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

 

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RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering When people have met with suffering and become victims of suffering, they come to me and ask me about the noble truth of suffering. Being asked, I explain to them the noble truth of suffering. (MN 77) What is suffering? (MN 9) In short, the five aggregates affected by clinging are suffering. (MN 9)

Reflection Some forms of suffering are glaringly obvious, such as a pounding toothache or the deep grief that comes from losing a loved one. Others can be subtler and more pervasive rather than episodic. Such is the case with the suffering that comes from clinging to anything whatsoever. Even things that feel overtly gratifying can on another level be sowing the seeds of disappointment. Clinging always involves some sort of suffering. Daily Practice Clinging is the word used to refer to our response to desire. When we want something, we reach for it or hold on tightly so it does not slip away. When we don’t want something, we push it away and try to avoid or destroy it. Notice how this attitude of attachment and aversion can manifest, often subtly, in all aspects of experience. Learn to become consciously aware of the unconscious reflex to grasp, and also to let go of it. Tomorrow: Cultivating Lovingkindness One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering  Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via GBF \\ "Living With Integrity" with Steven Tierney

A new talk has been added to the GBF website, podcast and YouTube channel:

Living With Integrity – Steven Tierney 

In this talk, Steven Tierney emphasizes living with integrity as the core of Buddhist practice.

He helps us reflect on living a meaningful and compassionate practice that is responsive to our unique life situations while benefiting both ourselves and others.

Steven defines integrity as aligning thoughts, words, and actions with core values while living for the benefit of others.

• Integrity means wholeness and completeness, derived from Latin meaning "whole"
• Encourages self-reflection and internal alignment with personal values
• Moves us beyond intellectual understanding to embodied practice

Practical Applications

• Replacing to-do lists with "to-feel" lists (focusing on desired feelings rather than tasks)
• Reducing doom scrolling and social media consumption
• Practicing "We Care" - balancing self-care with caring for others

Buddhist Practice in Daily Life

• Emphasizing that Buddhist teachings should be verified through lived experience
• Promoting engaged Buddhism that flows from contemplative practice
• Living the Bodhisattva vows through everyday interactions

Key Concepts

• Upaya (skillful means) - teaching in multiple ways to reach different people
• Nimbleness of spirit - knowing when to speak up versus when to listen
• Being present and compassionate rather than getting overwhelmed by external events

Steven concludes by referencing the Buddha's belief in the innate nobility and compassion of all beings, suggesting that negative qualities are learned rather than inherent.

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

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - September 28, 2025 🍁

 

"The romantic quality of love which is between separate entities is a doorway into the deeper love ... a lot of people experience a quality they call love but they’re doing it with their mind, they’re not really opening their hearts fully, they are loving, meaning I am attracted to … or I am attached to… when we talk about love versus fear for example, we are talking about ‘being’ versus ‘fear’, or ‘unity’ versus ‘separateness’, would be the other way of saying it. So I would say that when the fear dissipates you are feeling at home in the universe. Meaning your identity with your separateness isn’t overriding your feeling of connection with everything to the point that you’re feeling cut off and vulnerable - which is where the root of the fear is. So as you cultivate that unitive quality the fear dissipates, so the relation is one between love and fear, but it’s not the love in the sense of ‘I love you’, its the sense that we are together in the space of love."

Via Daily Dharma: Become Your Practice

 

Become Your Practice The key remains the same for everyone—complete sincerity. You must give your all. Holding on to nothing, you must become your practice. Tangen Harada Roshi, “Break Through or Die Trying” 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 » Facing Unreality Ocean Vuong in Conversation with James Shaheen Author and poet Ocean Vuong speaks with Tricycle’s editor-in-chief about incorporating Buddhist notions of emptiness into his writing, the role of ghosts and the dead in his work, how writing can be a form of prayer, and more.  Read more » Bön and the West Directed by Andrea Heckman This month's film centers on Bön, the religion of the ancient kingdom Zhang Zhung in Tibet. Today, young monks and nuns carry on the Bön teachings and lineage, not only in the lands of the Himalayas, but also to countries around the world.  Watch now »

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and Abiding in 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 the awakening factor of concentration is internally present, one is aware: “Concentration is present for me.” When concentration is not present, one is aware: “Concentration is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen concentration occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen awakening factor of concentration 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 practice of insight meditation also involves the practice of concentration. Insight and concentration are like the two wings of a bird, each supporting the function of the other. Concentration is a mental factor that allows the mind to focus on a single object without being carried away by the stream of consciousness into telling and retelling stories. Insight is understanding the nature of what you are focusing on.  Daily Practice As with all mental factors, sometimes concentration is present and sometimes it is not. Sometimes your mind is focused, and other times it is flitting from one object to another, apparently out of control. With practice you can notice these fluctuations of mind. You can watch the ability to focus come and go, always simply being aware of what is happening. The idea is not to control the mind but to calm it and let it settle. 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 upon 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) 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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Via White Crane Institute \\ 2017 - The inimitable Robert Patrick…on life:

 

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989
This Day in Gay History
September 27

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|