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

 

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RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering And what is the way leading to the cessation of suffering? It is just this noble eightfold path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. (MN 9) One practices contentment. (DN 2)

Reflection A simple and elegant instruction: Practice contentment! First, we see that it is something we can attain rather than something that comes to us from outside by chance or grace. Then we find out it is a skill that can be practiced, like playing the piano or learning a language. What does it take to feel content? Appreciating the pleasure instead of the pain, the well-being instead of the illness, the joy instead of the distress. Daily Practice Contentment is an experience, not a set of circumstances. You need not wait until you are wealthy to feel content, or even wait for that headache to go away. Contentment is an experience that can be accessed by settling into the moment and finding the goodness in it. Even in the most challenging of conditions there are positive aspects that can be brought forward in your mind. Suffering is real, but it can be put aside, however briefly. Tomorrow: Cultivating Equanimity One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth 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: Just Sit

Just Sit

The moment we sit down to do zazen, we are useless; what we are doing has no point outside of itself, outside of the moment itself.  Barry Magid, “Uselessness: The koan of just sitting” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

 

Via FB

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna

 

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Mind 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 mind is liberated, one is aware: “The mind is liberated.”. . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is mind.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection We are used to thinking of people as being in bondage to suffering at all times until they suddenly “wake up” and are liberated from suffering once and for all—perhaps while seated under a tree. But we can also take things one moment at a time and see that sometimes our mind is in bondage—to anger, for example—and sometimes it is not. Noticing the moments you are liberated from harmful states is inherently valuable. Daily Practice As you practice mindfulness, watching various states come and go in your mind and body, pay close attention to the moments you feel held or restrained by something. Maybe it is a mood of discouragement, or perhaps you feel you are in the grips of an unpleasant story. Watching closely, you may see that later the experience has changed, as all things do. This is a moment in which to relish the fleeting sense of freedom. RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Third Phase of Absorption (3rd Jhāna) With the fading away of joy, one abides in equanimity, mindful and fully aware. Still feeling pleasure with the body, one enters upon and abides in the third phase of absorption, on account of which noble ones announce: “One has a pleasant abiding who has equanimity and is mindful.” (MN 4) Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth 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: The Fifth Precept

The Fifth Precept

Intoxicants take you away from reality; meditation takes you toward reality. Which do you want? You are already intoxicated by ignorance, anger, and attachment and suffer as a result. Why do you want to take more intoxicants? Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, “The Fifth Precept” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation //

The next message you need is always right where you are.  - Ram Dass -

Via Esther Perel // A Translation

 

Tenha o cuidado em separar as pessoas das políticas de seus governos. Tenha o cuidado de separar as pessoas das ações dos terroristas que vivem entre elas.  

 

Tenha cuidado para não reduzir a história e o contexto a uma interpretação restrita. Tenha cuidado para não evitar a complexidade e as nuances em prol da memeificação. 

 

Tenha o cuidado em reconhecer que a dor de um lado não significa ódio ao outro lado. Tenha o cuidado em compreender que o apoio a um lado não significa ódio ao outro lado. 

 

Tenha cuidado com a manipulação em nível de massa: desinformação e a negação da perda. Tenha cuidado para não descartar a dor excruciante e real dos outros. 

 

Não torne as coisas piores. Tenha cuidado para não dizer coisas online que você não diria para alguém na vida real. Tenha cuidado para não adicionar ódio ao ódio, pois estamos todos sendo esmagados sob o seu peso crescente. 

 

Tenha cuidado para não perder a empatia por aqueles de quem você discorda. Tenha cuidado para não desumanizar os outros, pois fazer isso desumaniza você.

 

Não perca o contato com as suas partes que você mais precisa: Sua compaixão. Sua humanidade. Seu cuidado.

Via LGBTQ Nation // What is gay math?

 

Via GBF / Dhammachari Danadasa

 

Via [GBF] Opening the Heart to Joy & Sorrow - with Danadasa

 A new dharma talk has been added to our website and podcast:

"Opening the Heart to Joy & Sorrow" - with Dhammachari Danadasa

When we open our heart, we open it to all experiences: our greatest joys and our deepest sorrows.

Danadasa shares an image that represents the meaning of Vadrasana - the "Diamond Throne," on which the Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment under the bodhi tree at Bodhgaya, India. Not just a literal place, the Vadrasana also resides within each of us, as a place that we can come to in order to experience awakening.

Danadasa shares that we must move beyond pursuing only the fruits of our meditative practice. It is only when we address those aspects that may distress us that we begin to recognize injustice, anger, grief and sorrow.

Danadasa e compares the wisdom that results from striving upward with that which arises from below. Striving upward does work, but then we have no roots. We must become open to just receiving without trying to achieve something. This is what happens when we learn from experiences that distress us; it gives rise to emotional resilience.

Listen to the full talk here: https://gaybuddhist.org/.../opening-the-heart-to-joy.../

Via Listen to this week’s podcasts from the Be Here Now Network

 

Thank you for listening to our podcasts every week! We truly appreciate your support. Here are the episodes that went out this week. Listen now to our most recent episodes! View this email in your web browser. Raghu Markus – Mindrolling – Ep. 513 – Practicing Paramitas with Tenzin Palmo October 20, 2023 “During our daily life, we have so much opportunity to practice. To practice being generous, to practice being patient in the face of other... Listen Now

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

 

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RIGHT EFFORT Developing Unarisen 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 healthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to healthy states. (MN 19) Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to develop the arising of unarisen healthy mental states. One develops the unarisen awakening factor of equanimity. (MN 141)

Reflection We all have the capacity for generosity, kindness, and wisdom. Some would even say these are more fundamental to our nature than their harmful opposites: greed, hatred, and delusion. All these mental and emotional traits remain dormant until one or another of them is roused into becoming an active mental or emotional state. Instead of waiting passively to see what emerges, take the lead and call up the good stuff. Daily Practice Take a few moments from time to time to “stir up energy” and develop one or more of the healthy states that lie sleeping as healthy traits in your unconscious mind. Make them conscious by deliberately invoking generosity or kindness or equanimity, and see how you can induce these states more or less at will. It is a healthy skill to learn. Arousing equanimity is particularly useful in situations where you are challenged. Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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© 2023 Tricycle Foundation 89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003

Via Daily Dharma: Each Moment is Enough

Each Moment is Enough

A wonderful result of letting go is to experience each moment as being enough, just as it is. It allows us to be present for our experience here and now with such clarity and freedom that this very moment stands out as something profound.  Gil Fronsdal, “What We Gain When We Learn to Let Go” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via FB //

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

― Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac

March 12, 1922 - October 21, 1969

 

Via White Crane Institute //

 

---

Faygele BenMiriam

1944 -

FAYGELE BENMIRIAM, was born on this day (d:2000) . A Seattle civil-service worker who made news in 1972 when he lost his job because he was gay, but who in 1978 convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the firing, wore his beliefs proudly. An ardent crusader for gay, racial and religious rights, he organized national men's meetings and took part in the 1987 Lesbian and Gay March on Washington, D.C.

He helped found Seattle's Gay Community Social Services, which opened the Gay Community Center and produced the first gay country-music album, "Lavender Country."

In 1971, with then-partner Paul Barwick, he was part of the first King County couple to apply for - and be denied - a license to marry someone of the same sex.

"Faygele never looked at things from a standardized viewpoint," said friend Duane West, who in the 1970s marched with benMiriam at an anti-gay-harassment rally at the home of Seattle police Chief George Tielsch. "From the early days he and others did a lot of work, and now police march in gay-pride parades."

Born John Singer in New York, Mr. benMiriam in 1973 changed his first name to Faygele — Yiddish for "little bird" and "gay person." He changed his surname to benMiriam — "son of Miriam."

Even in childhood he was an activist. He refused to pray with the rest of his class at public school in the 1950s. He attended several colleges, served as a Vista volunteer for civil-rights causes in the mid-1960s, applied for conscientious-objector status and served as an Army medic in Germany.

In 1970 he earned a liberal arts degree at City College of New York. He worked in a San Francisco bank before moving to Seattle. He got a job as a clerk-typist with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1971, openly declaring his homosexuality. He got excellent work reviews but wore capes and dresses to work and was fired a year later. The American Civil Liberties Union took his case and they pursued it up to the Supreme Court.

The high court vacated his firing and ordered the Civil Rights Commission to reconsider in light of new federal civil-service regulations of 1975. Those regulations require that people not be disqualified from federal employment solely on the basis of sexual preference.

Mr. benMiriam got back pay but chose to work for the U.S. Department of Labor, from which he retired in 1995. He served on the National Board of the New Jewish Agenda, worked with the International Jewish Peace Union and was active in Kadima of Seattle. He loved baking and knitting gifts for others.

Faygele benMiriam died of lung cancer.

|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8| 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 |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|

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