Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Appreciative Joy

 

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Appreciative Joy

Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis upon which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on appreciative joy, for when you develop meditation on appreciative joy, any discontent will be abandoned. (MN 62)  Appreciative joy succeeds when it makes discontent subside. (Vm 9.95)

Reflection

The third brahma-vihara, appreciative joy, is not mere joy. It is the gladness that arises when you witness or contemplate the good fortune and happiness of another being. It is a celebration of all that is good in the world, an appreciation of healthy enjoyment itself. If you allow yourself to experience this often, your mind will naturally incline toward this state. It is impossible to feel any discontent when you genuinely feel good about others.

Daily Practice

This is a practice the world needs greatly, and it is deeply healing to the wounded heart. Living beings abide together in such profound interdependence that when relationships are fused with appreciative joy rather than discontent, the entire system becomes healthier. Practice celebrating the good things you see around you every day and use appreciative joy as a powerful antidote whenever you feel discontent.

Tomorrow: Refraining from Harsh Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Equanimity

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Via Daily Dharma: Let Your Eyes Adjust

 Zen practice involves finding and dwelling in emptiness. It’s like a person who goes into a dark room from a lighted hallway. When you look around at first, it’s absolutely black, but if you stay in that room, you begin to be able to operate. You begin to be able to see.

Kurt Spellmeyer, “Seeing in the Dark”

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Via New York Times

 

Via Tumblr// Humus

 

Via Daily Dharma: Unmasking the Ego-Mind

 When you challenge ego-mind, be firm but gentle, penetrating but never aggressive. Just say to your ego-mind, “Show me your face!” When no mind shows up saying, “Here I am,” ego-mind will begin to lose its hold on you and your struggles will lighten up.

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “Searching for Self”

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

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

What is the cessation of suffering? It is the remainderless fading away and ceasing, the giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of craving. (MN 9) When one knows and sees thoughts as they actually are, then one is not attached to thoughts. When one abides unattached, one is not infatuated, and one’s craving is abandoned. One’s bodily and mental troubles are abandoned, and one experiences bodily and mental well-being. (MN 149)

Reflection

Since suffering is caused by craving, the cessation of craving brings about the end of suffering. We have seen how this works for each of the sense modalities, and now we turn to the mind as the sixth pathway of experience. We are attached to certain thoughts—usually the ones that feel good—and we struggle against others, which results in a lot of mental troubles. We gain well-being by letting go of both forms of craving.

Daily Practice

Right view can be a practice in itself, a practice of gaining insight into the nature of our experience. Seeing thoughts as they actually are, as arising and passing conditioned events, helps us get free of attachment to them. Thoughts are not wrong, but we suffer in direct proportion to our infatuation with them. Craving can be relinquished, if only for a moment. Abandon bodily and mental troubles and get free—if only for a moment.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Appreciative Joy
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

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Mosteiro Zen da Vargem

 

About GBF

 

Inclusivity

As practicing Buddhists, we cherish the unique potential of each individual, and each individual’s unique mission in the world that only they can accomplish. We believe that each person has the ability to contribute positive value to society in their own unique way.  

GBF welcomes people of all races, backgrounds, and gender and sexual identities: BIPOC, men, women, LGB, Trans People, differing educational and economic backgrounds, and differently abled.  

 

“Do the best you can until you know better. 

Then when you know better, do better.”

– Maya Angelou

 

Our Practice

As a Buddhist organization, GBF undertakes the study and practice of living with mindfulness, compassion, and wisdom toward all beings, including those with whom we don’t agree. We do not experience this as being weak or passive. On the contrary, Buddhism is a path of courage, discipline, and deep commitment to truth and right action. Living with mindful awareness requires we first examine our own hearts and minds to become aware of unconscious internal biases and assumptions; in order to avoid the very dynamics of division and objectification which we strive to end. 

Courage, compassion, and a commitment to truth are required to acknowledge our thoughts and feelings, and self-discipline is required to change, regardless of the guilt and shame we may feel in identifying our own prejudices against others, based on race, gender, social class, etc. This is a practice of turning toward greed, hatred, and ignorance, in order to end the unnecessary suffering that they cause to ourselves and others. It is a path based on the disciplined application of moral principles of non-harm, development of community, and liberation for all beings – not just those who are privileged.

 

Via LGBTQ Nation // Same-sex marriages have happened on every continent now after Antarctic ceremony

 

The two men were the first same-sex couple to marry in Antarctica.

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 neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling in the body, one is aware: “Feeling a bodily neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling … one is just aware, just mindful: 'There is feeling.'” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Of the three kinds of feeling tone—pleasant, painful, and neither-pleasant-nor-painful—it is this third, neutral feeling that is the most challenging to the practice of mindfulness. Feeling tones arise in a steady stream, just like the stream of consciousness; the practice is to pay close enough attention to the textured sensation of each moment. The object is one thing (sight, sound, etc.), and the feeling tone that arises with it is another.

Daily Practice

Sit quietly for some stretch of time and attend carefully to all the neutral sensations in the body. You might even scan systematically from head to foot looking for all the feeling tones that are occurring. Some are obviously pleasant, some are clearly painful. What about the rest? These are the neutral sensations—you feel them, but they do not feel good or bad. They are just there. Feel what it's like to feel what is just there.

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 mind is capable, through training, of becoming more concentrated than is usual in ordinary daily experience. The Buddha describes this as a natural process, unfolding as the body and mind become gradually happier and more tranquil while the mind is focusing upon a single object. In the second phase of this process, discursive thinking gradually fades away as the feeling of pleasure and well-being grows stronger and deepens.

Daily Practice

As you sit quietly and focus on your breathing, the thoughts and memories and plans that so habitually inhabit the mind begin to settle, and the mind becomes calmer. At a certain point thoughts may cease altogether. Awareness of sensory experience remains strong, but it is no longer mediated by words, images, or concepts. The need to re-engage the mind with an object and hold it there is no longer needed, so these functions drop away.

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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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Let the Winds Blow

Desirable things do not have to beguile the mind, and undesirable ones do not have to bring endless resistance. We can let the winds blow through us instead of letting them buffet us about. 

Mark Epstein, “How Meditation Failed Me”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 1, 2022 💌

 
 

You are listening as well as you can to the universe, and often you will see that when things start to happen a certain way, your mind will focus in on that because you’re looking for patterns, which we call ‘synchronicity’.

Often you will just get caught in your desire to find a pattern that will give you an external validation for what you’re doing. You just end up using the universe again to do it to yourself.

So stay with your truth from moment to moment, and get the clues wherever you can. I mean, I’ll open up the Chuang-tzu and read something when I have a question, and if it doesn’t feel good, I say, “Well, that was interesting,” and I close it. If it feels like what I wanted to do anyway, I say, “Ohhh, wow, synchronicity!” And I do it, so I’ve learned that I’m a complete phony anyway, so I might as well just honor it and get on with it.

- Ram Dass - 

Via IMS Book Club: A Queer Dharma

 

IMS Book Club A Queer Dharma: Yoga and Meditations for Liberation Thursday, June 16, 7 pm - 8:15 pm ET

Jacoby Ballard provides an empowering and affirming guide to embodied healing through yoga and the Dharma, grounded in the brilliance, resilience, and lived experiences of queer folks. Enhanced with stories from Ballard's personal practice and professional experience teaching yoga in schools, prisons, conferences, and his weekly Queer and Trans Yoga class, A Queer Dharma is a guidebook, reclamation, and unapologetically queer heart offering for true healing and transformation. Open to all.

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Via Be Here Now Network

Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 437 – Emotions, Mindfulness, & Metta w/ Sharon Salzberg & Noah Markus
April 28, 2022 Sharon Salzberg & Noah join Raghu for a metta-steeped conversation around emotions, mindfulness, self-compassion, and real change. Explore the intersection of Buddhism & Bhakti at...

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Via Be Here Now Network

  Ethan Nichtern – The Road Home Podcast – Ep. 72 – Zen Practice and Collective Ceremonies w/ Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel
April 29, 2022 This week on The Road Home Podcast we hear from Ethan Nichtern and Osho Zenju Earthlyn Manuel. They discuss the overlap of science and...

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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 all five arisen hindrances. (MN 141)

Reflection

Having worked through all five hindrances one at a time, we now focus on treating sense desire, ill will, restlessness, sluggishness, and doubt as a group. These are the five kinds of mental states that obstruct the ability of the mind to gather strength and become unified. Unhealthy states breed more unhealthy states, and it is helpful to abandon, not suppress or resist, them when you notice them arising in your experience.

Daily Practice

Become familiar with these unhealthy states and notice them at any point during your day when they come up—which is bound to be often. Just notice them one by one, recognize each as being not helpful, and let it go. That’s all. Gently guide your mind away from states that obstruct the mind toward states that are free of these obstacles. You will come to know your own mind better, and the practice will become easier to do.

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Doing What We’re Doing

Life is a very simple matter. We’re just doing what we’re doing.

Charlotte Joko Beck, “Mute the Commentary”

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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 cognized by you, in the cognized there will be just the cognized.“ When, firmly mindful, one cognizes a mental object, one is not inflamed by lust for mental objects; one experiences it with a dispassionate mind and does not remain holding it tightly. (SN 35.95)

Reflection

Five of our sense doors open onto the world, while the sixth, the mind door, opens inwardly to draw on sensory experience and mental objects such as memories, imagination, and thoughts. The mental objects are cognized, or known to us, one after another in a stream of consciousness. Here we are encouraged to encounter our thoughts without elaboration, as phenomena arising and passing away.

Daily Practice

See if you can regard your mental activity—the thoughts and images and words passing through the mind—with equanimity. That is, observe them closely but without becoming entangled in their content and without favoring some and opposing others. Thoughts are merely objects that, like sights and sounds and physical sensations, come and go based on various conditions. See if you can abide without “holding them tightly.”

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

 

Via Daily Dharma: Balancing Discipline with Joy

 Without spiritual discipline, we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.

Joan Gattuso, “The Balancing Buddha”

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