Via Daily Dharma: Liberating All Beings

 To liberate yourself without any empathy for others would mean your heart has not opened fully. It would be like trying to open your fist while some fingers remain tight in your palm.

Gil Fronsdal, “Why I Walk Two Paths”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Equanimity

 

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Equanimity

Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis on which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on equanimity, for when you develop meditation on equanimity, all aversion is abandoned. (MN 62)  Equanimity is the way to purity for one who has much attachment. (Vm 9.108) When a person, tasting a flavor with the tongue, is not attached to pleasing flavors and not repelled by unpleasing flavors, they have established mindfulness and dwell with an unlimited mind. For a person whose mindfulness is developed and practiced, the tongue does not struggle to reach pleasing flavors, and unpleasing flavors are not considered repulsive. (SN 35.274)

Reflection

We all naturally have many attachments. Much of the time we cherish these and feel they are the very things that make life worthwhile. In the Buddhist analysis they also cause us suffering, lead to bodily and mental troubles, and cause a lot of harm in the world. The emotional stance of equanimity is a way of fully experiencing things without being caught by them, of tasting their flavor without attachment or revulsion.

Daily Practice

Experiment with your experience when you are tasting and consuming food. It is usual to like some things and dislike others, but what if instead you had equanimity toward what you are eating? This doesn't mean eating bland food; rather, it means not focusing on preferences but fully appreciating the pleasant flavor of some bites and the unpleasant flavor of others. Notice the different textures without favoring or opposing.

Tomorrow: Refraining from Frivolous Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Lovingkindness

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Lungta

 Wind Horse

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Windhorse by C.J.Fynn

This article contains Tibetan script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Tibetan characters.

The wind horse is a symbol of the human soul in the shamanistic tradition of East Asia and Central Asia. In Tibetan Buddhism, it was included as the pivotal element in the center of the four animals symbolizing the cardinal directions and a symbol of the idea of well-being or good fortune. It has also given the name to a type of prayer flag that has the five animals printed on it.

Depending on the language, the symbol has slightly different names.

• Tibetan: རླུང་རྟ་, Wylie: rlung rta, pronounced lungta, Tibetan for "wind horse"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_Horse

 

Via Daily Dharma: Our Shared Struggle

 Know that in your struggle, you are with all beings, because our true struggle is the same—to find our way to oneness, to nonseparation, in this fragile human form. 

Sallie Jiko Tisdale, “Alone on the Bodhisattva Path”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

And what is the way leading to the cessation of suffering? It is just this noble eightfold path: that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. (MN 9) One practices guarding the sense doors . . . (DN 2)

Reflection

Guarding the sense doors is a practice protecting the mind from the unwanted intrusion of the kind of sense objects that can cause harm. Just because a violent image flashes in front of you, you don’t have to watch it, and you need not pursue an ugly remark. When inclined toward hurtful or hateful thoughts, you can guide them away and take a different direction. You need not feel helpless but can exercise some skillful control.

Daily Practice

Imagine yourself a gatekeeper, carefully watching all the information flowing in through your senses and the thoughts passing through the gateway of your mind. You know intuitively what is helpful and what is harmful. Welcome in what is helpful and carefully steer harmful content away from infiltrating your mind. This is not suppression but the wise use of attention to protect and enhance the inner environment of your mind.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Equanimity
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering 

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Mind

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 the mind is composed, one is aware: “The mind is composed”. . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is mind.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

A composed mind is unified, peaceful, steady, and clear. We can access such states of mind when engaged in the practice of meditation, and mindfulness of mind is established when you are aware of what a composed mind feels like and you are able to sustain it over time. The mind becomes like a mirror, reflecting itself.

Daily Practice

Sit quietly, relaxing the body while gently holding it erect, and allow the mind to gradually become more and more composed. With every outbreath, sink deeper and more comfortably into the serenity of the moment. It is like untangling knots, one after another, until the mind becomes smooth. Allow yourself to feel the composed mind, aware simply that awareness is aware of itself, without clinging to anything in the world.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Third Phase of Absorption (3rd Jhāna)

With the fading away of joy, one abides in equanimity; mindful and fully aware, still feeling pleasure with the body, one enters upon and abides in the third phase of absorption, on account of which noble ones announce: “One has a pleasant abiding who has equanimity and is mindful.” (MN 4) One practices: “I shall breathe in contemplating cessation"; one practices: “I shall breathe out contemplating cessation.” This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated  so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (A 54.8)

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

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Homens andam de Mãos Dadas e Olha o que Acontece

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation || Words of Wisdom - August 28, 2022 💌

 

We just keep reaching for the truth together because that's really the highest thing we can offer each other, that's the way we help each other get free.

- Ram Dass -

 

Via White Crane Institute / KARL HEINRICH ULRICHS

 

August 28

Born

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

1825 -

This is the birth date of German lawyer, writer and Gay Rights pioneer KARL HEINRICH ULRICHS (d. 1895).  In the early history of LGBT Rights that includes John Addington Symonds, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Edward Carpenter Ulrichs is one of the most important. He wrote under the pseudonym Numa Numatis till 1868. He was born in Aurich, Hannover and died in L'Aguila, Italy.  He is considered the first person to stand in public for the rights of homosexuals.  And all this before the word "homosexual," or "heterosexual" for that matter, even existed.  Ulrichs is seen today as a pioneer of modern Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender movements.

He studied law at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin (1844-47) and became a junior attorney in the civil service of the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1854 he left state service to become a free-lance journalist and private secretary of a representative to the German Confederation in Frankfurt am Main.

In Frankfurt he used embryology to develop a theory of homosexuality that he presented in a series of five booklets (1864-65) titled Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Research Into the Riddle of Love Between Men). This he later extended to twelve booklets with the last appearing in 1879.

He assumed that love directed towards a man must be feminine and used the Latin phrase anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa (a female soul trapped in a male body), and he coined the term 'Urning' (Uranian) for such a person. This was a reference to Plato's Symposium in which Pausanias postulates two gods of love, the Uranian (Heavenly) Eros who governs principled male love, whereas the Pandernian (Vulgar) Eros governs heterosexual or purely licentious relations. Károly Mária Kertbeny later invented alternative words such as Homosexualität.

Ulrichs regarded homosexuals as neither criminal nor sick and tried to organize them for their own welfare. In 1864 he was planning to publish a homosexual periodical and in 1870 he started it but it only lasted for one issue through lack of support.

Also on August 28th. 1867 he became the first self-proclaimed homosexual to speak out publicly for homosexual rights when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of all anti-homosexual laws. He was shouted down.

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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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Via Daily Dharma: Deepen Your Love for the World

 The deeper our love for the world gets, the more motivated we become to find solutions to address suffering. 

Radhule Weininger, “How to Follow the Bodhisattva Path Without Burning Out”

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multigay | colour me in

Via Ram Dass

 

Via FB // Peacemaking

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

 

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 joy. (MN 141)

Reflection

Buddhism sometimes gets a reputation for not being joyful enough, with all the emphasis on suffering and the calm emotional balance of equanimity. There may be only the hint of a smile on the face of a Buddha statue, but we can be assured that inwardly the Buddha is experiencing great joy. Joy is one of the seven awakening factors and is therefore a beneficial capacity to develop. Make an effort to stir up joy; it is good for you.

Daily Practice

The way to develop the arising of joy that has not arisen on its own is by rousing the will or generating an intention to be joyful. This is done by thinking of something, either through memory or imagination, that you find joyful. Even when fleeting, a joyful moment is a moment devoid of its opposite mental states, such as unhappiness or dejection. The effects are amplified greatly if you are able to sustain joy for some time.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: Build Lasting Happiness

Trying to build happiness on a foundation of ego is like trying to build a tower on quicksand.

Pamela Gayle White, “A Slow, True Path”

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Coldplay Planting Trees in the Andes | One Tree Planted

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

Sensual misconduct is unhealthy. Refraining from sensual misconduct is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning sensual misconduct, one abstains from misbehaving among sensual pleasures. (MN 41) One practices thus: “Others may engage in sensual misconduct, but I will abstain from sensual misconduct.” (MN 8) Flavors cognizable by the tongue are of two kinds: those to be cultivated and those not to be cultivated. Such flavors as cause, in one who cultivates them, unhealthy states to increase and healthy states to diminish, such flavors are not to be cultivated. But such flavors as cause, in one who cultivates them, unhealthy states to diminish and healthy states to increase, such flavors are to be cultivated. (MN 114)

Reflection

How easy it is for some of us to misbehave among sensual pleasures associated with the tongue and flavors! We are used to hearing that some foods are better or worse for our physical health because of their nutrients and/or toxins, but here we are being told that some flavors arouse unhealthy states such as greed and hatred, while some do not. We should learn to look at the impact of what we eat on the mind as well as the body.

Daily Practice

Try looking at your eating experience as a series of choices, not only of what you eat but also of the quality of mind with which you are eating. An easy example is eating something that tastes so good that craving for more arises in the mind. Whether it is raw kale or a sugar doughnut is not the point, nor is it necessary to stop eating it. What is important is learning to eat without the co-arising of greed. Try this out in your own experience.

Tomorrow: Developing Unarisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Intoxication

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Via Daily Dharma: Practice in Small Ways

 Rather than constantly seeking to eliminate all small irritations from our lives, we can use them as a basis for developing more patience. If you emphasize comfort over the practice of patience, your mind will get weaker and weaker.

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “The Path of Patience"

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