Cattāri Brahmavihārā

Posted by: Michael | 01/26/2018

Pleased

I have to say that I’m pleased with my practice both on and off the cushion today. I have been largely keeping off the phone and just staying with whatever arises during the daily commutes and especially when I’m around my kids. As a complement to this aditthana, I’ve been working to learn and practice the basics of positive discipline which seems to me to be nothing short of the brahmaviharas in action at home.

It’s important to recognize and recall these moments because they help feed back into the practice and help me to see that it’s not necessarily all pain and suffering (in pursuit of long-term happiness that is). Wishing that all beings meet with the Dhamma. Be well!

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Family Life, Gratitude, Metta, Theravada | Tags: Kids, parenting, positive discipline

Posted by: Michael | 01/25/2018

If You See Something Pretty, Find Something Ugly About It

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Sensual Desire, Theravada | Tags: sense restraint

Posted by: Michael | 01/24/2018

Happy Uposatha – Precious Awareness

All day, every day I treat my mind and awareness with something close to contempt. Frittering away the finite series of moments that make up this life, I focus my awareness on fabrications that only lead further away from Nibbana and into more becoming.

Thinking about my indulgence in sense pleasures by means of my phone and electronic media I realized that I don’t value my awareness and attention enough to value it above distraction. In other words, I seem to be treating the one thing that can lift me out of dukkha with disdain. So, rather than spending this life in futile pursuit of pleasure, why not use my awareness and concentration to focus on phenomena in a skillful way that will bring about wisdom and insight? As it stands, I am despoiling and abusing the garland of moments that make up this precious human birth. May I make of this mind a chariot that conducts me to the Deathless and not make a mockery of this birth.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Maranasati, Maranassati, Theravada, Uposatha | Tags: Attention, Awareness, concentration, concetration, focus, mindfulness

Posted by: Michael | 01/23/2018

Smartphones

The other night’s Dhamma talk has been reverberating in my mind and I keep coming back to the way in which my phone and its apps are designed to capture and enslave my attention. My phone has become like a drug for me and I turn to it in any situation where I am not otherwise engaged in something in order to escape the feelings of anxiety, of angst and the simple feeling of being out of place. Growing up, I used music but, having given up that crutch a number of years ago, I now use my phone with the excuse that I’m using it to “stay informed” or “to learn.”

The truth is that my experience of life without it is often painful and confusing and this is a truth I must comprehend if I ever wish to get beyond it. Renunciation without wisdom and curiosity hasn’t seemed to get me very far but I hope to employ these faculties not simply to judge and criticize myself, but to see more clearly what is going on and why I’m doing it.

For the time being at least, I will attempt to stay off the phone during commutes and at inopportune times as well as completely giving it up for the uposatha. Mara could not have devised a better snare and I, for one, don’t like being anybody’s fool.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Nekkhama, Theravada | Tags: Addiction, Facebook, phone, smartphone, Technology

Posted by: Michael | 01/22/2018

My Son

Last night was the first time I have ever brought my son to a formal meditation with a group I’ve been sitting with on and off for more than a decade. He had mentioned that he wanted to go and, after I checked with the teacher, we decided we’d go. Did anything spectacular happen? No, but he sat through the whole half hour meditating and forty five minute Dhamma talk and discussion without complaint. In all honestly, I was proud of his hard work and interest.

Wedgie knows of this will become a regular thing but a seed had been planted that may flourish in this life or the next. May my children grow in the Dhamma and practice it until they achieve unshakable peace and protection from harm.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Family Life, Parenting | Tags: children, daughters, family meditation, Kids, sons

Posted by: Michael | 01/19/2018

Staying Out of Trouble

The ebb and flow is a natural part of life and today finds me pretty low. I believe it’s due to the stress of being alone with my youngest yesterday for most of the day and then having to drag her into deep Brooklyn at midday. I honestly can’t figure out edgy it caused so much palpable, visceral stress but it did and perhaps I’m feeling hungover from it today. May I make as little trouble for myself and others today as possible.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Theravada | Tags: irritating, Stress, trouble

Posted by: Michael | 01/17/2018

Death

Like a cold draft blowing through a warm room or an unexpected thunder peal, the reality of death broke into my consciousness for seemingly no reason. Tender and unguarded, my heart was unable to mount resistance to the truth and it sunk deeply in.

Death will come. This body will lie cold and motionless one day soon. My children will be left to sort out their lives and my consciousness will fare on alone. Only my kamma will accompany me on the journey so why not make ready to let it all go?

Remember death when resentment arises: this task that you hate, how long will it last in comparison to the kilesa you’re feeding by allowing aversion to flourish and take root in your heart?

Remember death when lust arises: how brief the pleasure for which you will consign yourself to rebirth in lower realms and unfavorable training circumstances.

Remember death when you feel the desire to delude: how can a heart that had trained itself to twist perception ever know truth?

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Maranassati, Theravada | Tags: death, kilesa, meditation, recollection of death

Posted by: Michael | 01/16/2018

Uposatha Day

It’s the uposatha and it’s the first I’ve been able to observe in awhile. I spent this past weekend building and rebuilding a loft bed and book shelf so I have had little time for anything else. Now it’s Tuesday and my hands are a little worse for wear and stuck full of slivers.

It’s been a trying time with my kids’ behavior, my own bout with shingles and the beginning of what we’ve been told will be my wife’s most difficult semester. I hope to find some solace in the practice and to make some progress. Bhikkhu Samahita mentioned that he reads the suttas every uposatha so that he can read the entire Tipitaka within the space of some years. I would like to start doing the same today so I will begin with the Samyutta Nikaya and try to read two suttas every observance day.

May we all taste the Deathless and never surrender until we win final release.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddha Vacana, Buddhism, Dhamma, Theravada, Uposatha | Tags: deathless, Samahita Bhikkhu, samyutta nikaya

Posted by: Michael | 01/13/2018

No Bribes, No Punishments

Or, as we say here, non ci saranno più conseguenze o premi. That’s one of the rules of positive discipline as I understand it and this simple change had begun to revolutionize the way I parent and think about my kids.

I was raised in an authoritarian household. What my father said was the law and there was no questioning it. Add to that an emotional chasm that could never be crossed and you end up with a person who has strange and antiquated ideas about fatherhood. So, I’m learning but it’s early yet and there’s so much to take in and put in to practice. Nonetheless,. I’m grateful to have stumbled onto the method. Be well.

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Dhamma, Family Life, Parenting | Tags: bribes, compassion, Kids, positive discipline, punishment

Posted by: Michael | 01/11/2018

Not Working

As my son gets older and enters his preteen years he’s becoming more defiant and angrier. I often find myself confused about how to proceed and angered at the displays of disrespect and destructive behavior. Lord Buddha have plenty of advice about one’s duty to one’s parents but not so much (that I’ve been able to find) about how to deal with misbehaving and disrespectful children.

How do you walk the line between laissez faire patenting and inculcating respect? How do you meet your child’s irrational anger without becoming angry yourself?

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Posted in Buddha, Buddhism, Daily Practice, Dhamma, Family Life, Parenting, Theravada | Tags: child rearing, disrespect, Kids, misbehavior