A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
All of us, no matter how difficult our lives may be, can find something to be grateful for, even if it’s as simple as a cool breeze on a hot day, the love of a pet, or a smile from a stranger.
Lisa Ernst, “The Liberating Practices of Sympathetic Joy and Gratitude”
The Courage to Be Compassionate Thupten Jinpa in conversation with James Shaheen and Sharon Salzberg
The Dalai Lama’s principal English translator discusses why compassion is fundamental to our basic nature as human beings—and why we tend to resist it.
The Work of Not Knowing Marie Howe in conversation with James Shaheen
In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Pulitzer Prize winner Marie Howe to discuss how poetry can help us cultivate attention and devotion to the ordinary.
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 energy-awakening factor. (MN 141)
Reflection
It is one thing to arouse energy when it is needed in order to persevere in some healthy practice, for example. It is something else to be able to sustain that extra energy long enough to see the endeavor through. Sporadic effort has some value, but it is sustained effort that is really effective in helping us develop healthy mental and emotional states. It is valuable to be able to maintain the awakening factor of energy.
Daily Practice
Let’s take a specific example. Say you are in an annoying discussion with an annoying person, and you want to respond with kindness rather than annoyance. Remember that each moment is a new beginning and that each moment you have to renew your intention and your resolve. If you find kindness once, you need to reapply it in every ensuing moment. Maintaining kindness involves reapplying it again and again.
Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna One week from today: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States
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