A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Malicious speech is
unhealthy. Refraining from malicious speech is healthy. (MN 9)
Abandoning malicious speech, one refrains from malicious speech. One
does not repeat there what one has heard here to the detriment of these,
or repeat here what one has heard there to the detriment of those. One
unites those who are divided, is a promoter of friendships, and speaks
words that promote concord. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak
maliciously, but I shall abstain from malicious speech.” (MN 8)
Disputes occur when a person is contemptuous and domineering. Such a
person dwells disrespectful and undeferential towards others, causing
harm and unhappiness for many. If you see any such root of a dispute
either in yourselves or externally, you should strive to abandon it. And
if you do not see any such root of dispute either in yourselves or
externally, you should practice in such a way that it does not erupt in
the future. (MN 104)
Reflection
You may have
noticed that some people are more argumentative than others. There are
certain character traits that account for this, and being contemptuous
and domineering is certainly among them. The fact is that human
conflicts are rooted in human qualities of mind, and these need to be
addressed if any kind of transformation is to happen. The place to begin
this process is in yourself. Do you see any roots of dispute in
yourself?
Daily Practice
One of the ways
to practice refraining from malicious speech is to clear your mind of
the mental and emotional traits that give rise to it. Do you ever catch
yourself being contemptuous or domineering? Do you ever dwell
disrespectful and undeferential towards others? This is the place to
start: “Others might tolerate these qualities in themselves, but I shall
not.” Honest self-reflection is a challenging but rewarding practice.
Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Verbal Action One week from today: Refraining from Harsh Speech
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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 compassion, for when you develop meditation on compassion,
any cruelty will be abandoned. (MN 62)
Compassion succeeds when it makes cruelty subside. (Vm 9.94)
Reflection
When
lovingkindness comes in contact with witnessing the suffering of others,
it transforms into compassion. Compassion and cruelty are considered
opposite mental states and cannot coexist in the same mind moment: when
one is present, the other is absent. This is why it is so important to
cultivate compassion as an intentional act, both to make it grow in its
own right and to block out all cruelty.
Daily Practice
Allow yourself
to be open to the fact that people are suffering. Cultivate the emotion
of compassion and allow it to grow. You are training your mind to
develop in a particular direction, much like guiding the growth of a
plant or a vine. As the process unfolds, the tendency toward compassion
will get stronger. As your character gradually evolves in this healthy
direction, the tendency—even the ability—to feel cruelty will disappear.
Tomorrow: Refraining from Malicious Speech One week from today: Cultivating Appreciative Joy
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When
we stop resisting sadness—trying to sweeten it with phone calls,
distractions, or pleasures—and just let ourselves feel it in all its
heaviness, darkness, and pain, it disappears by itself, and even
transforms into delight.
David Edwards, “Meditation in an Age of Cataclysms”
RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering
What is the origin of
suffering? It is craving, which brings renewal of being, is accompanied
by delight and lust, and delights in this and that—that is, craving for
sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for non-being. (MN 9)
When one does not know and see mental objects as they actually are, then
one is attached to thoughts. When one is attached, one becomes
infatuated, and one’s craving increases. One’s bodily and mental
troubles increase, and one experiences bodily and mental suffering. (MN
149)
Reflection
Of the six
kinds of objects that make up our experience, mental objects are the
most challenging to work with. The feeling tones that arise with sensory
objects give rise to craving, as we delight in the pleasure and are
averse to the pain, but thoughts come with the added challenge of rich
content. We can’t help but get drawn into the story and entangled in the
plot, at which point our mental troubles usually increase.
Daily Practice
Practice
regarding the mental objects coursing through your mind as thoughts and
thoughts only. See if you can focus on their arising and passing away as
a series of events occurring in the mind, without getting drawn into
the content of the thoughts. Never mind, in other words, what the
thought is about, but regard it simply as a passing mental phenomenon to
be treated much like the passing physical sensations of the body.
Tomorrow: Cultivating Compassion One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
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Everyone
is given twenty-four hours a day, but we all use it differently. Living
a more awakened life depends on when and where we choose to practice.
Are we going to squeeze practice into part of the day, or build the
practice so it becomes our lives?