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 perfects their ethical behavior by abandoning the taking of life, dwelling without taking life, with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, and with compassion for all living beings. (DN 2)

Reflection

The first and perhaps most important of the basic ethical precepts is committing yourself to the practice of harmlessness. This means not only no deliberate killing but also refraining from any kind of assault against living beings. The phrase used above literally means “laying down the stick” and broadly speaking is construed as not only abandoning any overt acts of violence but also softening the heart internally with kindness and compassion.

Daily Practice

How can you bring more harmlessness to your daily life? It  is an emotional attitude more than anything else. It involves seeing things through the eyes of other beings and recognizing that they do not want and do not deserve to be assaulted. Begin by brushing insects away rather than killing them, slowing down to avoid animals on the road, and in every way increasing your sensitivity to the inherent value of life.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: The Power of Pausing

Pausing helps us become a detached observer of our emotions and reframe the situation. . . . When our habits and preconceptions no longer guide us, we can make room to consider a situation from multiple angles, and make better and more compassionate decisions.

Rev. Grace Song, “The Power of Mindful Journaling”

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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)   The proximate cause of equanimity is seeing ownership of deeds. (Vm 9.95) Having tasted a flavor with the tongue, one is neither glad-minded nor sad-minded but abides with equanimity, mindful and fully aware. (AN 6.1)

Reflection

The phrase “seeing ownership of deeds” refers to karma. Recognizing that everything that happens is a matter of cause and effect gives rise to equanimity. It is not raining to spoil your picnic, your toothache is not a form of punishment, and you are not having a bit of luck because you deserve it. When we regard things as the result of conditions rather than as entangled in our own sense of self, equanimity begins to develop.

Daily Practice

Cycling through the senses, we are practicing today with the tongue and flavors. The aim is to use this sense modality to cultivate equanimity, the state of mind that does not favor pleasure or oppose displeasure. As you eat your food, see if you can relate to the taste with a neutral reaction. Acknowledge the tastiness if it tastes good and be aware of the bad taste if it is bad, but practice looking at each evenly. It is what it is.

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

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Via Daily Dharma: Learning the Dance of Compassion

 Letting go of incessantly measuring and comparing ourselves to others leads to spontaneous acts of courage and compassion. It’s like learning a dance step well enough that we no longer need to keep looking down at our feet. Eventually we feel the music and the movement, and that’s enough to be perfectly in tune with our partner and right on the beat.

Gaylon Ferguson, “Natural Bravery”

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GURL, YOU'RE A KAREN - A Randy Rainbow Parody

Tina Turner - Lotus Sutra / Purity of Mind (2H Meditation)

Via White Crane Institute // PI DAY

 

Noteworthy

1592 -

PI DAY is a holiday held to celebrate the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14^th (3/14), due to π being roughly equal to 3.14. The Pi Minute is also sometimes celebrated on March 14 at 1:59 p.m. If π is truncated to seven decimal places, it becomes 3.1415926, making March 14 at 1:59:26 p.m., Pi Second (or sometimes March 14, 1592 at 6:53:58 a.m.).

The first Pi Day celebration was held at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, and then consuming fruit pies; the museum has since added pizza pies to its Pi Day menu.

The founder of Pi Day was Larry Shaw, a now retired physicist at the Exploratorium who still helps out with the celebrations. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology often mails out its acceptance letters to be delivered to prospective students on Pi Day.

Some also celebrate Pi Approximation Day in addition to Pi Day, which can fall on any of several dates:

• April 26: The Earth has traveled two radians of its orbit by this day (April 25th in leap years); thus the entire orbit divided by the distance traveled equals pi
• July 22: 22/7 in the more common day/month date format, an ancient approximation of pi
• November 10: The 314th day of the year (November 9 in leap years)
• December 21, 1:13 p.m.: The 355th day of the year (December 20 in leap years), celebrated at 1:13 for the Chinese approximation 355/113

On Pi Day, 2004, Daniel Tammet calculated and recited 22,514 decimal digits of pi.

Somewhat appropriately, it would seem, Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day, 1879.

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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 BBC Heart and Soul // Damien McGuinness meets Wolfgang Rothe, a radical priest challenging the Catholic church

 

Lama Rod Owens

 

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

 

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 devoid of aversion, one is aware "the mind is devoid of aversion" … One is just aware, just mindful: "There is mind." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Mindfulness can be established and sustained by focusing on the quality of consciousness itself. Consciousness is colored in every moment by subtle or obvious emotional tones, in particular by various forms of greed, hatred, and delusion. These states are toxic, but the mind is often free of them for fleeting moments. Here we are invited to notice when the mind is free from hatred in its many forms.

Daily Practice

Aversion is a quality of mind that comes and goes. Sometimes we are annoyed at something, and sometimes we are not. Sometimes we hate something and wish it would go away, and sometimes we do not. This is a practice of noticing the flickering moods of the mind, of becoming aware of the emotional strands that arise in the mind and then vanish. In particular, notice when your mind is free of any trace of aversion.

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) When one sees oneself purified of all these unhealthy states and thus liberated from them, gladness is born. When one is glad, joy is born; in one who is joyful, the body becomes tranquil; one whose body is tranquil feels pleasure; in one who feels pleasure, the mind becomes concentrated. (MN 40)

Reflection

Pleasure is as natural and inevitable a part of human experience as pain, and like pain it is not to be feared or avoided. The challenge is to not be carried away by either, and to abide with both with equanimity. The unhealthy pursuit of pleasure can lead to all sorts of problems, but there are some cases, like this one, when pleasure is an ally. There is a healthy pleasure that comes simply from the experience of a tranquil body.

Daily Practice

Pleasure can be a gateway leading from tranquility to concentration. Allow yourself to feel how pleasant it is to be calm. Temporarily free from the rush of restlessness, and not, for the moment, driven by all kinds of pressures to do and accomplish things, take some time to allow yourself to fully feel the deep pleasure of a calm and tranquil moment. This is the pleasure of being, not doing.

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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Via Daily Dharma: Appreciate Your Failures

 The small failures of yesterday are your best protection against the major crashes of tomorrow.

Fabrice Desmarescaux, “The Power of Not-Knowing”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - March 13, 2022 💌

 

When you give another human being, your family, or your business, the fullness of your being at any moment, a little is enough. When you give them half of it, because you’re time binding with your mind, there is never enough. You begin to hear the secret that being fully in the present moment is the greatest gift you can give to each situation.

- Ram Dass -

Via NPR // LGBTQ people are fighting to keep their rights in Ukraine

 

Via The Advocate // Why the U.S. Must Help Evacuate LGBTQ+ Refugees in Ukraine

 

via Buddhism, Zen, Tao and Meditation. Are all practices of Spirituality / FB

 

Each of these explain there is no right or wrong. There is only perspective, we must be open to all.

If we Believe in something then we should always remember it is only a Belief, it is not fact. Our Ego becomes attatched to it and it them changes from our Belief to our Identity and this leads to something we become angry and argumentative about. The truth is no one has enough knowledge to judge.

Each of these practices promote Compassion as one of their fundamental foundations.

I am saddened at times to see on a Buddhism, Zen, Tao and Meditation page that people comment on other people's offerings with words like 'Wrong' and 'No' on occasion in block capitals to emphasis their disregard, or I see negative emojis added, such as Laughing at someone's perspective or even an angry face. 

I believe that the Admin team here do an amazing job and to date I have never seen a post of discrimination or one which voices hatred slip through the net. So I see no need for people to defend anything.

The more perspectives we have the cleared we see.

If you feel the need to defend or disagree with someone perspective, then as is said. If you have the opportunity to be Right or Kind always choose Kind. Or at least let go of the need disagree.

In buddhism they recommend the below practice, it is difficult for the ego at times to do this but it promotes Compassion 🙏❤️

viaFB

 

“Folks don’t like nobody being too proud, or too free.”

“I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way...I can't apologize for that, nor can I change it, nor do I want to....We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful....We realize that we are as ourselves unlimited and our experiences valid. It is for the rest of the world to recognize this, if they choose.”

The Color Purple

Via FB

 

via Fb

 

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 joy-awakening factor. (MN 141)

Reflection

Happiness is a skill that can be learned, and it can be practiced again and again as a living presence. We are all capable of experiencing happy and healthy states of mind, but sometimes we need to remember to experience them as a conscious and deliberate act. At any point, we can in principle draw out of a pool of latent tendencies the active manifestation of a positive state such as joy, thus waking it up and bringing it to life.

Daily Practice

Try the exercise of deliberately cultivating joy as an active and present state of mind. This does not mean pretending to be joyful as a kind of false overlay to feelings that are not joyful. It means consciously developing actual joy and allowing it to replace whatever other feeling might be in the mind at the moment. Joy is accessible; it is just a matter of remembering to get in touch with it as a living emotion.

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

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