Thursday, February 22, 2024

Via Daily Dharma: Gratitude Transforms

 

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Gratitude Transforms

Gratitude for things to clean can sweeten the task, transforming a chore into a joy-filled communion with beloved items that support your life and enliven your home.

Paula Arai, “Healing Glistens on Carefully Washed Windows”


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Enlightenment Is Broadway
By Matthias Esho Birk
Matthias Esho Birk explores what it means to be in love with Zen, how each and every moment is an opportunity to awaken, and stripping away the ritual to find Zen at the checkout line.
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Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - February 21, 2024 💌

 

Look at your relationships, and notice at which point you figure that you have too much to lose to let go into The One. I have sat in relationships and watched with horror that what I wanted I couldn’t have. Because what I wanted was getting in the way of it. My desires with regard to the relationship were getting in the way of sharing awareness with another human being, which was going to be the ultimate intimacy. My yearning for intimacy was making me grab for intimacy relationally. And it was destroying the exact thing I wanted.

- Ram Dass -

  Excerpt from Ram Dass Here & Now – Ep. 134 – Relationships and Living Impeccably

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from False Speech

 



RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from False Speech
False speech is unhealthy. Refraining from false speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning false speech, one dwells refraining from false speech, a truth-speaker, one to be relied on, trustworthy, dependable, not a deceiver of the world. One does not in full awareness speak falsehood for one’s own ends, or for another’s ends, or for some trifling worldly end. (DN 1) One practices thus: "Others may speak falsely, but I shall abstain from false speech." (MN 8)

Such speech as you know to be true and correct but unbeneficial, and which is welcome and agreeable to others—do not utter such speech. (MN 58)
Reflection
Speaking truthfully is a habit that can be learned, even if we have previously learned the habit of speaking untruthfully. It is a matter of bringing full awareness to your speech and its consequences. Often there may appear to be a short-term benefit from speaking falsely, but the Buddha is pointing out the long-term harm that false speech does to your character. In the long run the lack of integrity is unhealthy.

Daily Practice
This passage is urging us to speak only when what we say is likely to have a beneficial effect on another person or on the situation at hand. It is not enough to say things that are agreeable to others, even if they are true. Flattery, for example, might have an unbeneficial effect on someone by inflating their sense of themselves. Practice speaking only those words that are going to be helpful.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Bodily Action
One week from today: Refraining from Malicious Speech

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: Meet Anger with Awakened Compassion

 

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Meet Anger with Awakened Compassion

Turn to that place in you that knows you are angry. What knows you are angry is itself not angry. Connect with that part of you and let the spirit of awakened compassion come into you.

Ken McLeod, “Anger”


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On Love, Loss, and Feeling at Home in the World
Interview with Lorrie Moore by Ann Tashi Slater
In her latest novel, ‘I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home,’ American writer, critic, and essayist Lorrie Moore takes a meditative look at love and death, passion and grief, and the bardo states that exist there within. 
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Writing as a Spiritual Practice
An Online Course with Sallie Tisdale
Cultivate an attitude of open heartedness, curiosity, wonder, and fearlessness through writing with the help of author and Zen teacher Sallie Tisdale.
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Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Lovingkindness

 


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RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Lovingkindness
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 lovingkindness, for when you develop meditation on lovingkindness, all ill will will be abandoned. (MN 62) 

The manifestation of lovingkindness is the removal of annoyance. (Vm 9.93)
Reflection
Only one experience occurs at a time. Each one replaces the one before it and is itself replaced by the next. This happens in rapid succession as the stream of consciousness flows on. It feels like a continuous event, much as the still images displayed rapidly in a movie theater merge into a flowing story, but in fact, each mind moment is organized around a single object, with a single emotional response.

Daily Practice
This means that when you are feeling kindly or benevolent toward a particular person or in a particular situation, you cannot at the same time feel ill will or anger or annoyance. The beauty of lovingkindness is that it replaces negative emotions in the mind. Next time you feel even slightly annoyed by someone or something, try conjuring up an attitude of kindness toward something and watch the annoyance disappear.

Tomorrow: Refraining from False Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Compassion

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.

© 2024 Tricycle Foundation
89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003