Sunday, December 15, 2024

Via Daily Dharma: Listen to Your Suffering

 

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Listen to Your Suffering

Your body needs you, your feelings need you, your perceptions need you. The wounded child in you needs you. Your suffering needs you to listen and acknowledge it. Go home and be there for all these things.

Thich Nhat Hanh, “Listening to Our Ancestors”


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A Life in Shadows
Directed by Edward A. Burger
This month’s Film Club pick sheds light on an art of shadows. Witness the beauty of shadow puppet theater in Shaanxi Province, where farmers by day become performers by night—fighting to preserve an ancient tradition in the face of modernity. 
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Via New Offering The Tricycle Community \\ From the Academy: Yogacara

 

DECEMBER 2024

From the Academy
Welcome to “From the Academy,” a new newsletter inspired by a previous Tricycle column by the same name. This monthly email series, exclusive for Premium subscribers, introduces a topic of interest in the world of Buddhism from an academic perspective, and offers recommended reading for going deeper. This month’s newsletter discusses the history and importance of Yogacara philosophy, known as the “mind-only” or “consciousness-only” school, and provides resources for further learning.

Yogacara
What if everything you experience is a product of your mind?

This idea isn’t new to most Buddhist practitioners, and versions of it permeate much of modern Western Buddhist thought. But its source in the Yogacara, one of Mahayana Buddhism’s most philosophical schools, is less well understood. Known as the “mind-only” or “consciousness-only” school, Yogacara’s teachings turn our everyday understanding of reality on its head. But what does it mean that everything is mind-only? And why should we care?

What is Yogacara?

Emerging from various Mahayana sources, Yogacara thought developed in India around the 3rd century CE, and by the 4th or 5th century, two half-brothers and scholar-monks named Asanga and Vasubandhu had systematized this new thread of Buddhist teachings. The central idea is vijnaptimatrata, a Sanskrit term translated as “mind-” or “consciousness-only,” which suggests that what we perceive as the world around us is actually a construct of our mind. This doesn’t mean that the external world ultimately doesn’t exist (which some have interpreted the Yogacara to claim) but rather that our experience of it is mediated through our karma, perceptions, and past experiences. Yogacarins sought to understand these workings of the mind with the final goal of liberation from suffering.
Early 13th-century Japanese statue of Asanga and Vasubandhu
Why is Yogacara important?

Yogacara’s examination of consciousness provides a map of the mind’s movements, showing us how habitual patterns (vasanas) and mental afflictions (klesas) shape our experience. Drawing from the insights of Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka school (c. 2nd century CE), which emphasizes the emptiness (sunyata) of all phenomena, Yogacara focuses on the mechanisms by which we perceive and interpret that emptiness. It provides a framework for how we construct our reality and experience suffering due to our ignorance of the processes of the mind.

It’s difficult to overstate the school’s influence. Yogacara teachings directly or indirectly influence most East Asian Buddhist traditions and are of major concern in Tibetan Buddhism. In Zen, the concept of mind-only converges with the experience of awakening to the illusion of distinctions and the nondual nature of the mind. Yogacara’s insights can be seen in many of the most well-known Zen teachings. In Tibetan Buddhism, Yogacara’s understanding of consciousness fueled debates about the nature of reality and mind, stimulating a tradition of vigorous exploration that continues to produce ever more refined awareness of the intricacy of the mind and its functions. Across Asia, Yogacara’s views provide the foundation for practices aimed at freeing ourselves from the habitual constraints of our minds.


Why should we care about this esoteric 3rd-century teaching?

Although scholars are often careful not to conflate Buddhist teachings and science, for many Westerners, Yogacara complements modern psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. As a model of the mind, it offers a way to bring Buddhist wisdom into conversation with contemporary theories of perception. Studying its teachings can sharpen mindfulness practice, helping us see how every moment of awareness is shaped by a complex relationship between the objective and subjective aspects of the mind. By learning the role of the mind in constructing the world in which we live, we become better equipped to recognize and let go of harmful thought patterns.

Yogacara also challenges us to rethink the nature of our personal identity. In a rapidly developing and hyper-connected global culture that often emphasizes individual achievement and scientific objectivity, realizing that the “self” is just another mental construct can be transformative and aid in cultivating an unbiased bodhisattva-like compassion—building a better world for ourselves and others.
Learn more about Yogacara:
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - December 15, 2024 💌

 


"As our minds begin to quiet down, we notice that the thoughts and feelings associated with meaninglessness come and go, and that there exists, in the space between these arisings, a way of being that is not affected by these mind-states. The Soul, we discover, doesn't seek meaning. It's meaning is self-evident."
 
- Ram Dass

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Saturday, December 14, 2024

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 The Reckoning


I cannot let this day slip by

without shouting into the void of my disappointment.

The charges are gone, swept like dust under a gilded rug,

and yet the truth remains, burning:

He was guilty.

You know it.

I know it.

The weight of it presses against my chest,

how a man so stained could hold the reins again.

He ran for power to shield himself,

a crown to escape the scales of justice.

He will pardon himself,

stand smug on the green of manicured lies,

a golf swing on our dime,

while we watch,

while we ache.

Do you remember?

He told them to march.

I saw it.

I was there, and the echoes of that day

still ricochet in my mind.

I will not forget.

I will not forgive.

Not the man who lit the match,

nor the hands that handed him the flame.

You who cast your vote,

for cheaper gas, for eggs, for promises spun from deceit,

or worse—

you, who saw the ugliness and shrugged.

He is a bigot, and it didn’t stop you.

He is cruel, and you let it slide.

You looked away, silent, complicit.

And in that silence, the cracks widened.

The grave error was yours,

but I do not have the breath left

to plead with you to see.

I will watch as it unfolds,

as the curtain lifts on this tragedy we have built,

brick by brick, with our denial.

And when the moment arrives—

when the mask slips and the monster stands revealed—

it will be too late.

Do you see the bodies yet?

The ones already fallen,

the ones to come?

They are part of the price,

written in the fine print of your choices.

There is no blanket thick enough to hide under now,

no silence deep enough to escape the echo of what is coming.

None of us will walk away unscathed.

Not even you.


Author Unknown

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

 


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RIGHT EFFORT
Developing Unarisen 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 develop the arising of unarisen healthy mental states. One develops the unarisen awakening factor of mindfulness. (MN 141)
Reflection
Effort is the tool we have to shape what we think, say, and do. Using it in healthy ways, we will become healthier. Just as we learn to guard against the arising of unhealthy states, we are also encouraged to develop healthy mental and emotional states. The text will take us through the seven healthy factors of awakening, beginning here with mindfulness. It is always beneficial to be aware, and we should practice doing so.

Daily Practice
Here you are invited to develop healthy mental states, which starts with creating the conditions that encourage them to arise. The first basic condition for healthy states to arise is mindfulness, for by being consciously aware of your experience you are not just reacting unconsciously to whatever comes up. Simply be attentive in every moment you can and notice what is happening. By doing so you participate in your life.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna
One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy 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: Faith Is Essential

 

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Faith Is Essential

For Nichiren Buddhists, practice is built on faith, and faith can be sustained only through actual practice.

Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin, “Chanting as the Whole of Life”


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