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.
However the seed is
planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing
good deeds; bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the
purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too bodily
action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61)
When you wish to do an action with the body, reflect upon that same
bodily action thus: “Is this action I wish to do with the body an
unhealthy bodily action with painful consequences and painful results?”
If, upon reflection, you know that it is, then do not do it. If you know
that it is not, then proceed. (MN 61)
Reflection
As embodied
beings, we are always performing some sort of action, even if that
action is remaining still. Buddhist teachings recognize that physical
actions begin with the mental intention to act and invite us to look
carefully at the quality of our intentions. It is often hard to discern
the intention before the action, and it feels as if the body is acting
“on its own.” But if you investigate your experience closely, it is
possible to see your intention.
Daily Practice
See if you can
catch that brief moment before any action when the intention to do the
action arises in the mind. You might try this when you decide to open
your eyes after a sitting, for example. Then extend this capability to
noticing the ethical quality of actions you perform in daily life,
reflecting on whether a forthcoming action is likely to cause harm in
some way. If you can catch it before you act and stop, that is good.
Tomorrow: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings One week from today: Reflecting upon Verbal Action
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel
Thay
often said that one Buddha is not enough: We need many buddhas. We can
all be buddhas through our listening, speaking, eating, and walking.
Through our thoughts, speech, and actions, we can be an instrument of
peace.
Patience, or khanti
in Pali, is the sixth of the Buddhist paramis, the virtues or qualities
needed for awakening. Together, the paramis, also known as the ten
perfections, are generosity, ethical conduct, renunciation, wisdom,
energy, patience, truthfulness, determination, lovingkindness, and
equanimity.
The Buddhist commentator Dhammapala (5th or 6th c. CE) wrote in A Treatise on the Paramis that acceptance is a key part of patience, whose function is endurance and cause is clear seeing. In The Way of the Bodhisattva,
8th-century Indian Buddhist sage Shantideva described patience as
innate, something we all possess, but something we must also
cultivate—starting with ourselves.
By accepting minor irritations, or big ones, instead of trying to fix
them, we can turn adversity into opportunities to develop more patience.
This extends to, or rather begins with, self-acceptance. Respecting,
forgiving, embracing, or simply acknowledging ourselves and where we’re
coming from at any given moment makes it easier for us to let go,
tolerate, and endure. Patience with ourselves, in other words, endows us
with patience for others. This patience will give us space to think
before acting or speaking, and time to return to a commitment of doing
no harm. It will make us more apt to investigate a painful emotion
instead of letting it consume us, or to appreciate a subtle joy. It will
foster compassion for others.
This week’s Three Teachings explores patience as an
essential quality on the Buddhist path, and why accepting ourselves is
the first step to generating patience for others.
Vipassana
teacher Michele McDonald describes the three aspects of patience—gentle
forbearance, endurance, and acceptance—and the spaciousness this
essential Buddhist quality presents.
Tibetan Buddhist teacher Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche discusses Shantideva’s chapter on patience in The Way of the Bodhisattva and how it applies to our lives today.
In
this four-part Dharma Talk, Insight Meditation teacher Dawn Scott
explains what patience means in our daily lives, how to cultivate this
noble virtue, and how it can help us flourish.
RANDY SHILTS,
American journalist and author born (d. 1994) a highly acclaimed,
pioneering gay American journalist and author. He worked as a reporter
for both The Advocate and the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as for
San Francisco Bay Area television stations. In addition to his extensive
journalism, Shilts wrote three best-selling, widely acclaimed books.
His first, The Mayor of CastroStreet: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk,
is a biography of the first openly gay S.F. politician, Harvey Milk,
who was assassinated by a political rival in 1978. The book broke new
ground, being written at a time when "the very idea of a Gay political
biography was brand-new."
Shilts's second book, And The Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic
(1980-1985), published in 1987, won the Stonewall Book Award and
brought him nationwide literary fame. And the Band Played On is an
extensively researched account of the early days of the AIDS epidemic in
the United States. The book was translated into seven languages and in
1993 was made into an HBO film with many big-name actors in starring or
supporting roles, including Matthew Modine, Richard Gere,, Angelica
Huston, Phil Collins, Lily Tomlin and Alan Alda, among others. Historian
Garry Wills wrote, "This book will be to gay liberation what Betty
Friedan was to early feminism and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was to environmentalism."
His last book, Conduct Unbecoming: Vietnam to the Persian Gulf,
which examined discrimination against lesbians and gays in the
military, was published in 1993. Shilts and his assistants conducted
over a thousand interviews while researching the book, the last chapter
of which Shilts dictated from his hospital bed. Shilts bequeathed 170
cartons of papers, notes, and research files to the local history
section of the San Francisco Public Library. At the time of his death,
he was planning a fourth book, examining homosexuality in the Roman
Catholic church.
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