Sunday, July 17, 2022

Via Daily Dharma: Emotion and Reason

 In the West, human life is often seen as a struggle between emotion and reason. Buddhist psychology doesn’t distinguish between thought and emotion in a neat way. In fact, there is no word for emotion in the classical Indic languages. There is an understanding that even what seems like a neutral state of mind will have an emotive tone. 

Thupten Jinpa, “The Power of Awareness and Compassion to Transform Our World”


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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 17, 2022 💌

 


The Soul works through a kind of "psychic DNA," which manifests on many planes - our bodies, our personalities, our dreams - using all of it to work out the karma of the Soul.

- Ram Dass -

Saturday, July 16, 2022

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT
Restraining Unarisen 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 the 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 restrain the arising of unarisen unhealthy mental states. One restrains the arising of the unarisen hindrance of sluggishness. (MN 141)
Reflection
Among the five hindrances is the hindrance of sluggishness. More colorfully called “sloth and torpor” in many texts, this is the quality of mind that is lacking energy, is low on enthusiasm, and just generally results in laziness or sleepiness. It is not a moral failing, but it is unhealthy insofar as it obstructs clarity of mind and thereby can contribute to suffering. It helps to make an effort to restrain its arising in the mind whenever possible.

Daily Practice
The practice of restraining the arising of sluggishness is not about repressing it but about understanding the conditions in which it thrives. You can work to limit those conditions so that sluggishness is not inclined to arise. Cultivate its antidote, energy, by raising physical and mental activity before sluggishness gains a foothold. Knowing it is present as a latent or potential trait helps guard against having it flare up in experience. 

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna
One week from today: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

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Via Daily Dharma: Be Glad for What You Have

 Gratitude, the simple and profound feeling of being thankful, is the foundation of all generosity. I am generous when I believe that I am myself being given what I need. Generosity requires that we relinquish something, and this is impossible if we are not glad for what we have.

-Sallie Jiko Tisdale, “As If There Is Nothing to Lose”


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Friday, July 15, 2022

[GBF] new GBF talks

New talks have been added to the audio archive st the GBF website:





Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Harming Living Beings
Harming living beings is unhealthy. Refraining from harming living beings is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the harming of living beings, one abstains from harming living beings; with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, one abides compassionate to all living beings. (M 41) One practices thus: “Others may harm living beings, but I will abstain from the harming of living beings.” (MN 8)

This is something that leads to the welfare and happiness of a person in this present life: accomplishment in protection. Here a person sets up protection and guards over the resources one has acquired . . . [thinking], “How can I prevent thieves from carrying it off, fire from burning it, floods from sweeping it away, and dishonest people from taking it?” (AN 8.54)
Reflection
There is a practical side to the teachings of the historical Buddha that can be easy to overlook. He didn't just guide monks and nuns toward awakening; he also advised laypeople on how to live wisely. Here the emphasis is on the value of guarding the things you own and the beings under your protection. Life is precious, and the duty of a householder to protect their family, animals, and possessions was taken quite seriously. 

Daily Practice
It is easy to cause harm to living beings by neglecting to be careful in all you do. Now more than ever a commitment to non-harming means developing ways not only to avoid hurting living beings but also to nurture and protect them. Look at yourself and your life through the eyes of another: a pet, a wild animal, an ocean, an eco-system. And ask yourself, What more can I do to ensure their safety and well-being?

Tomorrow: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given

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Questions?
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Via Daily Dharma: What is the True Self?

 What is the true self? It’s brilliantly transparent like the deep blue sky, and there’s no gap between it and all living beings.

Kodo Sawaki Roshi, “The True Self”


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Thursday, July 14, 2022

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Bodily Action

 

RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Bodily Action
However the seed is planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing good deeds, bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too bodily action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61)

When you have done an action with the body, reflect upon that same bodily action thus: “Has this action I have done with the body led to both my own affliction and the affliction of another?” If, upon reflection, you know that it has, then tell someone you trust about it and undertake a commitment not to do it again. If you know it has not, then be content and feel happy about it. (MN 61)
Reflection
Here we have a rare invitation to reflect on the past in a tradition that generally encourages us to keep our attention focused on the present moment. This is not an ancient form of psychotherapy but rather the recognition that reflecting on all our actions of body, speech, and mind in the past, present, and future can be a valuable learning tool. We refine our understanding of cause and effect in this way.

Daily Practice
See if you can get in the habit of looking at what you have done immediately after you do it. Notice the effect your actions have on your surroundings and particularly on other people. Notice if you seem to have caused someone harm or if you have hurt yourself in some way. If you are aware of causing affliction, be honest in admitting that and undertake a commitment to refrain from such an action in the future.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings
One week from today: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

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Questions?
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Via Daily Dharma: Accepting Pain

 Mindfully accepting our painful feelings is an essential prerequisite to supporting ourselves with kindness and compassion. Accepting our pain means being willing to be present with it, not pushing it away or reacting to it.

Bodhipaksa, “Loving Pain”


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Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Via Facebook // Exposing homophobia and intolerance online

 


Via Daily Dharma: Sit to Sit

 Anger and fear evaporate through radical acceptance of what is, and through our not demanding or wishing anything else but sitting while sitting.

Jundo Cohen, “The Backwards Wisdom of Shikantaza”


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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from False Speech

 

RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from False Speech
False speech is unhealthy. Refraining from false speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning false speech, one dwells refraining from false speech, a truth-speaker, one to be relied on, trustworthy, dependable, not a deceiver of the world. One does not in full awareness speak falsehood for one’s own ends or another’s ends, or for some trifling worldly end. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak falsely, but I shall abstain from false speech.” (MN 8)

When one knows covert speech to be true, correct, and beneficial, one may utter it, knowing the time to do so. (MN 139)
Reflection
There is nothing wrong with speaking privately and even secretly to someone as long as what is said is true and beneficial. There are times when discretion is entirely appropriate. The thing to guard against is resorting to covert speech as a way of hiding something that is not worthy of being spoken in the open. A good rule of thumb is to refrain from saying anything in private you would be ashamed of saying publicly.

Daily Practice
The restraint of false speech is important because what you say has an effect not only on other people but also on yourself. Pay attention to the quality of your mind when you speak covertly to someone and check to make sure that you are not drifting into states of mind that are harmful, such as ill will, hatred, or cruelty. You can learn to be intuitively aware of the quality of your emotions as you speak. 

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Bodily Action
One week from today: Refraining from Malicious Speech

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Questions?
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Via White Crane Institute // Magdalena Carmen FRIDA KAHLO y Calderón

 

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón
1954 -

Magdalena Carmen FRIDA KAHLO y Calderón was a Mexican painter who died on this date (b: 1907); Kahlo known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. She is known for painting about her experience of chronic pain.

Born to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán – now publicly accessible as the Frida Kahlo Museum. Although she was disabled by polio as a child, Kahlo had been a promising student headed for medical school until she suffered a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems. During her recovery, she returned to her childhood interest in art with the idea of becoming an artist.

Kahlo's interests in politics and art led her to join the Mexican Communist Party in 1927, through which she met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. The couple married in 1929, and spent the late 1920s and early 1930s travelling in Mexico and the United States together. During this time, she developed her artistic style, drawing her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture, and painted mostly small self-portraits which mixed elements from pre-Columbian and Catholic beliefs. Her paintings raised the interest of Surrealist artist André Breton, who arranged for Kahlo's first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938; the exhibition was a success, and was followed by another in Paris in 1939. While the French exhibition was less successful, the Louvre purchased a painting from Kahlo, The Frame, making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection. Throughout the 1940s, Kahlo participated in exhibitions in Mexico and the United States and worked as an art teacher. She taught at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado ("La Esmeralda") and was a founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana. Kahlo's always-fragile health began to decline in the same decade. She had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953, shortly before her death in 1954 at the age of 47.

Kahlo's work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the early 1990s, she had become not only a recognized figure in art history, but also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement and the LGBTQ+ movement. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.

She was experiencing health problems – undergoing an appendectomy, two abortions, and the amputation of gangrenous toes – and her marriage to Rivera had become strained. He was not happy to be back in Mexico and blamed Kahlo for their return. While he had been unfaithful to her before, he now embarked on an affair with her younger sister Cristina, which deeply hurt Kahlo's feelings. After discovering it in early 1935, she moved to an apartment in central Mexico City and considered divorcing him. She also had an affair of her own with American artist Isamu Noguchi.

Kahlo reconciled with Rivera and Cristina later in 1935 and moved back to San Ángel. She became a loving aunt to Cristina's children, Isolda and Antonio. Despite the reconciliation, both Rivera and Kahlo continued their infidelities. She also resumed her political activities in 1936, joining the Fourth International and becoming a founding member of a solidarity committee to provide aid to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. She and Rivera successfully petitioned the Mexican government to grant asylum to former Soviet leader Leon Trotsky and offered La Casa Azul for him and his wife Natalia Sedova as a residence. The couple lived there from January 1937 until April 1939, with Kahlo and Trotsky not only becoming good friends but also having a brief affair.

After opening an exhibition in Paris, Kahlo sailed back to New York. She was eager to be reunited with Muray, but he decided to end their affair, as he had met another woman whom he was planning to marry. Kahlo traveled back to Mexico City, where Rivera requested a divorce from her. The exact reasons for his decision are unknown, but he stated publicly that it was merely a "matter of legal convenience in the style of modern times ... there are no sentimental, artistic, or economic reasons." According to their friends, the divorce was mainly caused by their mutual infidelities. He and Kahlo were granted a divorce in November 1939, but remained friendly; she continued to manage his finances and correspondence.
 

On August 21, 1940, Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Coyoacán, where he had continued to live after leaving La Casa Azul. Kahlo was briefly suspected of being involved, as she knew the murderer, and was arrested and held for two days with her sister Cristina. The following month, Kahlo traveled to San Francisco for medical treatment for back pain and a fungal infection on her hand. Her continuously fragile health had increasingly declined since her divorce and was exacerbated by her heavy consumption of alcohol.

Rivera was also in San Francisco after he fled Mexico City following Trotsky's murder and accepted a commission. Although Kahlo had a relationship with art dealer Heinz Berggruen during her visit to San Francisco, she and Rivera reconciled. They remarried in a simple civil ceremony on December 8, 1940. Kahlo and Rivera returned to Mexico soon after their wedding. The union was less turbulent than before for its first five years. Both were more independent, and while La Casa Azul was their primary residence, Rivera retained the San Ángel house for use as his studio and second apartment. Both continued having extramarital affairs; Kahlo, being a bisexual, had affairs with both men and women.

Kahlo's right leg was amputated at the knee due to gangrene in August 1953. She became severely depressed and anxious, and her dependency on painkillers escalated. When Rivera began yet another affair, she attempted suicide by overdose. She wrote in her diary in February 1954, "They amputated my leg six months ago, they have given me centuries of torture and at moments I almost lost my reason. I keep on wanting to kill myself. Diego is what keeps me from it, through my vain idea that he would miss me. ... But never in my life have I suffered more. I will wait a while..."

In her last days, Kahlo was mostly bedridden with bronchopneumonia, though she made a public appearance in July 1954, participating with Rivera in a demonstration against the CIA invasion of Guatemala. She seemed to anticipate her death, as she spoke about it to visitors and drew skeletons and angels in her diary. The last drawing was a black angel, which biographer Hayden Herrera interprets as the Angel of Death. It was accompanied by the last words she wrote, "I joyfully await the exit – and I hope never to return – Frida" ("Espero Alegre la Salida – y Espero no Volver jamás").
 

The demonstration worsened her illness, and on the night of July 12, 1954, Kahlo had a high fever and was in extreme pain. At approximately 6 a.m. on July 13, 1954, her nurse found her dead in her bed. Kahlo was 47 years old. The official cause of death was pulmonary embolism, although no autopsy was performed. Herrera has argued that Kahlo, in fact, committed suicide. The nurse, who counted Kahlo's painkillers to monitor her drug use, stated that Kahlo had taken an overdose the night she died. She had been prescribed a maximum dose of seven pills but had taken eleven. She had also given Rivera a wedding anniversary present that evening, over a month in advance.

Kahlo's body was taken to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where it lay in a state under a Communist flag. The following day, it was carried to the Panteón Civil de Dolores, where friends and family attended an informal funeral ceremony. Hundreds of admirers stood outside. In accordance with her wishes, Kahlo was cremated. Rivera, who stated that her death was "the most tragic day of my life", died three years later, in 1957. Kahlo's ashes are displayed in a pre-Columbian urn at La Casa Azul, which opened as a museum in 1958.


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

 



Water, when it flows downstream, doesn’t have a model of what it’s doing. It’s just being water, and water floats downstream, because that’s how water works. The thing that is extraordinarily hard for any of us to truly realize and to have sufficient faith to accept, is that if you stop having views, having models, planning, desiring, organizing, and structuring, it’s all right.

You don’t stop your desires as long as you stay in a human body. You break the identification with them. Thats all thats required.

It isn’t necessary to give up a thing. It’s necessary to give up attachment to the thing. That’s all that’s required. 
  

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Lovingkindness

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Lovingkindness
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 lovingkindness, for when you develop meditation on lovingkindness, all ill will will be abandoned. (MN 62) 

The near enemy of loving kindness is attachment. (Vm 9.98)
Reflection
Attachment is called a near enemy of lovingkindness because it can seem like kindness while actually being very distinct from it. Think of the person who “loves” their partner so much that they must control their loved one and prevent them from having other friends. In popular culture attachment is often seen as a demonstration of lovingkindness, but in Buddhist thought the two are very different: one is healthy and the other not. 

Daily Practice
See if you can practice lovingkindness without attachment. This involves caring deeply for the well-being of another but on their own terms and not in ways that are bound up with your own agenda or sense of self. Remember the phrase found in the Metta Sutta: “May all beings be happy in themselves!” Attachment always includes some measure of self-interest, while true lovingkindness is entirely free of this.

Tomorrow: Refraining from False Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Compassion

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Questions?
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Even though it may seem counterintuitive, when you’re suffering, if you can focus on another person’s joy, you can share it, and that makes you feel better.

Rick Heller, “Sympathetic Joy”


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