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Saturday, December 6, 2025

Via Daily Dharma: Be Curious, Not Furious

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Be Curious, Not Furious

Skillfully engaging in the practice “be curious, not furious” means to feel and act with a sense of greater safety instead of scanning for threats. It means to feel more satisfied instead of focusing on what is lacking or needed.

Marc Lesser, “How to Deal with Difficult People”

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Wonhyo’s Middle Path
By Tommy Tran, edited by Frederick M. Ranallo-Higgins

Learn how to use skillful means to harmonize truths across Buddhist traditions.

Making Sense of Yogacara
A Premium Event with William Waldron

Join professor William Waldron to learn more about Yogacara, the highly influential but often misunderstood mind-only school of Mahayana Buddhism.

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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)

Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to abandon arisen unhealthy mental states. One abandons the arisen hindrance of sense desire. (MN 141)

Reflection

Unhealthy states arise in human experience all the time. This is not your fault; you are not to be blamed for it or to feel guilty about it. What is important is first of all to notice when an unhealthy state is arising—hence the value of mindfulness training—and then to understand that it is unhealthy, which comes gradually with wisdom, and finally to let go of it—not suppress it or ignore it but simply let it pass through the mind and go away.

Daily Practice

One of the most persistent and common of the unhealthy states is sense desire. There is a natural tendency for the senses to lean in to experience, to subtly seek out and attach to things that give us a sense of gratification. Make an effort to recognize when this is happening, and respond with letting go. Notice, understand, and release. Repeat often.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna
One week from today: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

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Via The Tricycle Community \\\ Three Teachings on the Five Remembrances

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December 5, 2025

A Contemplation on Impermanence

I am of the nature to grow old. I cannot escape old age.
I am of the nature to grow ill. I cannot escape sickness.
I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death.
I will be separated from everything and everyone I hold dear.
My only true possession is my actions.

Known as the five remembrances, these verses comprise a contemplation practice found in the Upajjhatthana Sutta of Anguttara Nikaya, discourses of the Buddha from the Pali canon often referred to as the “Book of Numbers.” Bleak as the reflections sound, the Buddha suggested we recite them often to cultivate gratitude for the fleeting moment—for all that we have for the short and precious time that we have it.

We don’t have to run from or try to outsmart the inevitable, these verses tell us. Instead of shunning our unavoidable decline into old age, sickness, and death, we can welcome these transitions and live more fully in the process. Instead of grieving that we’ll lose everything we have and everyone we love, we can celebrate them fully just as they are. If we face head on the impermanence that defines us and all we know, we will hold it all more dearly. If we stop denying or resisting, we can open to what is with greater ease.

This week’s Three Teachings show us how three practitioners use this contemplation in everyday life to deepen appreciation, joy, and acceptance.

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Working with the Five Remembrances
By Tina Lear

Writer and teacher Tina Lear explains how she thinks through every verse of the five remembrances, a practice she does every morning to set the tone for the rest of her day.

Meditating on Suffering
By Sister Diamond Mountain

A Buddhist nun shares insights from her past—including her alcoholism and once-held fear of aging and death—and shares how the five remembrances can jolt us out of age-old attachments to things like youth, beauty, and longevity.

All of the Nature to Change
By Barbara Gates

Writer Barbara Gates weaves the five remembrances, which started reciting themselves back to her when she started reflecting on them in a regular practice, into a story about a hike through the woods with her husband.

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Friday, December 5, 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)

There is a gift, which is a great gift—pristine, of long standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated—that will never be suspect. Here a noble person gives up taking what is not given and refrains from it. In doing so, one gives freedom from fear, hostility, and oppression to an immeasurable number of beings. (AN 8.39)

Reflection

This is the precept against theft, which you will notice is broadly stated to include a wide range of behaviors we might not consider stealing. There are many subtle ways we might take what is not freely offered, including exploiting the labor of others who may be unfairly remunerated. We might also take from others non-material things, such as time, ideas, credit, power, and freedom. Be careful not to do this.

Daily Practice

Making a commitment to act with integrity regarding the property of others is another way of giving the gift of harmlessness to all beings. Practice being more attentive to when something is freely offered and when it is not. "Finders keepers" does not apply to Buddhist ethics. Think how grateful you are when someone returns something you left behind. Take up the habit of paying it forward, preferring to give rather than take.

Tomorrow: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

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Via Daily Dharma: The Law of Emptiness

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The Law of Emptiness

Every single thing is empty, including myself. Everything is part of this emptiness; everything is subject to the law of emptiness. Everything is changing and manifesting, including myself, so we are inherently living while letting go.

Daehaeng, “How to Let Go”

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