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Infinite Loving-Kindness is an Exalted  State! The Blessed Buddha once explained Loving-Kindness (Mettā) like this: This is what should be done by a clever one to arouse the advantageous: Having attained a peaceful state: He should be capable, straight, and very upright, easy to speak to, gentle, and not proud, content, and easy to support, with few duties, living simple, with calmed senses, devoted, and neither angry, nor greedy. He should not do any mean thing, which wise men would criticize. He always should wish: Let all beings be happy, joyous, glad, safe, and secure. Whatever living creatures there exist, still or moving, small or large, seen or unseen, far or near, already existing or coming into being, let all these living beings without any even single exception be completely and perfectly happy! One should never despise anyone anywhere, nor humiliate anyone anywhere, nor ever wish for any beings misery or harm, because of anger or irritation. Just as a mot...

The Noble Eightfold Way, leading to Nibbāna, is simply this: Right View, Right Motivation, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Awareness, and Right Concentration. But what is Right Livelihood? The 5-fold Definition of Right Livelihood: 1: Earning a living not involving any trading with Living Beings. 2: Earning a living not involving any selling of Meat, Fish, or Flesh. 3: Earning a living not involving any selling of any form of Weapons. 4: Earning a living not involving any dealing with Alcohol, or illegal Drugs. 5: Earning a living not involving any selling of any form of Poison. That is Right Livelihood! The Characterization of Right Livelihood for lay people: Any livelihood that neither involves any killing, injuring, harming, nor any forced imprisoning of any living being, nor stealing, taking what is not given, cheating, any bribery, or corruption, or lying, or false deceiving, tricks, nor use of false measures and weights, neithe...

This blog is about the idea there is no-self or in Sanskrit anâtman . What goes into forming such an idea? Why should anyone uphold such an idea and fight for it?  What in my character or disposition requires that I invest in such an idea?  These, and other questions arise when we begin to look at the idea there is no-self. It is remarkable that many Western Buddhists, before they decide to become Buddhists, are very much open to the idea that there is no-self or soul—so much so that they are willing to champion this idea; further believing the self or the ego , as they prefer to call it, is the main cause of suffering.  And then they find Buddhism! When Westerners become Buddhists, whatever the Buddha said in his discourses, that he asked his followers to abandon what is not the soul instead of the soul (P., attâ ), has no impact when it should.  It's dismissed.  The idea is deeply stuck in their minds that there can be no such thing as a soul and ...

Buddhaghosa decribes the "far enemies" of equanimous love like this: "Greed and resentment … are its far enemies … for it is not possible to look on with equanimity and be inflamed with greed or be resentful simultaneously." He also says, "[Equanimity's] function is to see equality in beings. It is manifested as the quieting of resentment and approval." Equanimity destroys greed (or approval) and resentment, and greed (or approval) and resentment destroy equanimity, and so they're direct opposites or, as the tradition calls them, "far enemies." Equanimity is a state of neither approval nor disapproval, aversion nor craving. It's a state of balance, calm, and peace. When it's applied in relation to our own experience, it means being with our painful experiences without resisting them in any way, and being with our pleasant experiences without clinging to them or longing for their continuation. We just act as skillfully as w...

"Anyone can practice some nonviolence, even soldiers. Some army generals, for example, conduct their operations in ways that avoid killing innocent people; this is a kind of nonviolence. To help soldiers move in the nonviolent direction, we have to be in touch with them. If we divide reality into two camps - the violent and the nonviolent - and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence in ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact. It never helps to draw a line and dismiss some people as enemies, even those who act violently. We have to approach them with love in our hearts and do our best to help them move in a direction of nonviolence. If we work for peace out of anger, we will never succeed. Peace is not an end. It can never...

Or, How I Made Room for Life By Leo Babauta For the next 12 months, I'll be conducting a personal experiment that I'm calling A Year of Living Without . It's my way of finding out what's truly necessary, of simplifying my life, of making room for other things. I'm testing the boundaries of my needs. It's good to test your personal boundaries now and then (or, if you're me, all the time). So what's the Year of Living Without? Each month, I'll go the whole month without one thing I do every day. Something that I tend to not want to give up, for various reasons. I'll give up something for a month, then evaluate whether it was something I enjoyed giving up, whether it's worth leaving it out of my life, or if I want to put it back in after the month's over. The next month, I'll try giving up something else (see the list below). The 12 Things I'll Live Without Each month, I'll try a different experiment: July: Coffee ....

In the 12-step tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous it clearly states in the third step that we need to make a decision ' to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a God as we understood him', if we are to maintain sobriety and abstinence. Buddhists whether in recovery or not, or have an addiction or not, turn their lives over to the Buddha, Dharma the Sangha. When we surrender to this action, we are placing positive refuges at the center of our lives. We are placing the ideal of liberation and freedom, the teachings of the Buddha and the spiritual community at the center of our lives. What this means is that we surrender to the potential of waking up to reality and begin to see things clearly, without the story, judgments or interpretation. This is what helps to take care of our lives. 'In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only t...