> The violence of the system is much more destructive, much more harmful, although it is well hidden. We call it institutional violence. By calling ourselves nonviolent we are against all violence, but we are first against institutional violence. --Thich Nhat Hanh
#Dharma #Interbeing #Mindfulness #Meditation #PlumVillage #BuddhaGang #EngagedBuddhism #RecoveryDharma #SanghaInTheStreets @dharma @engagedbuddhism @bodhisattvaway @buddhagang @recoverydharma @plumvillage
@sanghainthestreets
The sense of the practice in my #meditation sitting tonight was along the lines of:
what is this moment like before you tell it what it means?
I mostly do a thought-quieting #meditation that then allows, on the other side of the quiet, a greater appreciation for, among other things, the remarkable event that having a thought is. But sometimes things don't get quiet, and thoughts are just there. So then I ask:
*What does it taste like to have a thought?*
That's metaphoric, but it helps me. It allows a shift in my relationship to phenomenal experiencing. More of an intimacy with what the moment is, what it's doing, what it tastes like.
Noticed today three states of my mind:
1. “Normal”. Thinking about a subject. It feels narrow.
2. “Daydreaming”. Thinking drifting on random subjects. It feels meandering through a wide space, but the thinking itself is still narrow.
3. “Mindfulness”. Not thinking, but experiencing. It feels wide and open. Certainly not “mind full”. If it is full of anything, it is the direct experience of body and feeling.
A triptych made by my friend Pitak; done with oil paint on 3 canvases; this set's available & affordable; msg me if you'd like this relaxing composition in your home, or to give as a gift to someone else 
Is consciousness fundamental?
Your felt experience is everything.
#meditation #consciousness #zen #neuroscience #philosophy http://youtube.com/watch?v=4GL4YvX76wg&feature=youtu.be http://shojiwax.com/2025/03/12/is-consciousness-fundamental/
tonight's #meditation was like sitting in the on-going moment as though with a work of art
(not to be figured out, not to be conceptually appraised, but to be true to, and as though to be made true by)
[like the way art makes us true]
A wee ten minute relaxing meditation set in a bookshop for book lovers or anyone else who fancies relaxing here for a few minutes!
#Bookworms #Bookstodon #Meditation #Meditate #Bookish #BookLover
"be true to your school"
In that phrase "true" is about a condition of our heart. It's not about something being objectively accurate or not. It's about our person.
In tonight's #meditation the feeling was — this isn't about having a conceptual understanding of what's going on. This is about being true to what's here.
(And it's my sense that, ultimately, being true like that is about truly being.)
The First Chapter on One Thing (A free, 2-page sutta translation from 2018)
Tags: #BuddhaQuotes #Meditation
https://buddhistuniversity.net/content/canon/an1.296-305
Random, um, thought on #meditation and contemplative practice:
Seems to me a major reason we're not already awakened is that thinking is not the starting point of things. Thoughts come from somewhere. They're generated.
Thinking isn't so much that which determines what's what regarding life and the world, as it is a dependent expression of life and the world.
.
(A reason for #Zen sayings like, "If you try to approach awakening, you go away from it.")
In tonight's #meditation, the message, while it carries wonderful and rather profound contemplative and theological resonances, was simple:
what's actually going on — let that be what does the meditation.
In contemplative traditions, especially lately it seems, there can be a range of talk regarding "non-dualism."
In tonight's #meditation a somewhat straightforward version was present for me — namely, the sense that my intent to be present with the way things are is itself matter-of-factly a part of the way things are.
I've now posted all the meditation retreat Dhamma Talks/Q & A sessions I recorded on my website (see the 8 most recent blog postings there):
https://bhikkhu.ca/
#meditation #Buddhism #Dhamma #Dharma #audio #podcast
In tonight's #meditation I was reminded of how for me there's an increasing and deepening and wonderful sense that growth towards truly appreciating the actual nature of what gets called spiritual involves an ever-fuller, ever-clearer embrace and engagement with what is matter-of-fact.
I Vow Not to Burn Out
"In my world, there always seems to be way too much to do, along with too much suffering and societal corruption and not enough spaces of deep rest and regeneration." #MushimPatriciaIkeda https://www.lionsroar.com/i-vow-not-to-burn-out/
#Dharma #Buddhism #BelovedCommunity #Interbeing #Mindfulness #Meditation #EngagedBuddhism #RecoveryDharma #SanghaInTheStreets #BuddhaGang
@dharma @belovedcommunity @engagedbuddhism
@recoverydharma @sanghainthestreets @buddhagang
A little BEACH MEDITATION for the senior ladies today...
https://pabodie.com/products/beach-meditation
@aurynn I only advanced into new technological possibilities as #OpenSource opened the way to do so. I just contented myself with the available choices as they slowly appeared over the years, and overcame any FOMO using #meditation and a ton of patience. Sometimes the path led to stagnation in a chosen app, but very rarely lead to enshittification.
