Clingless Development, Transmutation & Progression
Currently, over 15 (groups of) questions for investigating energy, including:
What is energy? How do you know?
Where and how do you experience energy?
What kinds, or types of energy are there?
Why is energy important?
Where does energy come from? Where does it go?
September 22, 2023 UPDATE: Retreat video now on YouTube: The recent online Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thaniya Reid retreat “Love as the Breath of Life” brought forth such a plethora of insight amidst (minor) domestic challenges such as establishing and maintaining one’s retreat space amidst everyday home life. I liken much of the notes belowContinue reading “Insights And Takeaways From “Love As The Breath Of Life” — Online Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thaniya Reid”
For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything LIVE” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — Denny and I chat with meditation teacher Beth Upton most significantly about the Dependent Origination link Nāmarūpa, or Materiality and Mentality, which, according to Wikipedia, is “used in Buddhism to refer to the constituents of aContinue reading “Materiality And Mentality | (7/27/2021 — “Ask Us Anything – LIVE” With Denny K Miu And Guest Beth Upton)”
The three types of people in the world are likened to a person with a mind like an open sore, a person with a mind like lightning, and a person with a mind like diamond.
“And who has a mind like an open sore? It’s someone who is irritable and bad-tempered. Even when lightly criticized they lose their temper, becoming annoyed, hostile, and hard-hearted, and they display annoyance, hate, and bitterness. They’re like a festering sore, which, when you hit it with a stick or a stone, discharges even more. In the same way, someone is irritable and bad-tempered. Even when lightly criticized they lose their temper, becoming annoyed, hostile, and hard-hearted, and they display annoyance, hate, and bitterness. This is called a person with a mind like an open sore.”
In the Vitakkasaṇṭhāna Sutta — The Relaxation of Thoughts (MN 20) the Buddha provides five themes to attend to at the appropriate times for those intent on heightening the mind. (The full post includes images and passages with explanations)
1) Small Peg Knocking Out Larger One (to attend to another theme)
2) Disgusted By Wearing Carcass (to know certain thoughts are unskillful, blameworthy, and resulting in stress)
3) Looking Away (to pay no mind to unskillful thoughts)
4) From Running To Walking To Standing To Sitting To Lying Down (to relax thought fabrications)
5) Clenching Teeth (to crush unskillful/evil mind with awareness)
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.
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
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 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?
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.
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.
Integrating Presence