January 31 – Practicing gratitude
Dear Friends, In insight meditation, we often practice cultivating four specific qualities of the heart: kindness (a.k.a. metta, loving kindness, goodwill, friendliness), compassion, joy (particularly joy in the joy of others, a.k.a. mudita), and equanimity (having a balanced perspective). In some circles, my fellow practitioners and I have discussed that this list could include a fifth quality: gratitude. James Baraz talks about cultivating gratitude in his book Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to Happiness: you don’t have to wait for appreciation and gratitude to spontaneously arise. You can consciously cultivate this powerful ally to a joyful heart. Each day of your life, you have many opportunities to develop a grateful heart by paying attention to the blessings, big and small, that are all around you. Even if things are uncomfortable, or not as you might wish, it is still possible to find something you can be grateful for. James Baraz, Awakening…
Andrea Fella Diana Winston Gil Fronsdal gratitude James Baraz Jeanne Corrigal Mark Coleman Martin Aylward Phyllis Cole-Dai Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer Sharon Salzberg
January 21 – Integrity and appreciation
Dear Friends, Christina Feldman outlines several foundations of joy. We’ll look at two of them today – integrity and appreciation. Integrity What do we mean by integrity? Christina says, “Integrity is not a set of rules laden with value judgments of right and wrong, good and bad. The Buddha described integrity as thoughts, words, and acts rooted in compassion.” (page 94) James Baraz also describes this in his book Awakening Joy: 10 Steps to Happiness: Reframing Good and Bad Living with integrity is a practical strategy for awakening joy. It’s also considered a “skillful” one, because it makes our lives work better. In Buddhist teachings, thoughts and actions are not categorized as good or bad but rather as “skillful” and “unskillful.” * To be skillful means to think and act in ways motivated by the desire to enhance the well-being of yourself and others. * To be unskillful means to intentionally…
January 9 – Turning friendship into a verb
Dear Friends, Ānanda was a long-time attendant of the Buddha, and he’s one of my favorite characters from the suttas. He often asks the questions that we’d want to ask, or says the things that we’d say, and the Buddha gives a teaching to him – and by extension, to us. At one point, Ānanda says to the Buddha, “This is half of the holy life, that is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.” The Buddha responds, “No so, Ānanda! This is the entire holy life, Ānanda, that is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.” (SN 45:2, tr. Bhikkhu Bodhi) The Buddha goes on to explain that by having good friends, we will cultivate the qualities that lead towards freedom and ease of wellbeing. Josh Korda, the guiding teacher of Dharma Punx NYC, expands on this by adding in some of the evolutionary and biological support too. He writes: Like…
Ananda Bhikkhu Bodhi Christina Feldman friendship Greg Scharf James Baraz Josh Korda Matty Weingast metta Therigatha