Monday, March 4, 2024

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

 


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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 understands flavors as they actually are, then one is not attached to flavors. 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
Just as suffering is constructed moment by moment by attaching to the details of sensual experience, wanting the flavors we like and not wanting the flavors we don’t like, so too that very moment of suffering can be deconstructed by abandoning the wanting and not wanting and replacing it with equanimity. We still experience the flavor, directly and intently, but without being entangled with it—only aware of it.

Daily Practice
Practice eating with equanimity. Simply take a bite, chew it slowly and carefully, attending fully to every nuance of texture and flavor, and then swallow when appropriate. All this is done with great awareness but without favoring or opposing any aspect of the experience. When you experience flavors “unattached” and “without infatuation,” you are, in that brief moment at least, entirely free of suffering.

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
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Questions?
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Via Daily Dharma: Life’s Particulars Make It Special

 

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Life’s Particulars Make It Special 

We don’t live life in general; we live life in particular ways, and it is in its particulars that life is invested with wisdom and meaning.

Henry Shukman, “A Matter of Misdirection”


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In Brief: Fish Love
By Khenpo Sherab Sangpo
A short lesson on attachment to foster genuine happiness and healthy relationships.
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Sunday, March 3, 2024

Via [GBF] "The Stories We Tell Ourselves" with Daigan Gaither

We all have Stories, Opinions, and Ideas but we don’t have to buy into them.

In this talk, Rev. Daigan Gaither explains that as humans, our minds think; it’s just what they do. Letting go of these thoughts can become the focus of our practice.

He examines the trap of thinking that our meditation should be a certain way, but then our experience often does not measure up to that idea. Or we have a moment of serenity and then become attached to making every moment measure up to that. We don’t have to chase enlightenment or enlightened people; we can just experience enlightened moments when they arise.

However, he shares that we shouldn’t be so quick to discard or suppress our stories, opinions, and ideas because they contain mountains of information that can inform our practice with our feelings about ourselves and the world around us.
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Listen to the talk on your favorite podcast player, or our website: 

https://gaybuddhist.org/podcast/the-stories-we-tell-ourselves-daigan-gaither/

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Enjoy 800+ free recorded dharma talks at www.gaybuddhist.org/podcast/

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Via Daily Dharma: The Transformative Power of Engagement

 

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The Transformative Power of Engagement 

If we reduce Buddhist thought and practice solely to a personal and private undertaking, then we lose something immensely important that has the potential to change many aspects of the societies that we live within. 

John Peacock, “The Elephant in the Dharma Hall”


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The Buddhist Traveler in Taipei
By Judith Hertog
A sampling of the local Buddhist temples, art, and culture that is omnipresent in Taiwan’s capital city, Taipei.
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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna

 


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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 bodily pleasant feeling, one is aware: Feeling a bodily pleasant feeling … one is just aware, just mindful: "There is feeling." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)
Reflection
In every mind moment, consciousness takes a single, particular object to be aware of, and a particular feeling tone coarises with that moment of consciousness. While knowing the object, we also know whether it feels good or bad, or has a feeling tone that is not obviously one or the other. This sensation becomes a focus point for establishing the presence of mindfulness. Just be aware of that feeling tone, arising and passing.

Daily Practice
In this passage we are focusing only on pleasant bodily feeling tones. Yes, we are allowed to experience pleasure and even to focus on it exclusively. As you sit in meditation, notice what feels good in your body. Even if there is discomfort in some parts of the body, there will also be comfort in other parts. Seek out the pleasure in your bodily experience, noticing its texture and how it changes, arising and passing away. 


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)

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
When the mind is temporarily free of afflicted states, it enters upon a natural path towards concentration. Whether or not you practice the jhānas, some degree of focus is an essential part of meditation practice, and this passage describes how you can gently follow the process of relaxing into concentration.

Daily Practice
See if you can tread the path of gladness, leading to joy, leading to peace. This is not the enthusiastic joy of winning the lottery or dancing at a wedding, but is a more subtle and deeper joy that comes from gladness, from a softening of the mind in response to its being free for some time from restlessness, sluggishness, sense desire, ill will, and doubt. Subtract, as you sit, and see if you can refrain from adding anything.


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

Questions?
Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.



Tricycle is a nonprofit and relies on your support to keep its wheels turning.

© 2024 Tricycle Foundation
89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003