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Triple Gems

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Bhante Gunaratana, Thich Nhat Hanh and H.H. the Dalai Lama

H.H. the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh and Bhante Gunaratana, abbot of the Bhavana Society monastery and retreat center in Hampshire County, W.Va., are featured in the article, “Three Lives of Wisdom,” by the matcha tea folks at this website link. Here is a bit of the article below.

“Buddhism is one of the oldest faith traditions in existence, and three of its most prominent leaders are still thriving and teaching well into their eighties. Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, the most visible and venerated of the Theravada monks, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, head of the world’s Tibetan Buddhists, and Thich Nhat Hanh, who leads active communities of Buddhists on several continents, are living legends. Quite different from each other in their approaches to the tradition and in the way they believe it should be transmitted to future generations, the three have been a significant force for good in a world that often seems stuck in neutral, or headed toward Armageddon.

“What called these unique individuals to lives of service, justice and peace? Their diverse backgrounds, personalities and strengths are living examples for anyone who strives to make the world a better place.”

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One Minute of Meditative Video

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Take a minute with a few contemplative reminders in the video above..

The Meditation Circle meets most Tuesdays from 6 to 7 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation building in Charleston,WV,  520 Kanawha Blvd.

And 11 am to noon Saturdays at the Peacetree Center for Wellness, 5930 Mahood Dr, about 10 minutes from the Huntington Mall. Beginners welcome for sitting and guided meditation in the breath-centered Buddhist tradition.

Quotes

Changing everything

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Photo by Fachy Marín on Unsplash

“A frequent image in meditation instructions is that all you have to do is turn on a light and the darkness goes away. No matter how many eons the darkness has reigned, all you have to do is turn on the light once and that’s the end of the darkness. All you have to do is work on how you’re perceiving things in the present moment and when things finally click, you don’t have to worry about what other people tell you, you don’t have to worry about the world, you don’t have to worry about the self, you don’t have to worry about what you’ve done in the past, for you’ve learned a new habit, you’ve developed a new skill. And the development of that new skill changes everything.”

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu
from “Habits of Perception”

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New Subscription Link for the MeditationCircle.com

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We had some trouble with our old subscription link for TheMeditationCircle.com site. If you wish to subscribe and receive regular notice of new posts to the site and news about Meditation Circle events and inspiring quotes about meditation and mindfulness in the breath-centered Buddhist tradition, please add your email to the ‘SUBSCRIBE TO THE MEDITATIONCIRCLE SITE’ link at the top of the left-hand colum, at the top of the right-hand side of the site or at the bottom of the site. If you are viewing this post on your phone, go to the very bottom of the site’s screen on your phone to subscribe.

NOTE: We will be turning off our old email list, so if you WERE subscribed, please re-subscribe if you are still interested in receiving emails from the Meditation Circle. We will try and figure out how to send out an email to former subscribers to let you know. If you have any questions, e-mail Thad or Doug at breathe AT themeditationcircle.com.  With metta _/\_

Meditation, Mindfulness

The power of mindfulness

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Photo by Valentina Yoga on Unsplash

By Lynn J. Kelly  } The Buddha’s Advice to Laypeople

… Nyanaponika Thera suggested that the first power of mindfulness is to help us “tidy up” the jumble of thoughts, ideas, impressions, and shadows in our minds. After we start sorting the clear from the unclear and the useful from the useless, we can have a closer look by accurately naming the elements in our minds. We may not get the name quite right immediately, and so we might need to re-focus our mindfulness to examine our thoughts more closely.

Once we start to recognize the repetitive thoughts that pass through our minds, we can categorize them, at first into wholesome and unwholesome, or leading towards or away from clarity, and later into more refined groupings.

Sometimes we camouflage our thoughts to make them more palatable. We blame others for our own aversion, or give ourselves (reflected) credit for others’ good acts. We are experts at re-creating our experience to make it more pleasant and to hide any unpleasant aspects of our thinking from ourselves. This is one way we give the defilements a clearer field of play. It is delusion in action and must be exposed through careful inquiry.

[From Nyanaponika Thera] But by applying the simple method of clearly and honestly naming or registering any undesirable thoughts, these two harmful devices, ignorance and camouflage, are excluded. Thence their detrimental consequences on the structure of the subconscious and their diversion of mental effort will be avoided.

The method of naming and registering also extends, of course, to noble thoughts and impulses which will be encouraged and strengthened. Without being given deliberate attention, such wholesome tendencies often pass unnoticed and remain barren. But when clear awareness is applied to them, it will stimulate their growth.

Many of us have a tendency to take our kind or generous thoughts (and actions) for granted. We tick them off and don’t reflect on them, but they can be the basis for confidence and joy in the (heart-)mind.

In the Satipatthana Sutta (MN 10), some of the instructions say:

[Translated by Sujato Bhikkhu] It’s when a mendicant knows mind with greed as ‘mind with greed,’ and mind without greed as ‘mind without greed.’ They know mind with hate as ‘mind with hate,’ and mind without hate as ‘mind without hate.’ They know mind with delusion as ‘mind with delusion,’ and mind without delusion as ‘mind without delusion.’ They know contracted mind as ‘contracted mind,’ and scattered mind as ‘scattered mind.’ … They know mind immersed in samādhi as ‘mind immersed in samādhi,’ and mind not immersed in samādhi as ‘mind not immersed in samādhi.’ They know freed mind as ‘freed mind,’ and unfreed mind as ‘unfreed mind.

Using the power of mindfulness, we can name and categorize the contents of our minds,  and, in this way, walk the path towards awakening.

The full essay is here: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel121.html

~ By Lynn J. Kelly
from her Aug. 25, 2018 post from her website | Subscribe to her site at:
“The Buddha’s Advice to Laypeople: Guidelines for Developing a Happier Life”

 

 

Meditation, Mindfulness, Quotes

Friends with our thoughts

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Photo by Guillermo Álvarez on Unsplash

Sometimes people think the point of meditation is to stop thinking— to have a silent mind. This does happen occasionally, but it is not necessarily the point of meditation. Thoughts are an important part of life, and mindfulness practice is not supposed to be a struggle against them. We can benefit more by being friends with our thoughts than by regarding them as unfortunate distractions. In mindfulness, we are not stopping thoughts as much as overcoming any preoccupation we have with them. However, mindfulness is not thinking about things, either. It is a non-discursive observation of our life in all its aspects.

In those moments when thinking predominates, mindfulness is the clear and silent awareness that we are thinking. A piece of advice I found helpful and relaxing was when someone said, “For the purpose of meditation, nothing is particularly worth thinking about.” Thoughts can come and go as they wish, and the meditator does not need to become involved with them. We are not interested in engaging in the content of our thoughts. Mindfulness of thinking is simply recognizing that we are thinking.

In meditation, when thoughts are subtle and in the background, or when random thoughts pull us away from awareness of the present, all we have to do is resume mindfulness of breathing. However, when our preoccupation with thoughts is stronger than our ability to let go of them easily, then we direct mindfulness to being clearly aware that thinking is occurring. Strong bouts of thinking are fuelled largely by identification and preoccupation with thoughts. By clearly observing our thinking, we step outside the field of identification. Thinking will usually then soften to a calm and unobtrusive stream.

~ Gil Fronsdal
pp. 57-58
Mindfulness

The Practice of Now

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Photo by Erik Witsoe on Unsplash

The only time we ever have to live is now. The only time that spiritual practice is done is now. If we’re going to cultivate love and compassion, it has to be in the present moment, because we don’t live in any other moment. So, even though the present is constantly changing, it’s all we have. Life happens now. Our past glories are simply that. Our past hurts are not happening now. Our future dreams are simply future dreams. The future tragedies we concoct do not exist at this time.

A spiritual practitioner may remember previous illuminating moments and dream of future exotic situations, replete with fully enlightened teachers and blissful insights, but in fact, practice occurs now. The person in front of our nose at this moment represents all sentient beings to us. If we’re going to work for the benefit of all sentient beings, we have to start with this one, this ordinary person in our everyday life. Opening our hearts to whomever is before us requires discipline and effort. Connecting with the person in front of us necessitates being fully present, not off in the past or the future.

Dharma practice means dealing with what is happening in our mind at this moment. Instead of dreaming of conquering future attachment, let’s deal with the craving we have right now. Rather than drown in fears of the future, let’s be aware of the fear occurring right now and investigate it.

~Thubten Chodron
(except from thubtenchodron.org/2011/06/spinning-stories)

 

Mindfulness

Harmonious Speech

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Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Text from the website “The Buddha’s Advice to Laypeople” by Lynn J. Kelly

A second category of Right Speech (after truthfulness) is harmonious speech, or refraining from saying things with the intention of dividing people or groups from each other. It is a challenging moment in history, in many places, to hold to this principle. Our public discourse seems to have descended to a level where hardly anything can be said without someone objecting.

Behind this trend is an increasing strain of “us vs. them” thinking, writing, and talking. It is human nature to prefer “our own” people to those who seem different, whether by dint of language, class, education, nationality, color, ethnicity, age, gender, political position, etc. The boundaries between groups are variable (not fixed), and in any given moment we can create or destroy categories in our own mind. In some situations a particular “us-them” divide arises and in other situations it dissipates. When others express strong opinions, sometimes we may be infected with a divisive mind-set. Likewise, we may feel inspired when we witness harmonious speech.

Extra-terrestrial invasion was a theme of 20th century science fiction, in some cases specifically in order to create an “us” out of world-wide humanity. It seems as if we only pull together if there is an outside threat of some sort, whether from a natural disaster or other causes. But we don’t need an enemy, real or imagined, to consider ourselves “us” with every living being. We have the option of remembering that we are all in the same situation with respect to old age, sickness, and death. We are all subject to the vagaries of weather, bad luck, and the random nature of our world. We are all trapped together in saṃsāra.

Saṃsāra: The word literally means “wandering through, flowing on”, in the sense of “aimless and directionless wandering”. The concept of saṃsāra is closely associated with the belief that the person continues to be born and reborn in various realms and forms [Wikipedia]. This is our condition, wandering aimlessly in search of comfort and fleeing discomfort, never reaching any resting place except temporarily. 

It’s our actions and words that make our world, not how we feel about a particular person or group of people. In the end, only kind intentions and the words and actions that come from them are beneficial.

So when we are tempted to righteous indignation, to denigrating or dismissing others, we would do well to pause and consider: How would words spoken in anger, even (or especially) righteous anger, be received? Would they bring about healing or hurting? Would they persuade others to our position or harden their opposition? Are we able to bring enough awareness to our speech to avoid divisiveness?

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Quotes

Creating our lives

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PHOTO BY Matt Briney https://unsplash.com/photos/0tfz7ZoXaWc

“We’re creating our lives. And even when the mind seems to be simply spinning its wheels, it’s not just idly spinning its wheels. It’s creating new states of being, new possibilities — some of which are good, some of which are not so good. You have to keep that principle always in mind as you’re meditating. You’re not simply here innocently watching what’s going on without any responsibility for what you’re experiencing. You’re responsible for your experiences — through your actions in the past and in the present moment. On the one hand, this sounds a little onerous because nobody likes to take responsibility. On the other hand, though, it’s empowering. If you don’t like the present moment, you can create a new present moment because the opportunities to do so are endless.”

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu
“Producing Experience” (Meditations1)

Dhamma Talk

BHANTE G AT THE UNITED NATIONS

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Bhante Gunaratana, abbot of the Bhavana Society Buddhist Monastery in High View, W.Va., , delivered a 9-minute speech on May 1 at the United Nations in New York, on the occasion of Vesak, the festival which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Gautama Buddha in the Theravada or southern tradition of Buddhism. This year’s Vesak will be celebrated at the Bhavana Society on Sunday, May 27.