Morning Star Dhamma
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Father, writer, meditator, traveler, how many labels do we really need? #dhamma #buddhism #meditation
Why do we so often expect that causation will have no effect? Why do we so often doubt that our actions will bear fruit?
For some reason the word Papañca suddenly came to mind, like a non-sequitur, together with its definition. Papañca in action.
It is our greed, hatred, & ignorance that betrays us, not another.
Honor those admirable qualities. Admirable friendship is the whole path. Forgive, forebear, attention afore.
Be careful, to the extent any roots of greed, hatred, ignorance remain, no matter how seemingly dormant, you may yet be capable of inflicting great harm on self & others.
Effluents ended, independent of nutriment, their pasture — emptiness & freedom without sign: their trail, like that of birds through space, can't be traced. — Dhp 93
Striving for that which is inauthentic, one remains in a state of self-created non-reality, mistaking all these things for the ultimate goal, while never, ever arriving.
By nature peaceful & wise, protected by 7 nagas.
Step by step, that which once seemed almost unattainable may now come naturally and with ease. Keep on applying effort & energy.
Devo vassatu kalena — sassasampatti hotu ca phito bhavatu loko ca — raja bhavatu dhammiko. "May the rains come in time So that the harvests may be abundant: May the world be prosperous, May the rulers be righteous."
That last out-breath at the death moment, and then? Best to practice here & now.
Every esoteric teaching has a mundane corollary. Thus are we storytellers.
Graduating to anger, one attains a firmly established sense of self, one more problem to overcome, if wisdom can recognize the issue.
Politics & religion, marriage & family, professional status & all human endeavors, are inextricably intertwined with greed, hatred, delusion. Their beauty emerges only through the transformative process of overcoming these 3. They are impermanent, cannot define us, & unsatisfactory as constructs.
💬 "Mindfulness isn't difficult — we just need to remember to do it." — Sharon Salzberg That's it. That's the whole reminder for this week. 🌿
Always another problem, always another opportunity for awareness & equanimity.
Problem solving involves first recognizing what the real problem is.
No use relying on what by nature is unreliable. Better to abandon such expectations and live free.
That sense of loneliness, of being alone, while endemic to this human condition, is grounded in a fantasy.
"There is the case where a person of integrity gives a gift attentively, with his own hand, respectfully, not as if throwing it away, with the view that something will come of it. This is how a person of integrity is a person of integrity in the way he gives a gift.” MN 110
"There are these 5 rewards in listening to the Dhamma. Which 5? "One hears what one has not heard before. One clarifies what one has heard before. One gets rid of doubt. One's views are made straight. One's mind grows serene. "These are the five rewards in listening to the Dhamma." — AN 5.202
Sole dominion over the earth, going to heaven, lordship over all worlds: the fruit of stream-entry excels them. — Dhp 178
Any person of genuine faith must, with appropriate humility, face the fact that faith is not self. Seeming faith infused with self image, wound up with identity view, derived of ego, is not actually faith but rather a fragile lie.