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.
It’s our nature to want happiness and not want suffering. Thus, Buddhists do not ask that one give up the pursuit of happiness, but merely suggest that one become more intelligent about how happiness is pursued.
The Great In-Between Ruth Ozeki in Conversation with Duncan Ryuken Williams and Matthew Ichihashi Potts
A conversation at Harvard Divinity School about the liberatory power of in-between states, the role of storytelling in alleviating suffering, and the parallels.
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 consciousness as it actually is, then one is attached to consciousness. 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
Continuing to cycle through all five aggregates, our text comes to focus on consciousness as a source of the craving that leads to suffering. The mind can take anything within its scope as an object of awareness, and you can bring mindfulness even to awareness itself. What does the experience of knowing actually feel like? Learn to regard the act of awareness itself even-mindedly, without getting caught or attached.
Daily Practice
Work at bringing a posture of equanimity to the experience of consciousness. Awareness itself is not attached; attachment arises alongside it, coloring the awareness with a trace of favoring some things and opposing others. Back away from these subtle forms of craving and see if you can simply be with the experience of knowing something in a balanced and even way, with an evenly hovering awareness.
Tomorrow: Cultivating Compassion One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
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