Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling

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 feeling a painful bodily feeling, one is aware: “Feeling a painful bodily feeling" … one is just aware, just mindful “there is feeling.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Painful bodily feeling is the most apparent aspect of our experience and is thus the easiest sensation with which to practice. Pain is not an elusive feeling tone. While it can be chronic and excruciating, most of the pain we feel is mild and fleeting. Both pleasure and pain are inevitable aspects of the human condition, and Buddhist practice does not encourage the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of pain.

Daily Practice

As part of the practice of mindfulness, you are invited to simply be aware of pain when it is present. This practice has nothing to do with the natural response of disliking the pain or wishing it were not there but involves simply being aware of the sensation with equanimity. Turn toward the painful sensation, take an interest in its texture, and hold it in mind without pushing it away. Fully aware of the pain, you can still be content.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)

With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4)

Reflection

The teachings around right concentration have to do with four phases of absorption, also known as jhānas. When the mind rests steadily on a single object of attention—which is quite difficult to do at first—it gradually disentangles itself from the various hindrances and becomes unified, peaceful, and stable. With this comes inner clarity and the dropping away of the internal use of language.

Daily Practice

You will know when you have entered into absorption of the jhānas because the state is accompanied at first with a great deal of physical and mental pleasure. The physical pleasure is described as being fundamentally different from any sensual gratification, and the mental pleasure comes naturally when the mind is free of the hindrances (phase one) and when it becomes concentrated or one-pointed (phase two).

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today:  Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna

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For the Moment: Acknowledge, Feel, Soften
With Gil Fronsdal

 

This seven-minute guided practice from Insight Meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal can help you make peace with your felt experience.

Listen now »

Via Daily Dharma: Experiencing the Inner Self

 Depend on yourself. Your own experience of your inner self is what this is about.

Maurine Stuart, “Our One and Only Commandment”

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Via them \\ Will this year’s Grammys be the queerest ever?

 

 

Lil Nas X Raised Almost Half a Million Dollars for HIV Prevention

The rapper’s “baby registry” money from “Montero” will help fund Southern HIV initiatives.

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - April 3, 2022 💌

 

It’s one thing to be generous, it’s another to receive generosity. It’s an exchange of love.

- Ram Dass -

Via The Raft //

 

Profile in Peace New Film on Thay's Life & Peace Work Premieres Saturday A Cloud Never Dies, a new documentary about the life of Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay), will hold its world premier Saturday, April 2 on YouTube. Narrated by actor Peter Coyote, the film provides an intimate glimpse into the life of the global spiritual leader, poet, and human rights activist who is revered around the world for his pioneering teachings on mindfulness, global ethics, and peace. It's our deep aspiration that this film will inspire you to commit to the practice of peace in yourself and in your communities.

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VIA Lion’s Roar // Right Action in the Face of Suffering

 

Right Action in the Face of Suffering

As we witness the great suffering of the Russian-Ukraine war, says Dan Zigmond, we have a moral obligation to pay attention. Through mindfulness, he suggests, we can see the world as it really is and take right action.

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT
Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders unhealthy states, one has abandoned healthy states to cultivate unhealthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to unhealthy states. (MN 19) Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to abandon arisen unhealthy mental states. One abandons the arisen hindrance of doubt. (MN 141)

Reflection

When a thought or emotion arises that is obviously unhelpful or unhealthy, it is natural to make some effort to get rid of it in order not to encourage the damage that such states can do to oneself and others. “Abandoning” involves a particular kind of effort, one that neither encourages nor rejects the unhealthy state. It is not a matter of repressing or pushing away unhealthy states but of letting them simply “flow through” the mind.

Daily Practice

While in some circumstances it can be healthy to doubt, the kind of doubt meant here is that which is debilitating and holds us back from practice and understanding. When doubt as an obstacle arises in your experience, simply let it pass without trying to hold on to it or push it away. You can “abandon” doubt by not letting it get a foothold in your mind but instead watching it arise and pass away, as it will naturally do if you let it.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna
One week from today: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

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Via Daily Dharma: An Act of Courage

 To forbear is indeed an act of courage and not a symbol of cowardice. It takes great effort and resolution to endure pain and hardship. It requires tremendous confidence to bear insult and disgrace without a hint of retaliation or self-doubt.

Master Hsing Yun, “Don’t Get Mad, Don’t Get Even”

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Listen to this week’s podcasts from the Be Here Now Network

  Ethan Nichtern – The Road Home – Ep. 70 – Ancestor Trouble with Maud Newton
April 01, 2022 Ethan Nichtern and Maud Newton discuss personal and collective origin stories, and how ancestral spirituality can help us heal generational trauma. Maud Newton is...

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Via Tricycle // Acknowledge, Feel, Soften

 

April 2, 2022

Acknowledge, Feel, Soften

 
We often think of mindful presence as a state that can be achieved only when we get all our distracting thoughts and uncomfortable emotions out of the way. 

But as Insight Meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal reminds us, we can cultivate a continuous stream of present-moment awareness even in the midst of distracting thoughts and emotions. 

On the latest episode of the podcast For the Moment, Fronsdal—a Bay Area–based author and teacher in the Soto Zen and Vipassana traditions—offers a three-step practice to acknowledge, feel, and soften toward our felt experience. Listen to the seven-minute guided audio meditation for a short and sweet mindful break that you can carry with you into the rest of your day. 

Tricycle’s For the Moment podcast series offers brief guided meditations from some of our favorite Buddhist teachers, including Mark Epstein, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, and Loch Kelly. You can access the full series on our Soundcloud page.
 

Listen now »

 

For the Moment: Acknowledge, Feel, Soften
With Gil Fronsdal

This seven-minute guided practice from Insight Meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal can help you make peace with your felt experience.

Listen now »

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Taking What is Not Given

Taking what is not given is unhealthy. Refraining from taking what is not given is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the taking of what is not given, one abstains from taking what is not given; one does not take by way of theft the wealth and property of others. (MN 41) One practices thus: “Others may take what is not given, but I will abstain from taking what is not given." (MN 8) One is to practice thus: “Here, regarding things sensed by you, in the sensed there will be just the sensed." When, firmly mindful, one senses a sensation, one is not inflamed by lust for sensations; one experiences the sensation with a dispassionate mind and does not remain holding it tightly. (SN 35.95)

Reflection

The phrase “what is seen, heard, and sensed” is a shorthand way of referring to the first five of the senses, so the word sensed refers to the sense modalities of smelling, tasting, and touching. It can be challenging to simply be with what is given in direct experience, since we are so easily swept beyond what is given to add layers of judgment and interpretation. Right living involves remaining grounded in experience.

Daily Practice

When you smell, taste, or touch an object of any kind at any moment, see if you can focus just on the sensation, not allowing thoughts to take over and run rampant. Such proliferation is a way of “taking what is not given,” insofar as you are going beyond the information provided by the senses in the immediate experience and turning it into something different. Practice simply being with what is present—no more, no less.

Tomorrow: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Wisdom Is Full of Humor

 Too long I was told that the spiritual path is dry and intellectual. That wisdom is cold. But I have seen with my own eyes that in the hands of great masters, wisdom is warm and full of humor.

Ajahn Brahm, “In Brief”

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Via Daily Dharma: Changing the World

To become a different kind of person is to experience the world in a different way. When your mind changes, the world changes. And when you respond differently to the world, the world usually responds differently to you.

David Loy, “The Dharma of the Rings”

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Via Lion’s Roar // Dharma for Times of Global Trauma

 

Dharma for Times of Global Trauma Psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach shares the importance of training mindfulness teachers and practitioners to nourish a sense of our collective belonging in our increasingly traumatized world.