting just the strand of experience that carries a feeling tone—good, bad or neutral. Not whether you like it or not, just how it feels. You will learn with practice how to focus on this regularly. RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna) With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4) Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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