Revoked

Monday, March 11, 2024

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

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 perfects their ethical behavior by abandoning the taking of life, dwelling without taking life, with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, and with compassion for all living beings. (DN 2)

Reflection

The first and perhaps most important of the basic ethical precepts is committing yourself to the practice of harmlessness. This means not only no deliberate killing but also refraining from any kind of assault against living beings. The phrase used above literally means “laying down the stick” and broadly speaking is construed as not only abandoning any overt acts of violence but also softening the heart internally with kindness and compassion.

Daily Practice

How can you bring more harmlessness to your daily life? It is an emotional attitude more than anything else. It involves seeing things through the eyes of other beings and recognizing that they do not want and do not deserve to be assaulted. Begin by brushing insects away rather than killing them, slowing down to avoid animals on the road, and in every way increasing your sensitivity to the inherent value of life.

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: A Recipe for Freedom

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A Recipe for Freedom

Freedom takes work. It takes prayer. It takes connecting to the unseen. It takes devotion and trust in the sacred or the divine. But if we can do that, then we will get free.

Lama Rod Owens, “The New Saints”

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A Lie That Is Also True: Birth, Death, and Motherhood in ‘The Boy and the Heron’
By Olivia Q. Pintair

How lessons from the Mata Sutta show up in the latest film from Studio Ghibli.

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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 devoid of aversion, one is aware "the mind is devoid of aversion" … One is just aware, just mindful: "There is mind." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Mindfulness can be established and sustained by focusing on the quality of consciousness itself. Consciousness is colored in every moment by subtle or obvious emotional tones, in particular by various forms of greed, hatred, and delusion. These states are toxic, but the mind is often free of them for fleeting moments. Here we are invited to notice when the mind is free from hatred in its many forms.

Daily Practice

Aversion is a quality of mind that comes and goes. Sometimes we are annoyed at something, and sometimes we are not. Sometimes we hate something and wish it would go away, and sometimes we do not. This is a practice of noticing the flickering moods of the mind, of becoming aware of the emotional strands that arise in the mind and then vanish. In particular, notice when your mind is free of any trace of aversion.

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)

When one sees oneself purified of all these unhealthy states and thus liberated from them, gladness is born. When one is glad, joy is born; in one who is joyful, the body becomes tranquil; one whose body is tranquil feels pleasure; in one who feels pleasure, the mind becomes concentrated. (MN 40)

Reflection

Pleasure is as natural and inevitable a part of human experience as pain, and like pain it is not to be feared or avoided. The challenge is to not be carried away by either, and to abide with both with equanimity. The unhealthy pursuit of pleasure can lead to all sorts of problems, but there are some cases, like this one, when pleasure is an ally. There is a healthy pleasure that comes simply from the experience of a tranquil body.

Daily Practice

Pleasure can be a gateway leading from tranquility to concentration. Allow yourself to feel how pleasant it is to be calm. Temporarily free from the rush of restlessness, and not, for the moment, driven by all kinds of pressures to do and accomplish things, take some time to allow yourself to fully feel the deep pleasure of a calm and tranquil moment. This is the pleasure of being, not doing.

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

Via Daily Dharma: Turn Towards Dukkha

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Turn Towards Dukkha

We can easily come to believe that dukkha is a sign of our failure or unworthiness. However, if we can learn to find the confidence to turn toward dukkha, many of the agitations in our life will calm.

Christina Feldman and Chris Cullen, “An Appropriate Response”

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Lighten Up
By Bhikkhu Santi

According to Bhikkhu Santi, a New York City-based Thai Forest monk, meditation is only as hard as we make it. We don’t need to suffer more in our attempts to liberate ourselves from suffering. In fact, a little levity might get us a lot further in our practice.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - March 10, 2024 💌

As you quiet your mind just a little bit, you get so that you’re not automatically reacting to everything. You become what’s called responsive rather than reactive. In other words, something happens and there’s a moment when it’s just happening, you’re just with it. As your awareness expands to include more than your separate self, it’s as if you’re part of the gestalt of it all, and you experience the totality of it. And then, out of that quietness comes an act that is appropriate to that moment.

- Ram Dass

From Ram Dass Here & Now Podcast - Ep. 246 - How to Be Responsive, Not Reactive

Via White Crane Institute // Germany's PARAGRAPH 175 and THE GERMAN SYNODAL ASSEMBLY ON THE REFORM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

1994 -

On this date Germany's PARAGRAPH 175 was finally revoked. Originally adopted in 1871, Paragraph 175 was a provision of the German Criminal Code that made homosexual acts between males a crime. The statute was amended several times. The Nazis broadened the law in 1935 and increased §175 StGB prosecutions by an order of magnitude; thousands died in concentration camps, regardless of guilt or innocence. East Germany reverted to the old version of the law in 1950, limited its scope to sex with youths under 18 in 1968, and abolished it entirely in 1988. West Germany retained the Nazi-era statute until 1969, when it was limited to "qualified cases"; it was further attenuated in 1973 and finally revoked entirely in 1994 after German reunification.

2023 -

THE GERMAN SYNODAL ASSEMBLY ON THE REFORM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH voted on this date in Frankfurt, Germany, to bless same-sex couples, with 176 of the 202 assembly members voting for the proposal, including two-thirds of the bishops in attendance.

According to a report from the newspaper Donaukurier, same-sex blessings have already been going on in the German church — but were in a canonical grey area and took place in private, rather than openly in churches.

The move stands in direct contradiction to the Vatican, which has explicitly declared that “the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex.”

The Vatican argued that while God and the Church can bless individuals, including homosexuals, it cannot bless sin, including sexual activity that takes place outside of a valid marriage.

The issue of same-sex couple blessings is one of the main demands from the German Synodal Path, a series of conferences of the Catholic Church in Germany since 2019 that have been looking to greatly transform the Church.

The Synodal Way has proposed radical reforms, such as ordaining priestesses, declaring homosexual acts not to be sinful, and allowing all priests to be married.

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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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[GBF] "Jewels From Our Dark Places" with Laura Burges

How can our practice inform encounters with dark times, when we feel loss or face a turning point with trepidation?

Laura Burges shares that we can find "fountains of joy" even in going to the places that scare us. Our practice is not separate from the dark places - we can turn towards the darkness and examine it clearly and experience the "soft heart of sadness" in being alive.

She draws a parallel with the Greek myth of Persephone whose time spent annually in Hades results in the joy reflected in the return of Spring each year. In fact, those times that challenge us most can be a garden for developing empathy and compassion for others in the world when they suffer.