Thursday, July 11, 2024

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 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)

When one knows covert speech to be true, correct, and beneficial, one may utter it, knowing the time to do so. (MN 139)
Reflection
There is nothing wrong with speaking privately and even secretly to someone as long as what is said is true and beneficial. There are times when discretion is entirely appropriate. The thing to guard against is resorting to covert speech as a way of hiding something that is not worthy of being spoken in the open. A good rule of thumb is to refrain from saying anything in private you would be ashamed of saying publicly.

Daily Practice
The restraint of false speech is important because what you say has an effect not only on other people but also on yourself. Pay attention to the quality of your mind when you speak covertly to someone and check to make sure that you are not drifting into states of mind that are harmful, such as ill will, hatred, or cruelty. You can learn to be intuitively aware of the quality of your emotions as you speak. 

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

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Tuesday, July 9, 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 upon 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 near enemy of loving kindness is attachment. (Vm 9.98)
Reflection
Attachment is called a near enemy of lovingkindness because it can seem like kindness while actually being very distinct from it. Think of the person who “loves” their partner so much that they must control their loved one and prevent them from having other friends. In popular culture attachment is often seen as a demonstration of lovingkindness, but in Buddhist thought the two are very different: one is healthy and the other not. 

Daily Practice
See if you can practice lovingkindness without attachment. This involves caring deeply for the well-being of another but on their own terms and not in ways that are bound up with your own agenda or sense of self. Remember the phrase found in the Metta Sutta: “May all beings be happy in themselves!” Attachment always includes some measure of self-interest, while true lovingkindness is entirely free of this.

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.



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

Via Daily Dharma: To Meditate Is to Unlearn

 


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To Meditate Is to Unlearn

If failure is a great unlearning, meditation is a profound act of failure.

Sarah Kokernot, “Failure as Liberation”


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Always Lie When Someone Asks If You Meditate
By Christopher Rivas
How a theater kid from Queens started meditating for a cute girl and hasn’t stopped since. 
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Via White Crane Institute // Havelock Ellis

 


 

Havelock Ellis
1939 -

HAVELOCK ELLIS, British physician, died (b. 1859); A British sexologist, physician, and social reformer, his Sexual Inversion, the first English medical text book on homosexuality, co-authored with John Addington Symonds, described the sexual relations of homosexual men and boys, something that Ellis did not consider to be a disease, immoral, or a crime.

The work assumes that same-sex love transcends age as well as gender taboos, as seven of the twenty-one examples are of inter-generational relationships. A bookseller was prosecuted in 1897 for stocking it. Although the term itself is attributed to Ellis, he writes in 1897, “‘Homosexual’ is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it.” Other psychologically important concepts developed by Ellis include auto-eroticism and narcissism, both of which were later taken up by Sigmund Freud. Alas, he was also a proponent of eugenics.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

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Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Monday, July 8, 2024

Via Daily Dharma: Freedom Is the Suchness


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Freedom Is the Suchness

There is no beginning. There is no end. No person can give you freedom. Freedom is the suchness of life; all gets swept away except for the deathless nature of tathata. This is enlightenment. This is true liberation.

Felicia Washington Sy, On ‘Down by the Riverside’


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Life is Barefoot
By Clark Strand
The winning poem from the Tricycle Haiku Challenge offers a 17-syllable commentary on the first noble truth. 
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