Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: 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) Having heard the Dhamma and trusting the Buddha, one undertakes a commitment to perfect their ethical behavior. (DN 2)

Reflection The first step along the path of transformation and healing laid out by the Buddha is not meditation but the cultivation of improved ethical behavior. The practice is to purify your mind of some of the most harmful mental and emotional toxins that obstruct the ability to quiet the mind. This can only be done by making a commitment to a healthier course of action and will in itself greatly contribute to the cessation of suffering.  Daily Practice Make a commitment to improving or even perfecting your ethical behavior as a living and active practice. Choose to work toward being a better person, toward treating others with greater care and respect, and toward being truthful and trustworthy. Ethical behavior is not only the result of meditation and wisdom but also the cause of them. As wisdom grows it becomes easier to behave ethically, but you need to begin such behavior on day one. 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 White Crane Institute \\ Harry Hay and the American Labor Movement

 

Today's Gay Wisdom

2018 -

TODAY'S GAY WISDOM

 Harry Hay and the American Labor Movement

In 1934, Harry Hay attended the legendary Longshoreman's Strike in San Francisco, known as the San Francisco General Strike, to perform agit-prop theatre with his lover, actor Will Geer. During one of their performances, bullets rang out as the National Guard opened fire on the workers. Several workers were killed in that melee, but more would be killed before the government's crackdown on the strike ended. The strike culminated with a funeral march on Market Street, San Francisco's main street, which was the largest public demonstration to take place in its day.

Harry became active in the Communist Party the previous year, drawn to it through his relationship with actor Will Geer. (Geer would go on to entertain millions weekly as Grandpa Walton on the television series The Waltons.) Like many artists and intellectuals of the time, Harry & Geer were drawn to the Communist Party because they witnessed the economic devastation of America's Great Depression that began in 1929. Millions were out of work, starving and homeless, and economic recovery would not occur until America entered the Second World War in 1941.

Union organizing was often brutally suppressed during this the first half of the twentieth century, in fact, some were outlawed. Harry's Communist Party Section Organizer, Miriam Sherman "saw countless numbers of my friends beaten and clubbed on picket lines," and thought she would die on the barricades. But such fears did not stop countless organizers like Harry who went out to fight for those who had no rights. According to Frank Pestana, a labor organizer and lawyer from the period, "The objectives of the Communist Party were objectives that have been realized today and are part of what we live with. They were fighting for workmen's comp, job security, medical care, all the things that we know and have now. Social security was a dream that they were pushing."

In 1935 Harry and Geer went to the San Joaquin Valley to organize migratory workers. Like the United Farm Workers, headed by Caesar Chavez three decades later, they fought for fair wages, decent housing conditions, health care and education for children. Harry also became involved with the Hollywood Film and Photo League. Over the course of the next three years Harry worked on a variety of progressive causes including EPIC, Upton Sinclair's End Poverty in California campaign, Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and Workers Alliance of America.

In 1938 Harry met his wife, Anita Platsky, on the picket lines of a dockworkers strike. As tireless activists, they documented the poor housing conditions in Los Angeles for the Communist Party newspaper People's World. Through the Second World War, Harry remained active in many political causes including the Theater Arts Committee for Peace and Democracy, Russian War Relief, and the New Theater League.

Harry continued his labor activism until his death in 2002, sometimes working with and speaking to gay and lesbian labor groups. In 2001 he was awarded a lifetime membership in the Industrial Workers of the World.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and 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 beset by aversion, one is aware "the mind is beset by aversion". . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is mind." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection As mental factors flow into consciousness, they color and distort the clarity with which we see what is actually going on, either in the world or in our own minds. Sometimes the mind is "beset by aversion" —that is, we feel annoyance at or distaste for some object of experience. Resenting this, or wishing it were not so, does no good and can even make aversion worse. With mindfulness practice, one simply abides without clinging and lets the experience come and go.  Daily Practice The practice of mindfulness is simply to be aware of what is happening in the moment. This includes being aware of both healthy and unhealthy states of mind, and here we are being encouraged to know when the mind has been impacted by the emotional state of aversion, the not liking and not wanting of something. The practice here is to simply note the aversion without clinging to it. Aversion to the aversion is a form of clinging. 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) Reflection In some contexts the words "joy" and "equanimity" can seem to exclude one another: it is either one or the other. Here they are combined in the third phase of absorption, where the strong sensory pleasure of the previous two jhānas fades away, to be replaced by equanimity. Then this equanimity itself is subtly pleasurable but not in the same sense as before. The absence of pleasure is itself pleasurable, so to speak. Daily Practice Again, never mind the formal levels of jhāna practice. That is something you can get into if you take up formal jhāna practice under proper conditions. But sitting in silence and solitude on a Sunday morning or afternoon, you can allow the mind and body to formlessly unwind and relax to such an extent that you taste the quality of equanimity, of being fully aware of all experience without wanting anything to be different than it is. Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and Abiding in 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: Present and Attentive

 

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Present and Attentive It is hard to be generous, disciplined, or patient if we are not fully present. If we are present and attentive, and our mind is flexible, we are more receptive to the environment around us. Judy Lief, “On the Contagious Power of Presence” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The Elephant in the Dharma Hall By John Peacock Author John Peacock discusses why for too many, Buddhist practice is a retreat into a quietism that ignores the pressing social and political realities of our time. Political discussion, in the author’s view, must find its way into the Dharma Hall and be made integral to our everyday practice. Read more » Resilience, Recovery, Repair An Event Series with May We Gather and Tricycle February 22, 2024 Sign up to join the final session in this series with May We Gather exploring the history of Asian American Buddhist resilience alongside racial karma with an expert lineup of community elders and leaders, acclaimed historians, archaeologists, educators, and spiritual teachers. Sign up » Follow Us Forward today's wisdom to a friend »