Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

 

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects A person goes to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: "Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I am content." (SN 47.10)   When ill will is internally present, one is aware: "Ill will is present for me." When ill will is not present, one is aware: "Ill will is not present for me." When the arising of unarisen ill will occurs, one is aware of that. And when the abandoning of arisen ill will occurs, one is aware of that. . . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is a mental object." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection The second of the five hindrances is ill will, which, like the first hindrance, sense desire, is a mental state that arises and passes away from time to time. Highlighting this factor in the swirl of experience and noticing when it is present and when it is not helps us realize that the annoyance we often feel is a fleeting phenomenon. This in turn gives us the ability to abandon that annoyance. We need not give in to it. Daily Practice Annoyance is a good way of practicing with ill will, because it is a mild form of it. Anger, hatred, and fear are more charged and thus more difficult to work with. See if you can notice when you are annoyed and also when you are not. See how annoyance is just a state that arises and therefore is a state you can let go of. Instead of holding on to the justification for the annoyance, see if you can just let it go and "abide without clinging."  RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna) With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters into and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness as a result of equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4) Reflection This state of mind is the culmination of the four stages of absorption and represents the consummation of the meditative enterprise of focused, one-pointed awareness. With the mind thus purified of its imperfections it is capable of seeing clearly, and by becoming "malleable" and "wieldy" it can be used as a tool to penetrate the many distortions and delusions that normally prevent us from understanding the true nature of things. Daily Practice Allow your Sunday sitting meditation to slowly and gently mellow into a profound state of equanimity. The mind is steady and bright but also imperturbable in the sense that there is nothing in your inner or outer experience that is going to evoke an episode of yearning or aversion. Equanimity is balance, an evenly hovering attention. Notice also in this passage that equanimity is said to be the means of purifying mindfulness. Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Meditation Month Day 17

 

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PRACTICE PROMPT Look through the eye of not knowing. When we look through the lens of what we already know, the world seems fragmented. There appear to be billions of separate people and countless unrelated objects. What happens when we look through the eye of not knowing instead? Does the world begin to feel like an undivided, mysterious presence? If you sense even a hint of this presence, notice how, in that moment, there is no inner conflict. This presence, without struggle, is what people call “peace.”

Related Content The Power of Not-Knowing Retreat leader Fabrice Desmarescaux offers a contemplation on this posture of humility: a gesture of power, not weakness, that keeps us open to fresh perspectives. Read more » You’ve Already Arrived An excerpt from this week’s video reminds us of the peace and openness of the don’t-know mind—and that we’ve been there all along.   Read more » Follow Us

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Via White Crane Institute \\ Allen Ginsberg's AMERICA

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989
This Day in Gay History
January 17

Today's Gay Wisdom 2018 - Allen Ginsberg's AMERICA America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.  America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.  I can't stand my own mind.  America when will we end the human war?  Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb  I don't feel good don't bother me.  I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.  America when will you be angelic?  When will you take off your clothes?  When will you look at yourself through the grave?  When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?  America why are your libraries full of tears?  America when will you send your eggs to India?  I'm sick of your insane demands.  When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?  America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.  Your machinery is too much for me.  You made me want to be a saint.  There must be some other way to settle this argument.  Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.  Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?  I'm trying to come to the point.  I refuse to give up my obsession.  America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.  America the plum blossoms are falling.  I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for  murder.  America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.  America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.  I smoke marijuana every chance I get.  I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.  When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.  My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.  You should have seen me reading Marx.  My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.  I won't say the Lord's Prayer.  I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.  America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over  from Russia. I'm addressing you.  Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?  I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.  I read it every week.  Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.  I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.  It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie  producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.  It occurs to me that I am America.  I am talking to myself again. Asia is rising against me.  I haven't got a chinaman's chance.  I'd better consider my national resources.  My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals  an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and  twentyfivethousand mental institutions.  I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in  my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.  I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.  My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic. America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?  I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his  automobiles more so they're all different sexes  America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe  America free Tom Mooney  America save the Spanish Loyalists  America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die  America I am the Scottsboro  boys.  America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they  sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the  speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the  workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have  been a spy.  America you don're really want to go to war.  America it's them bad Russians.  Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.  The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take  our cars from out our garages.  Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our  auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.  That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers.  Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.  America this is quite serious.  America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.  America is this correct?  I'd better get right down to the job.  It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts  factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.  America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8| 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 |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|

Via Daily Dharma: Openhearted Generosity

 

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Openhearted Generosity The Buddhist lineage is built upon the practice and teaching of unfettered, openhearted generosity. The Buddha, as he was preparing to take his last breaths, said that he had given everything he knew. Zeenat Potia, “Give It Next Time” CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

The Shape of Empty Space Seta Manoukian in conversation with Matt Hanson Explore the life and artworks of Seta Manoukian.  Read more » Tricycle Is Now on Substack A new space for conversation, connection, and community Join us on Substack today to meet other readers, chat with editors, and take part in ongoing conversations about practice and daily life. Sign up » Follow Us Forward today's wisdom to a friend »

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