A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Whatever you intend,
whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency towards, 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 is the way to purity for one who has much discontent. (Vm 9.108)
Reflection
Entangled as we
are in a consumer economy that depends on the cultivation of desire and
discontent, it can be hard to simply take joy in what we already have
and feel joy in the good circumstances of others. Yet this can be
practiced as an antidote to always feeling desire for one thing or
another. Cultivate appreciative joy, or gladness for the happiness of
others, at every opportunity and feel its cleansing and shielding
effects.
Daily Practice
Discontent can
be subtle and insidious. It can poison us slowly in small but steady
doses, or erupt in episodes of jealously and resentment. By paying
careful attention to the details of your experience, notice the next
time you feel bad in some way about what others have or get. Now
recognize that as a form of discontent and counter it with appreciative
joy, deliberately taking pleasure in the good fortune of another person.
Tomorrow: Refraining from Harsh Speech One week from today: Cultivating Equanimity
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel
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 formations as they actually are, then one is not
attached to formations. 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
The aggregate
of formations includes all our habitual volitional and emotional
responses to whatever information the senses are presenting to
consciousness. This is where we love or hate what is happening, where we
yearn for something different or accept peacefully what occurs. This is
where suffering either is born or dies, depending on whether we respond
in the moment with craving or with mindful equanimity.
Daily Practice
Suffering is
not built into any given situation but is optional. Stress is not caused
by external stressors but is an internal reaction to circumstances. See
if you can bring the profound wisdom of this insight into your lived
experience by bringing the cessation of suffering to every moment. Find
what it is that you are yearning for, turn that craving into mindful
observation, and watch the suffering attached to that moment disappear.
Tomorrow: Cultivating Appreciative Joy One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel
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 common painful feeling, one is aware: “Feeling a
common painful feeling.” When feeling an uncommon painful feeling, one
is aware: “Feeling an uncommon painful feeling”. . . One is just aware,
just mindful: “There is feeling.” And one abides not clinging to
anything in the world. (MN 10)
Reflection
Common feelings
are those that come with ordinary experience, while uncommon feelings
are connected with more subtle psychological and meditative experience.
Remember, feelings in this context are not what we commonly think of as
emotions; rather feelings refer to physical and mental sensations of
pleasure and pain. Here we are directed to take note of the painful
sensations with the equanimity of mindfulness.
Daily Practice
Pay close
attention to what it feels like when something is painful, both
physically and mentally, as a way of practicing the second foundation of
mindfulness. This means you are not resenting or resisting the pain but
merely taking an interest in it and investigating its nuances with a
balanced mind. Pain need not be seen as “bad,” but rather can be
explored as a different texture on the continuum of lived experience.
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 but with joy and the pleasure born
of concentration. (MN 4)
Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel
· October 7-8, 2023, a hybrid conference, "Mindfulness: What's Next?" from the Mangalam Research Center in Berkeley. For info and registration see https://www.mangalamresearch.org/special-events/
Alzak Amlani has
been practicing Buddhism for 20 years and in the last ten years has
been a student of the Diamond Approach. He is a practicing psychologist
and teaches in the Integral Counseling Program at the California
Institute of Integral Studies, where his work focuses on integrating
spiritual approaches and multiculturalism into psychotherapy. He is of Indian origin and grew up in Uganda, East Africa.
American author, poet and activist,PERRY BRASSwas
born today Brass grew up in Savannah, Georgia grew up in the 1950s and
60s in equal parts Southern, Jewish, economically impoverished, and very
much gay. To escape the South’s violent homophobia, he hitchhiked at
age 17 from Savannah to San Francisco — an adventure, he recalls, that
was “like Mark Twain with drag queens.” He has published fourteen books
and been a finalist six times in three categories (poetry; gay science
fiction and fantasy; spirituality and religion) for national Lambda
Literary Awards.
One of the main
themes in his writing has been the integration of sexuality and the
religious or spiritual impulse, as exemplified in his novels Albert: or, The Book of Man, Angel Lust, and Substance of God.
His writings have attempted to answer questions such as: Why are so
many gay men religious and political conservatives? Why is the need for
God so important to us? What is our own place in nature and the world?
Among the early anthologies that included Brass's work were The Male Muse, the first anthology of openly gay poetry ever published, edited by Ian Young; The Gay Liberation Book from Rolling Stone Press, including work by John Lennon; The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse; and Gay Roots from
Gay Sunshine Press. His work can be found in over 20 anthologies of
poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs, and other writings. A poetry
cycle called "Five Gay Jewish Prayers" was used as part of the high
holiday service at New York's Beth Simchat Torah congregation. The text
of this poem was accepted (in 1985) as one of the first gay Jewish
documents in the YIVO Archives of Jewish history. This poem was set to
choral music by Chris De Blasio, as "Five Prayers," which has been sung
by several gay choruses.
In 1984, his play Night Chills,
an early play dealing with the AIDS crisis, won a Jane Chambers
International Gay Playwriting Award. Brass’s collaborations with
composers include the words for "All the Way Through Evening," a
five-song cycle set by DeBlasio, which was featured on the AIDS Quilt Songbook CD from Harmonia Mundi, France, and Heartbeats from
Minnesota Public Radio; "The Angel Voices of Men" set by Ricky Ian
Gordon and commissioned by the Dick Cable Musical Trust for the New York
City Gay Men’s Chorus, which has featured it on its CD Gay Century Songbook;
"Three Brass Songs" with Grammy-nominated composer Fred Hersch; and
"Waltzes for Men" also commissioned by the DCMT for the NYC Gay Men’s
Chorus and set by Craig Carnahan.
Brass's non-fiction book, How to Survive Your Own Gay Life (Belhue
Press, 1999) deals with the psychic and physical survival of gay men,
with their spiritual and psychological growth, and with achieving
happiness and maturity. It was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award
in religion and spirituality, and has been the basis for many LGBT
discussion and support groups, classes, and workshops.
Noteworthy
The European Parliament
1996 -
The EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT calls for an end to "all discrimination against homosexuals."
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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
Just
as it is only the real Self that can see the real world behind
appearances, so it may be that it is only the real seeker who can
recognize a genuine man or woman of wisdom.
