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 awakening factors of tranquility and concentration. (MN 141)

Reflection The last two of the seven factors of awakening are tranquility and concentration. These are healthy mental and emotional factors that are to be encouraged to arise and when arisen, to be sustained. While all states of mind are fleeting, arising and passing away in a moment, when we are able to string together moments of tranquility one after another, the mind naturally becomes concentrated and focused on a single object.  Daily Practice Focused awareness, otherwise known as concentration practice, is something to undertake in a sustained and continuous manner. Put aside some time at the end of the day or before your day begins and allow yourself to really settle in to some uninterrupted practice. It takes some effort, but that effort becomes easier as tranquility deepens. By cultivating these states, you give your mind a break from restlessness. 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: Being Fully Aware

 

Being Fully Aware Awakening is not the eradication of defilements but a state in which we are fully aware of all aspects of our lives, good and bad. Mark Herrick, “You Can Get There from Here” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Forward today's wisdom to a friend »

As a nonprofit organization, Tricycle depends on the generosity of individuals like you. Please make a tax-deductible gift here » Goodwill for the Real World By Thanissaro Bhikkhu A Theravada monk explores the application of boundless metta for a broken world.

Via White Crane Institute \\ The inimitable Robert Patrick…on life

 

Today's Gay Wisdom Playwright Robert Patrick 2017 - The inimitable Robert Patrick…on life:   I don't like life much. I prefer art. I am interested to discuss it. My favorite artists are Plato, Bach, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Shaw, D.W. Griffith, Noel Coward, Vermeer, S.J. Perelman, Cole Porter, Euripides, Auden,Jean Kerr, Federico Fellini, Dorothy Parker, Chekov, Marilyn Monroe, Vladimir Nabokov, Walt Disney, Brancusi, Wilde, Pollock, Tennesse Williams, Hitchcock, Dali, Ayn Rand, Alfred Bester, Gwen Verdon & Bob Fosse, Gore Vidal, Picasso, Emily Dickinson, Barbra Streisand, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Georgia O'Keeffe, Christopher Fry, Doric Wilson, Lanford Wilson, Billy Wilder, Johnny Mathis, Tchelitchew, Mary Renault, Eartha Kitt, Paul Cadmus, A.E. Housman, Al Capp, Sappho, Catullus, and Billie Holiday.  I am a 70-year old, single, Gay Libran writer and ghostwriter living in Los Angeles strictly for the sunshine. I abide in good-natured despair about the failure of the ideals of the 60's revolution. I see the western world at present in terms of the theories of Christopher Lasch ("The Culture of Narcissus") and Alice Miller ("The Drama of the Gifted Child"). I'm not sure anything can be done about the mess our wasteland is in, but I do regard the collapse of our civilization as a fascinating opportunity for a writer to discern the structure of the culture crumbling around him. I regard myself as a refugee from the apocalypse, striving to keep alight a small campfire of human humor in an increasingly dreary darkness. I am not committed to any particular cause, nor am I apt to be convertible to yours. In the interminable struggles for status and identity which pass for "parties" in our culture, I haven't yet found a side I'd care to take. The password to my fireside is, "I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me." http://hometown.aol.com/rbrtptrck/myhomepage

|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 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) When I strive with determination, some particular sources of suffering fade away in me because of that determined striving; in this way suffering is exhausted. (MN 101)

Reflection Any source of gratification, if indulged to an extreme, will transform into something that causes harm to you or others or both.  Some of these impulses can be managed gently and naturally, but others may require determined effort. Striving with diligence can be seen as a defense mechanism, a way of keeping yourself safe from overindulgence. Sometimes you just have to tell yourself to stop. Daily Practice Identify the behaviors in your life that have the potential to escalate to a point of intoxication and negligence, in the broadest sense of these terms. Make a commitment to avoid allowing this to happen; sometimes that takes determination and making a deliberate effort. If the application of energy is grounded in the wise understanding of cause and effect, self-control can be seen as a gift to yourself. 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 Daily Dharma: Where Are You?

 

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Where Are You? Look at every part of the body in detail. Or look at its elementary properties. Exactly where are you in any of those things? There’s no you in there at all. Phra Ajaan Suwat Suvaco, “A Home for the Mind” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE Forward today's wisdom to a friend »

Living with Intention By Lama Aria Drolma Dharma teacher Lama Aria Drolma on reorienting our perpetual decision-making tendencies to cultivate a more purposeful life.  Read more »

Via GBF:20 New Videos of Dharma Talks

This month we added 20 more VIDEOS to our growing library of dharma talks. Between now and the end of the year, we will post 20 more videos each month. 

Where to Find the Videos

1. On the GBF YouTube channel, in our Dharma Talks - VIDEO playlist
   Be sure to subscribe to the channel to be notified immediately when each new video is posted. 
2.  
3. On the GBF website. Each talk has its own page where the audio and video are posted along with a summary. Here are links directly to those most recently added:

• Waking Up to the Nature of Reality – David Lewis
• A Bridge Over Troubled Water – Laura Burges
• Rebuilding Trust – Steven Tierney
• Making Peace with Our Life – Bob Stahl
• The Complex Emotion of Shame – Ian Challis
• Devotional Practices – Trip Weil
• Listening To Ourselves – Daigan Gaither
• Loving-Kindness as Our Core State – Kevin Griffin
• Cultivating Unconditional Happiness – John Martin
• The 6 Perfections – Jetsun Zerdan Kelsang Phunrab
• Vowing to Become Whole – Dale Borglum
• Navigating Holidays with the Dharma – Laura Burges
• Resistance and Equanimity – Alistair Shanks 
• Why Do We Meditate? – David Lewis 
• Buddhist Faith – Daigan Gaither 
• Embodied Relaxation – Anjali Sawhney
• Healthy Anger, Part 2 – Dave Richo
• The Eight Worldly Winds – Sean Feit Oakes
• Evacuating Gay Afghan Refugees – Joe Rodriguez

Enjoy!

Love & Light,

Tom Bruein

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Enjoy 850+ free recorded dharma talks at https://gaybuddhist.org/podcast/
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