Sunday, June 9, 2024

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 investigation-of-states awakening factor is internally present, one is aware: “Investigation of states is present for me.” When investigation of states is not present, one is aware: “Investigation of states is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen investigation of states occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen investigation-of-states awakening factor 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
The second of the seven factors of awakening is investigation of states. This is a kind of natural curiosity and interest that emerges when you become mindful of something. The heightened awareness leads to an increased inclination to investigate the nature of what is seen. It is like looking at something under a microscope or through a telescope—once it has been illuminated, you can begin the process of examining it carefully.

Daily Practice
Taking a keen interest in your own experience is not something that happens all the time but arises and falls away under various conditions, just like every other mental factor. It is something you can practice doing. It is a matter of amplifying your attention when it comes to bear on an object and then taking the awareness a step further, looking more closely or listening more carefully with open curiosity: What is this?        


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 due to equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4)

One practices: "I shall breathe in, tranquilizing the bodily formation"; one practices: "I shall breathe out, tranquilizing the bodily formation." This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (SN 54.8)

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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Via White Crane Institute \\ ALAIN LEROY LOCKE

 

 
White Crane Institute Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989
 

This Day in Gay History

June 09

Died
Alain Locke
1954 -

ALAIN LEROY LOCKE died on this date (b: 1885); Locke was an American, writer, educator, and patron of the arts, distinguished as the first African-American Rhodes Scholar in 1907.  Locke is widely cited as the philosophical architect —the acknowledged "Dean"— of the Harlem Renaissance. On March 19, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed: "We're going to let our children know that the only philosophers that lived were not Plato and Aristotle, but W.E.B. DuBois and Alain Locke came through the universe."

Alain Locke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 13, 1885  to Pliny Ishmael Locke and Mary Hawkins Locke. He was the only child of a well-to-do family with significant pedigree. His mother Mary, who was a teacher, and with whom he lived until her death, incited in him his passion for education and literature. In 1902, he graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia, second in his class. He also attended Philadelphia School of Pedagogy.

Locke returned to Harvard in 1916 to work on his doctoral dissertation, The Problem of Classification in the Theory of Value. In his thesis, he discusses the causes of opinions and social biases, and that these are not objectively true or false, and therefore not universal. Locke received his PhD in philosophy in 1918.

Locke returned to Howard University as the chair of the department of philosophy. During this period, he began teaching the first classes on race relations, leading to his dismissal in 1925. After being reinstated in 1928, Locke remained at Howard until his retirement in 1953. Locke Hall, on the Howard campus, is named after him.

In 1907, Locke graduated from Harvard University with degrees in English and philosophy, and was honored as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and recipient of the prestigious Bowdoin Prize. After graduation, he was the first African-American selected as a Rhodes Scholar (and the last to be selected until 1960). At that time, Rhodes selectors did not meet candidates in person, but there is evidence that at least some selectors knew he was African-American. 

On arriving at Oxford, Locke was denied admission to several colleges, and several Rhodes Scholars from the American South refused to live in the same college or attend events with Locke. He was finally admitted to Hertford College, where he studied literature, philosophy, Greek, and Latin, from 1907–1910. In 1910, he attended the University of Berlin, where he studied philosophy.

Locke promoted African-American artists, writers, and musicians, encouraging them to look to Africa as an inspiration for their works. He encouraged them to depict African and African-American subjects, and to draw on their history for subject material.

He was the guest editor of the March 1925 issue of the periodical Survey Graphic titled "Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro", a special on Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance, which helped educate white readers about its flourishing culture. In December of that year, he expanded the issue into  The New Negro, a collection of writings by African Americans, which would become one of his best known works. A landmark in black literature (later acclaimed as the "first national book" of African America), it was an instant success. Locke contributed five essays: the "Foreword", "The New Negro", "Negro Youth Speaks", "The Negro Spirituals", and "The Legacy of Ancestral Arts".

Locke was Gay, and encouraged and supported other Gay African-Americans who were part of the Harlem Renaissance. However, he was not fully public in his orientation and referred to it as his point of "vulnerable/invulnerability", taken to mean an area of risk and strength in his view.

Locke died at Mount Sinai Hospital, of heart disease. Howard University officials initially considered having Locke's ashes buried in a niche at Locke Hall on the Howard campus, similar to the way that Langston Hughes' ashes were interred at the  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City in 1991. But Kurt Schmoke, the university's legal counsel, was concerned about setting a precedent that might lead to other burials at the university. After an investigation revealed no legal problems to the plan, university officials decided the remains should be buried off-site. At first, thought was given to burying Locke beside his mother, Mary Hawkins Locke. But Howard officials quickly discovered a problem: She had been interred at Columbian Harmony Cemetery in Washington, D.C., but that cemetery closed in 1959 and her remains transferred to National Harmony Memorial Park—which failed to keep track of them. (She was buried in a mass grave along with 37,000 other unclaimed remains from Columbian Harmony.)

Howard University eventually decided to bury Alain Locke's remains at historic Congressional Cemetery, and African American Rhodes Scholars raised $8,000 to purchase a burial plot there. Locke was interred at Congressional Cemetery on September 13, 2014. His tombstone reads:

1885–1954  - Harlem Renaissance -  Exponent of Cultural Pluralism

On the back of the headstone is a nine-pointed Baha'i star (representing Locke's religious beliefs); a Zimbabwe Bird, emblem of the nation Locke adopted as a Rhodes Scholar; a lambda, symbol of the Gay Rights movement; and the logo of Phi Beta Sigma, the fraternity Locke joined. In the center of these four symbols is an Art Deco representation of an African woman's face set against the rays of the sun. This image is a simplified version of the bookplate that Harlem Renaissance painter Aaron Douglas designed for Locke. Below the bookplate image are the words "Teneo te, Africa" ("I hold you, my Africa")

A new biography of Locke by Jeffrey Stewart "The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke," was released in February 2018.

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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 Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - June 9, 2024 💌

 

You and I are the force for transformation in the world. We are the consciousness that will define the nature of the reality we are moving into.

- Ram Dass -

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Saturday, June 8, 2024

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 mindfulness awakening factor. (MN 141)
Reflection
One form that effort takes in Buddhist practice is the rousing of latent tendencies and dormant traits, encouraging them to rise into conscious awareness as active mental and emotional states. The more frequently you do this, the more likely these states are to become the natural inclination of your mind. And once aroused, healthy states such as mindfulness need to be reinforced and maintained by deliberate choice. 

Daily Practice
Throughout the day, remind yourself often to be mindful, to be consciously aware of what you are doing or feeling or thinking. And once you establish the presence of mindfulness, make a further effort to sustain it over time. Mindfulness, once established, needs to be reestablished moment after moment. Each moment is a new beginning and a new opportunity to bring clear awareness to all you experience.

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.



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Via Daily Dharma: The Courage to Rest

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The Courage to Rest 

The more we can rest in our vast, broken-open heart without flinching—and the more we can cherish the body we have no matter how limp or exhausted or disfigured—the more equipped we are to inhabit with courage the life with which we’ve been entrusted.

Teri Dillon, “Making Our Own Jewels”


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