Monday, August 23, 2010

cultivating lovingkindness

Since a single mind moment cannot contain both a wholesome (kusala) and an unwholesome (akusala) emotional tone, learning to develop the quality of loving kindness moment after moment in a sustained manner has the effect of purifying the mind as it locks out competing unwholesome states.
Andy Olendzki, Pali Scholar

“If one frequently thinks and ponders upon thoughts of loving kindness, one has abandoned thoughts of ill-will to cultivate thoughts of loving kindness, and then one’s mind inclines to thoughts of loving kindness.” - Andy paraphrasing from the Dvedhavitakka Sutta (M 19)

Thus the mind stream or stream of consciousness is purified by both the presence of a wholesome state and the absence of an unwholesome state.
Andy

Monday, August 2, 2010

nibbana, nirvana

The goal of Buddhist practice, cessation, is not annihilation, but an extinction of the suffering of wanting things to be different than they are. When we come into balance of internal and external circumstances we are free to live and love without grasping. We are not indifferent, but responsible, acting with skill and wisdom.

Indeed the sage who's fully quenched
Rests at ease in every way;
No sense desires adhere to him[her]
Whose fires have cooled, deprived of fuel.
All attachments have been severed,
The heart's been lead away from pain;
Tranquil [s/he] rests with utmost ease,
The mind has found its way to peace.

Andy Olendzki's translation of Cullavagga 6:4.4

Monday, July 12, 2010

ancient wisdom

It is a universal belief that that words have a creative power; they symbolize the manifest world. Music, on the other hand, brings us into harmony with the non-manifest, and to understand music is to be at the secret source of Li [right behavior or right action]' *




*Quoting Rees and Rees in Celtic Heritage (1961) who quote P.D. Hardy in The Holy Wells of Ireland (1836) quoting the Book of Rites.  A Wiki search on the Book of Rites yielded a 1962 translation of the Book of Rites.  The idea expressed above, about language and music,  can only be intuited from this translation. The website which includes this translation fo the Book of Rites is a rich resource for Celtic history