Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation Words of Wisdom - June 8, 2025 💠

 

Learn how to be comfortable with aloneness, not define it as loneliness and realize that while your incarnation, your ego, is a socially derived construct, your soul is not. Your meditation practice is done to bring you back into your soul identity, where you can recognize that we are all alone, but you're only lonely if you're caught down in ego.

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

 

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RIGHT EFFORT Maintaining Arisen 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 maintain arisen healthy mental states. One maintains the arisen mindfulness awakening factor. (MN 141)

Reflection One form that effort takes in Buddhist practice is the rousing of latent tendencies and dormant traits, encouraging them to rise into conscious awareness as active mental and emotional states. The more frequently you do this, the more likely these states are to become the natural inclination of your mind. And once aroused, healthy states such as mindfulness need to be reinforced and maintained by deliberate choice.  Daily Practice Throughout the day, remind yourself often to be mindful, to be consciously aware of what you are doing or feeling or thinking. And once you establish the presence of mindfulness, make a further effort to sustain it over time. Mindfulness, once established, needs to be reestablished moment after moment. Each moment is a new beginning and a new opportunity to bring clear awareness to all you experience. Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna One week from today: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy 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: Everything Belongs to No One

 

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Everything Belongs to No One Everything is changing, everything is interdependent—and there is no one to whom any of it belongs. Andrew Olendzki, “Keep It Simple” CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

A Spoiled Child By Ajaan Suchart Abhijatog A Theravada monk imparts timeless wisdom to the parents of a boy who is unable to help himself. Read more »

Via Daily Dharma: Dharma Lifts Us

 

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Dharma Lifts Us Dharma is not something we are fated to, or stoic about, but the very set of practices that can lift us out of our conditioning, out of an assumed set of limits and away from what is often a pervasive resignation.  Sharon Salzberg, “Expansion and Contraction” CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

The End of Time By Douglas Penick A writer invokes the Hindu sage Vyāsa in a meditation on old age. Read more »

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Intoxication

 

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RIGHT LIVING Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Intoxication       Intoxication is unhealthy. Refraining from intoxication is healthy. (MN 9) What are the imperfections that defile the mind? Negligence is an imperfection that defiles the mind. Knowing that negligence is an imperfection that defiles the mind, a person abandons it. (MN 7) One practices thus: “Others may become negligent by intoxication, but I will abstain from the negligence of intoxication." (MN 8) Gain and loss are two of the eight worldly conditions. These are conditions that people meet—impermanent, transient, and subject to change. A mindful, wise person knows them and sees that they are subject to change. Desirable conditions do not excite one’s mind nor is one resentful of undesirable conditions. (AN 8.6)

Reflection The conditions of gain and loss are the first pair of the eight “worldly winds” described in the texts, and they constitute the Buddhist equivalent of the phrase “You win some and you lose some.” The idea is that some things are inevitable in life, and the appropriate strategy in such cases is not to hope for them not to happen but rather to adjust yourself to them in a way that is skillful and conducive to overall well-being. Daily Practice Notice how natural it is to feel good when you gain something you value and to feel bad when you experience loss. Notice also how, in such circumstances, you allow yourself to be buffeted by the worldly winds of gain and loss. See if instead you can remain firm, grounded in equanimity rather than in favoring or opposing what happens. This is one way to remain clearheaded when facing intoxicating conditions.  Tomorrow: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States One week from today: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Social Action

 

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RIGHT ACTION Reflecting Upon Social Action 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 social action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) One reflects thus: “I shall initiate and sustain bodily acts of kindness towards my companions, both publicly and privately.” One lives with companions in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes. One practices thus: “I set aside what I wish to do and do what my companions wish to do.” (MN 31)

Reflection In classical Buddhist tradition there are three kinds of action—bodily, verbal, and mental—but we are adding a fourth one here, social action. This is to acknowledge that a big part of how we act in the world has to do with our role in larger social and cultural systems. Our society is made up of individuals, and ultimately the quality of the whole group is going to be shaped at the individual level. Acting with conscious awareness is healthy. Daily Practice Cultivate the practice of being demonstrably kind to people as carefully as you would practice meditation. Kindness is a practice in itself, and just as with the breath, when your awareness wanders off the focus point of being kind, remind yourself to gently bring it back to the practice. Let’s practice “blending like milk and water” and “viewing each other with kindly eyes” over and over until we are really good at it. Tomorrow: Abstaining from Intoxication One week from today: Reflecting upon Bodily Action Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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