Sunday, October 29, 2023

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 awakening factor of equanimity is internally present, one is aware: “Equanimity is present for me.” When equanimity is not present, one is aware: “Equanimity is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen equanimity occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen awakening factor of equanimity 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
You will know equanimity is internally present when you feel your mind is in balance, tipping neither toward what is pleasant nor away from what is unpleasant. Normally the mind is lurching up and down, like a seesaw pushed and pulled by our desires. But it is possible to experience pleasure without being pulled into it and to experience pain without pushing it away. When the mind is attentive but not tilted, this is equanimity. 
Daily Practice
Become familiar with what equanimity feels like internally. Start with something simple, like a slight pain in your knee when you are sitting in meditation, and simply be aware of it as a sensation rather than as something to resist, resent, or wish away. Do the same with any slightly pleasant sensation, such as in parts of your body that feel comfortable when you sit. Learn to simply observe these sensations as phenomena, with equanimity.
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 as a result of equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4)
Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna


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Questions?
 Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
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Saturday, October 28, 2023

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Via Be Here Now Network //

 

Be Here Now Network Home Page
A Network of Mindfulness & Spirituality Podcasts
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Thank you for listening to our podcasts every week! We truly appreciate your support. Here are the episodes that went out this week.

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Raghu Markus – Mindrolling – Ep. 514 – The Four Yugas with David Silver
October 27, 2023
“If you couple the Yugas with the dynamic of reincarnation, you can see redemption for the chains from this incarnation, this sheath, to another...

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 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 maintain arisen healthy mental states. One maintains the arisen awakening factor of equanimity. (MN 141)
Reflection
The mind is constantly changing, and every moment is different from every other. Still, there are some mental and emotional states that are good for us and we want to sustain, and others we are better off abandoning. We cannot always rely on the healthy states to naturally persist once they occur, and it is a skillful use of effort to work to maintain them. Doing so will incline the mind steadily in the direction of greater health. 
Daily Practice
When you find yourself feeling generous, look for ways to maintain that attitude of generosity by additional thoughts and acts of generosity. When you notice kindness or compassion arising in your experience, recognize it as healthy and see how you can nurture the emotion so it lingers in your mind a bit longer. At every opportunity, find ways to encourage your best qualities to continue once they have arisen.
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.
Tricycle is a nonprofit and relies on your support to keep its wheels turning.
© 2023 Tricycle Foundation
89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003

Via Daily Dharma: The Practitioner’s Koan

Respond to Life with Wisdom

Our task as practitioners is to bring the teachings to life in a personal way. No one can tell us how to do it. This is the practitioner’s koan—the open question.

Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, “The Power of an Open Question”


CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

 

Via LGBTQ Nation //

 

Orlando Pride

200,000 people showed up for Orlando Pride in defiant middle finger to Ron DeSantis

The last few months haven't been kind to the Florida governor.

Not only is his presidential campaign tanking, drag queens are humiliating him in court and even Republicans are starting to criticize his obsession with LGBTQ+ people.
 
Read More

Via Tricycle // Why Do We Practice Buddhism?

 

Support Tricycle with a donation »
October 28, 2023

Why Do We Practice Buddhism?
 
Tricycle’s Winter 2023 issue is here! From discussions of Buddhist modernism to AI translations of Tibetan texts to teachings on gratitude, impermanence, buddhanature, and more, our new issue is sure to captivate you from cover to cover. Here’s what you’ll find between the pages: 

In his Letter from the EditorTricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, tracks down the origin of “Buddhist modernism,” reflecting on when it first appeared in Tricycle’s pages. The value of highlighting scholarly perspectives of Buddhist history, says Shaheen, lies in its ability to help us understand the Buddhist traditions, revealing “otherwise hidden assumptions, sectarian attachments, and personal biases. And isn’t shedding light on such blind spots a big part of why we practice Buddhism in the first place?”

Also in the new issue, actor Michael Imperioli discusses how his search for satisfaction led him down the Buddhist path in “No Mud, No Lotus.” Ken McLeod’s essay “A Game Changer for Classical Tibetan Translation?” tests his translating skills against ChatGPT and outlines the benefits and concerns of AI. In “Finding the Words,” beloved Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein sat down with Amy Gross to talk about his newfound love of poetry—how he started, what inspires him, and what poetry has to offer. And in his article “Why Should I Appreciate Life?” author Dale S. Wright draws comparisons between Zen master Taizan Maezumi Roshi and German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, emphasizing what each had to say about loving life—both the good and the bad.

Enjoy these and other features in the new issue, now available online and in print!
Read the new issue now »
Also this week: 
  • November’s Film Club pick is available now! Learn about Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche’s four-and-a-half-year wandering retreat in the film Wandering…But Not Lost directed by Paul MacGowan.
  • Our Pilgrimage to Ladakh in June 2024 is sold out, so we added a second tripJoin us on a trip to Ladakh, India from May 15-27 and explore the “Land of High Passes” alongside the Tibetan plateau.
  • Learn about the Buddhist basics—including the many traditions, practices, and teachings—on our free online learning platform, Buddhism for Beginners.
  • A new online course with Sharon Salzberg begins on November 13, 2023! Real Life will offer a path from contraction to connection, helping you to reach your full potential. 

Via White Crane Institute // THE EQUAL CREDIT OPPORTUNITY ACT (ECOA)

 

Noteworthy
1974 -

THE EQUAL CREDIT OPPORTUNITY ACT (ECOA) is a United States law (codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1691 et seq.), enacted October 1974, that makes it unlawful for any creditor to discriminate against any applicant, with respect to any aspect of a credit transaction, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age (provided the applicant has the capacity to contract); the applicant's use of a public assistance program to receive all or part of their income; or the applicant's previous good-faith exercise of any right under the Consumer Credit Protection Act.

Technically, women won the right to open a bank account in the 1960s, but many banks still refused to let women do so without a signature from their husbands. This meant men still held control over women’s access to banking services, and unmarried women were often refused service by financial institutions.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibited financial institutions from discriminating against applicants based on their sex, age, marital status, religion, race or national origin. Because of the act’s passage, women could finally open bank accounts independently.

The law applies to any person who, in the ordinary course of business, regularly participates in a credit decision, including banks. retailers, bankcard companies, finance companies, and credit unions.

The part of the law that defines its authority and scope is known as Regulation B, that appears in Title 12 part 1002's official identifier: 12 C.F.R. § 1002.1(b) (2017). Failure to comply with Regulation B can subject a financial institution to civil liability for actual and punitive damages in individual or class actions. Liability for punitive damages can be as much as $10,000 in individual actions and the lesser of $500,000 or 1% of the creditor's net worth in class actions.

Before the enactment of the law, lenders and the federal government frequently and explicitly discriminated against female loan applicants and held female applicants to different standards from male applicants. A large coalition of women's and civil rights groups pressured the government to pass the ECOA (and the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974) to prohibit such discrimination.

I hope it gives all of us pause to understand this is a mere 50 years ago. Something that occurred within the lifetimes of many of us. And along with other rights most of us take for granted, are under siege. VOTE VOTE VOTE (another right women only achieved 100 years ago.) 


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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 White Crane Institute // Evelyn Waugh

 


Evelyn Waugh
1903 -

EVELYN WAUGH British poet and novelist, born (d: 1966); The original "boy named Sue", Waugh was an English writer, best known for such satirical and darkly humorous novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and The Loved One, as well as for broader and more personal works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honor trilogy, that are influenced by his own experiences and his conservative and Catholic viewpoints.

Many of Waugh's novels depict British aristocracy and high society, which he satirizes but to which, paradoxically, he was also strongly attracted. In addition, he wrote short stories, three biographies, and the first volume of an unfinished autobiography. His  travel writings and his extensive diaries and correspondence have also been published.

In 1944, American literary critic Edmund Wilson pronounced Waugh "the only first-rate comic genius that has appeared in English since Bernard Shaw," while Time magazine declared that he had "developed a wickedly hilarious yet fundamentally religious assault on a century that, in his opinion, had ripped up the nourishing taproot of tradition and let wither all the dear things of the world." Waugh's works were very successful with the reading public and he was widely admired by critics as a humorist and prose stylist.

In his notes for an unpublished review of Brideshead Revisited, George Orwell declared that Waugh was "about as good a novelist as one can be while holding untenable opinions." The American conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr. found in Waugh "the greatest English novelist of the century," while his liberal counterpart Gore Vidal called him "our time's first satirist."

After gallantly protecting T. S. Eliot from “the specious assumption that he was homosexual,” T.S. Matthews in Great Tom, suddenly became viciously ungallant: “It is peppery, glaring little men like Evelyn Waugh who are sexually suspect – as his diaries bear witness.”

Aside from the psychologically interesting opposition of “great” Tom and “little” Evelyn, it’s perfectly clear that the former editor of Time magazine has no particularly liking for either homosexuality or Evelyn Waugh. The very word “suspect” is suspect. Many people disliked Waugh personally. He could be unkind, ungenerous and ornery. But he was one of the greatest prose stylists of the 20th century, if not the greatest, and the idea of using the word “little” on a giant such as he is at best, odd.

Indeed, his diaries do clearly reveal him as a Gay man. But then so do his novels, particularly Brideshead Revisited, in which the friendship of Charles and Sebastian, despite the limitations of what he was allowed to write in the early 1940s, is magnificently drawn.

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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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