Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing. If you haven’t wept deeply, you haven’t begun to meditate.
I made another thing. This group didn’t really have a name that I could find, but it comes up a lot in the suttas as being things that support the development of various enlightened states of being and wisdom.
Seclusion can be physically secluding yourself to meditate, but also seclusion from sensual desires or unwholesome things, etc.
Dispassion happens when as you develop wisdom and start seeing things through a lens of impermanence and permanence, you start to lose interest in impermanent things like sensual pleasures and existence and rebirth, etc.
Cessation is what happens when you reach the various levels of enlightenment and the fetters are “cut off at the root, made like a palm-tree stump that can come to no further existence in the future.” so those beliefs and desires completely cease to be and cannot arise again. (the symbol is based on a palm tree root structure)
Relinquishment is when you are able to fully let go of things, truly freeing you from them.
I had the opportunity to attend an online meditation retreat with the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi and others from Buddhist Global Relief this weekend. It focused on the Brahma Viharas, which translates to The Divine Abodes, and are sometimes called ‘The Four Sublime States.’ They have also been called ‘The only emotions worth having.’
Mettā, or loving-kindness. This is a deep, gentle, heartfelt concern for the wellbeing of others and is the basis of the Brahma Viharas.
Karuṇā, or Compassion is what happens when Loving-Kindness encounters Suffering. It is the sincere wish that others’ suffering is relieved and empathizing with their pain to the point where you feel it as well.
Muditā, or Sympathetic Joy, or Altruistic Joy is what happens when Loving-Kindness encounters wholesome Happiness or Joy. It is the celebration of others’ wholesome happiness and joy, sharing in their happiness and being happy that they’re happy.
Upekkhā, or Equanimity is what balances the others. It sees the larger picture and the sameness and equality and unity of all living beings.
The four work with each other and connect to each other. If you only practice one, you will become unbalanced. If you only practice loving-kindness you can become attached to the people you direct it to. If you only practice compassion you can be overwhelmed by the suffering and the compassion can turn to pity. If you only practice sympathetic joy you can lose sight of the suffering of others and become hypocritical. If you only practice equanimity you can become indifferent to the others because everything’s the same and eventually going to end, so they become unimportant.
The real benefit to meditating on these feelings and practicing them often is that you can change your character. What you think becomes what you say and what you say becomes what you do. So, the more you think about things from these points of view and feel these emotions, the more they will saturate into your everyday life until they become your instinctual reactions. When you encounter a situation that you would normally feel anger you will feel love, compassion, and equanimity with the other person and be able to calmly and wisely approach the situation.
Overall, the retreat was a really good experience and I enjoyed it greatly while learning a lot. It gave me a lot to add to my daily meditation practice and I can’t wait to continue exploring these concepts.
here’s all the ones I’ve made so far. I’m working on 4 foundations of mindfulness, 7 factors of enlightenment, dependent origination, and the meditative states right now.
‘Be not led by the authority of religious texts, not by mere logic or inference, not by considering appearances, not by the delight in speculative opinions, not by seeming possibilities, nor by the idea: 'this is our teacher’. But, when you know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome [akusala], and wrong, and bad, then give them up…And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome [kusala] and good, then accept them and follow them.’
from the aṅguttaranikāya, quoted in What The Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula.
Solitude should not be a burden, something that is suffered, that is borne involuntarily, or in which refuge is taken by force of circumstances, but rather, a natural, simple, and free disposition. In a text [Suttanipāta] we read: ‘Solitude is called wisdom, he who is alone will find that he is happy’.
[Image Description: Screenshot of a tweet by damita jo (@KiaSpeaks) reading “For the first time in 30years, Muslims, Jews, Christains, Sikhs, Baha’is, Hindus, Buddhists & Indigenous nations will observe holidays simultaneously, with Ramadan, Passover, Easter, Vaisakhi, Mahavir Jayanti, Theravada New year, and the Gathering of Nations all occurring in April.” End Image Description.]
thailand’s annual poi sang long festival, which occurs in the first week of april, celebrates the ordination of ethnic shan boys to the theravada buddhist order. for three days, these sang long, or “jewelled sons,” are dressed in bright colours and adorned in flowers and make up, and then carried on the shoulders of relatives to the wat pa pao temple in chiang mai, where they will adopt the monk’s traditional saffron robes. the ritual is meant to mimic the buddha’s renunciation of his life of material luxury as prince siddhartha.
