Sunday, May 25, 2025

Via Daily Dharma: Prioritizing Self-View

 

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Prioritizing Self-View

While it’s natural to care about others’ opinions, we don’t have to give undue weight to views that are constantly changing anyway. As Milarepa once said, “Trying to make others happy is endless.”

Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, “The Eight Worldly Winds: Praise and Blame” 


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Investigate!
By Benjamin Brose
Explore the teachings of Laiguo Miaoshu, one of the great Chan masters of the last century.
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - May 25, 2025 šŸ’ 

 


In working with your emotions, there is meditation for quieting down and seeing how lost you've become. On the deeper devotional path, there is offering the emotion to God or Guru, saying, "Here, you take it, I offer it to you." Appreciate your humanity—Yeah, here I am, I just lost it again. Ah so. Right. Ok—it's the ability to see it without denying it. Saying, "I am upset. Far out. Here we are again." It is like talking with God and saying, "Look how deliciously human I am."
 
- Ram Dass

Saturday, May 24, 2025

Via GBF // QUOTE DU JOUR - U Tejaniya

(For those of us who tend to curate our experiences)


May 24, 2025


Don't try to create anything,
such as a particular mind state,
or experience. Trying to create like
this is greed. Meditating is acknow-
ledging and observing whatever hap-
pens—whether pleasant or un-
pleasant—in a relaxed way.

U Tejaniya

Via FB \\ Sebastião Salgado


 

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Via LGBTq Nation \\ lgbtqnation.com


 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

 

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RIGHT EFFORT
Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders unhealthy states, one has abandoned healthy states to cultivate unhealthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to unhealthy states. (MN 19)

Abandoning worldly sense desire, one abides with a mind free from sense desire, one purifies the mind of sense desire. (MN 51) Just as a person who had taken a loan would pay off their debts and have money left over, so would one rejoice and be glad about the abandoning of sense desire. (DN 2)
Reflection
When an unhealthy state arises, what do you do? First, acknowledge it rather than try to ignore or suppress it, and then understand that it is unhealthy and likely to bring harm to yourself and/or others. Finally, let it go. Letting it go is simply aligning yourself with the law of impermanence. All mental and emotional states will pass away naturally; the trick is not to encourage the unhealthy ones by getting caught by them.
Daily Practice
Practice experiencing a stream of sensory inputs—sights, sounds, and the rest—without being entangled in them. When you abide in your experience with equanimity rather than desire or aversion, you are free. Even if these moments are brief, they are compared in this text to the freedom of being liberated from debt. The mind is unencumbered, without anxiety, and feels light and at ease. This feels good.
Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna
One week from today: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions?
 Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
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© 2025 Tricycle Foundation
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Via Daily Dharma: Look with Kindness

 

Look with Kindness

Love and compassion are particular ways of looking. When we look with kindness and benevolence at ourselves, others, and the world; when we cultivate the way of seeing that is metta, love with no strings attached, we loosen the sense of self and tune our ability to see its fabricated nature.

Nikki Mirghafori, “Dreaming Together”


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The Circle of Your Influence
By Larry Ward
Practicing with your immediate surroundings—observing, questioning, appreciating—can help you realize your intimate connection to the whole process.
Read more »

Friday, May 23, 2025

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given

 

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RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Taking What is Not Given
Taking what is not given is unhealthy. Refraining from taking what is not given is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the taking of what is not given, one abstains from taking what is not given; one does not take by way of theft the wealth and property of others. (MN 41) One practices thus: “Others may take what is not given, but I will abstain from taking what is not given.” (MN 8)

On seeing a form with the eye, one does not grasp at its signs and features. Since if one left the eye faculty unguarded, unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might intrude, one practices the way of its restraint, one guards the eye faculty, one undertakes the restraint of the eye faculty. (MN 51)
Reflection
This is not a practice for shutting out the world but for gaining some control over what enters and influences your mind. Just as you don’t eat everything that you encounter, so also you need not see, hear, touch, or think everything that is capable of being discerned. Some objects impinge on the senses with such force that they cannot be ignored, but most of what we experience we seek out, driven by desire. We need not do this.
Daily Practice
Even with visual experience, we do not always have to take in more than what is immediately presented to the eye. Practice seeing something, acknowledging it, and then letting it pass away without chasing after its details and associations. We can take what is given to sight, and only what is given, and then move on to the next moment. In this way we are not dragged into entanglements we don’t choose, and we remain free.
Tomorrow: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions?
 Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
Tricycle is a nonprofit and relies on your support to keep its wheels turning.
© 2025 Tricycle Foundation
89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003

Via Daily Dharma: The Buddha’s Mindfulness

 

The Buddha’s Mindfulness

Mindfulness supports the moment-to-moment intention to not cause harm, to be kind, and to renounce those thoughts and actions that lead to heedlessness. Without wise intention and wise understanding, mindfulness is aimless, and therefore not the Buddha’s.

Phillip Moffitt, “The Mindfulness of the Buddha”


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The Buddha’s Death
By Kyogen Carlson
Explore a Zen reading of the Buddha’s last teaching. 
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2 from White Crane Institute

 


Noteworthy
1978 -

In Eugene, Oregon residents voted to repeal an ordinance banning discrimination against Gays and Lesbians by a 2-to-1 margin. Eugene, Oregon, people. Eugene!


2005 -

At its annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia, the AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION votes to support government-recognized marriages between same-sex partners.


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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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