questions – Page 23 – Integrating Presence

Kind Boundaries

“To be kind to those who are unkind in return only seems one-sided to the one ‘keeping score’. When reciprocity doesn’t come from people around you, but from the will of the Universe moving through a depiction of characters, you will come to realize how people’s behavior is more reflective of where they are in their journey and never a reflection of your intention or self-worth. While you certainly don’t have to be best friends or lovers with those who ‘take’ with nothing else to ‘give’, because you are serving the will of the Universe, you are always being celebrated by the loving intelligence of divinity for all that you do — even when received by people solely designed to reflect your progress out of the plight of unfairness and into the light of eternal faith.” — from the 7/4/2021 Matt Kahn newsletter

This blog post responds to following question put to me that references the above quote:

“A question for you, as stated today in Matt Kahn’s newsletter that you don’t have to be friends with those who are unkind to you, do you think it’s more of a reacting in the moment with kindness and then you are ok to choose not to hang out with them anymore? And then how do you handle this with family or people you are more obligated or even forced to see for some time until you can completely break the relationship? I understand fully those societal obligations can be broken but just curious on your take on repeat interactions with those who are unkind.”

Questions To Assess The Office Of The Director of National Intelligence’s ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Assessment Report’

[4/9/2022 UPDATE: Pentagon releases 1,500 pages of secret documents about shadowy UFO programme after four year battle https://www.the-sun.com/news/5053632/us-government-releases-1500-pages-secret-documents-ufo-programme and https://www.livescience.com/ufo-report-human-biological-injuries and some claiming all these documents available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lL1b6yHJ_A7bnNEANhKq2w9Y0uuieWh4%5D I previously wrote about preparing the general public for mass disclosure, how such a thing may be gone about, and some of the questions, challenges andContinue reading “Questions To Assess The Office Of The Director of National Intelligence’s ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Assessment Report’”

Form And Formless | (6/29/2021 — “Ask Us Anything – LIVE” With Denny K Miu)

For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything LIVE” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — Denny draws from, and summarizes the teaching of Shifu Ji Ru to link together the Four Great Elements, Four “Mighty” Postures, Four Right Knowings, Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Three (or Four) Dharma Seals, and Three Gates of Liberation.

June 2021 Full Moon Dhamma Gathering: Truth

Due to a major interest in truth, I answered the call to read a Sutta at Beth Upton’s June 2021 full moon gathering. Each of these monthly online get-togethers explores a different topic and offers “a chance to deepen our connections with each other through group meditation and Dhamma discussion.”

Amongst other things, this blog post includes the text I read along with a passage from another text I considered reading; relevant quotes about truth; the main questions we explored and some we did not

Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 5

This irregular “Dharma Questions” series deals with “dharma” meaning both the truth of the nature of reality and some Buddhist teachings. Amongst other things these questions can be:
• thought experiments
• borderline musings not meant to be answered
• from laziness of not contemplating or researching them yet

There’s 16 questions. Here’s two:

What is the root condition of annica — impermanence, inconstancy?

What are any and all similarities and differences between “Para Brahman” and “Nirvana”?

Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 4

There’s 18 questions. Here’s two:

Why is truth not a perfection/Pāramitā in Mahayana?

Can (the whole cycle of the) 12 links of Dependent Origination go backwards due to retrocausality?

Towards Everyday Implementation Of The Universal Beautiful Mental Factors

Dhamma and meditation teacher Beth Upton — who’s other chats I’ve posted — recently held a three part event with Dharma Gates called “Truth, Suffering and Liberation”. I’ve edited out most everything except my responses to Beth’s questions and her responses to me so please watch the full video at the end of this post especially if requiring more context.

Beth read an excerpt of the Aggañña Sutta about the origin of human kind on planet earth then linked our suffering, caused by the defilements (dramatic depicted in the sutta) to the Buddha’s antidote: the The Universal Beautiful Mental Factors (sobhanasādhāraṇa). Beth then offered a short teaching followed by a guided meditation and discussion on her condensed and more practical version of these Mental Factors from the Abhidhamma which are:
• Faith
• Mindfulness
• Non-greed
• Non-hatred
• Morality
• Balance
• Tranquility
• Lightness
• Softness
• Flexibility
• Uprightness/Authenticity/Truthfulness
• Proficiency

This post includes my responses (in an edited video) to Beth’s group-guiding questions along with a few new written responses.

Practicing in the Desire Realm | (5/25/2021 — “Ask Us Anything – LIVE” With Denny K Miu)

For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — (despite some technical snafus) Denny and I pick one topic each we’ve yet to discuss much publicly — the Eight “Touches”, and wholesome sexuality(/sexual energy), respectively.

Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 3

There’s 19 (groups of) questions. Here’s a sampling of two:

How do sankhārā [formations/mental formations/volitional formations] come from ignorance? What is the process?

How does effort for vitakka wax and wane? How does vitakka turn into, or allow, or go along with vicāra?

Irregular Inquires — Questions For Regular Contemplation: Ethics

“Whenever you want to do [while you are doing, and having done] a bodily action [verbal action, mental action], you should reflect on it: ‘This bodily action [verbal action, mental action], I want to do [are doing, and have done] — would it [is it, was it] lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others,Continue reading “Irregular Inquires — Questions For Regular Contemplation: Ethics”