The Goldfish :: Henri Matisse :: 1912

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Tricycle Daily Dharma delivery for Sunday (and every day): Call It By Its Right Name | October 5, 2014

If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view. If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought.

— Zoketsu Norman Fischer, "Beyond Language"

[alive on all channels]

Attention is the start of love. There can be no love without attention. In cultivating attention, we’re cultivating a possibility for intention and a possibility for connection.

- Anne C. Klein

All feelings come and go, and are by their nature ephemeral. But if we don’t train our minds to see that, we end up riding life like the old roller coaster at Coney Island that threatened to hurl people from their seats every now and again.

Pilar Jennings, “Fear” in Tricycle Daily Dharma, Fall 2017 (via Alive on All Channels)

We must consider not only our short-term personal advantage but also the long-range impact our choices have on others we will never know or see: on people living in remote lands, on generations as yet unborn, and on the other species that share our planet.

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, “The Need of the Hour”

(via Tricycle’s Daily dharma)

Wait you're Buddhist?? Omg I've been looking for someone to talk to about this! Would you be able to link me to some reliable resources for me to learn more about the religion? It's something I really want to pursue but don't know where to start

Yes!!! Totally! If you’re serious about it I’d definitely recommend checking out “A Little Bit of Buddha” by Chad Mercree. A great, tiny read about the basics of the Dharma! If you’re looking for something more in-depth, I’d check out A Buddhist Bible by Dwight Goddard.

Also, I strongly recommend investing in a subscription to Tricycle magazine. I love it! It's a seasonal magazine. Get the $40/yr subscription (I know it sounds like a lot, but it's so worth it) and they'll give you exclusive articles through email, too! Here's an example of some of the really great articles they put out about how to incorporate the teachings of the Dharma into our daily life:https://tricycle.org/magazine/meaning-between-doing-and-being/I hope this helps!

Follow my Instagram @tinydharma! I’m trying to shell out a little sangha of my own. :)

Bodhicitta's Ripple Effect - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/04/bodhicittas-ripple-effect-tricycle-the-buddhist-review/

Bodhicitta's Ripple Effect - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

An individual turns to the dharma because it promises to remove the distress of life and bring about a deep reconciliation with this very impermanence. We undertake the practice of the Way because we have faith in the existence within ourselves of a potential for complete contentment, a contentment that is impossible to find in the pursuit of fame and profit. But it needs to be said over and over again, so as not to misconstrue the nature of Mahayana Buddhism, that this Way-seeking is not, in the end, simply another form of self-gratification. We hope, and expect, that following the Way will lead to a better understanding of ourselves and the rest of the world, and that we will achieve a degree of serenity and contentment. But is any kind of progress in self-betterment truly possible as long as practice is undertaken with the primarily selfish desire to improve one’s own lot? Is the goal of realization of one’s buddhanature compatible with a practice performed in the greedy expectation of one’s own future happiness while blithely ignoring the unhappiness of the rest of the world? The Mahayana Buddhist answer to this question has always been no.

The Mahayana emphasis on compassion and the exaltation of the bodhisattva as the ideal individual are based on this understanding, that any goodness one personally derives from following the dharma is a product of one’s primary aspiration to help all other beings to achieve happiness in their lives. In other words, practice is undertaken in order to help others, and the bodhisattva’s own slow progress toward final, complete enlightenment is the result of this other-directed activity. Thus to help others is to help oneself. It may also be said that to help oneself is to help others, since real, effective help is not possible as long as we ourselves are deluded and filled with greed and hatred. Therefore, the achievement of insight and understanding serves to make one capable of guiding and helping others. To wish to escape pain and trouble oneself and to ignore other creatures means that neither oneself nor others will find help. It is of the nature of things that we all progress together, and so we must seek the dharma with this in mind.

Knowing, then, that a mean, selfish aspiration is not a real Buddhist aspiration, the bodhisattva begins his compassionate career with vows to emancipate all others, even before he himself is completely emancipated. The four bodhisattva vows, which are chanted daily in Zen training centers, are a public reminder of what the individual’s training is all about:

Sentient beings are innumerable; I vow to save them. Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to end them. The Dharma teachings are boundless; I vow to master them. The Buddha Way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.

The person who utters these vows in all sincerity is thus the Mahayana bodhisattva. It does not matter what color the robes of the monk are, what his ordination lineage is, or where he lives, for the Mahayana is a state of mind, and the bodhisattva is the person who makes these vows and means them. This vowing itself is the arousing of the thought of enlightenment. The 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest and founder of the Soto Zen school Dogen makes this clear in Hotsu bodai shin, one of the chapters of his masterpiece Shobogenzo, when he says, “What is called arousing of the thought of enlightenment is the uttering of the vow to emancipate all living beings even while you yourself are not yet emancipated. When one arouses this thought, no matter how humble in appearance one is, one then becomes the guide of all beings.” If, as Dogen says elsewhere, a buddha is simply one whose main mission in the world is to guide all beings to the bliss of nirvana, then this vow must itself be the vow of the buddha that we already are. Buddha is boundless compassion; who else can make such a loving, selfless vow?

  Illustration by Irene Rinaldi

All the bodhisattva-mahasattvas, who undertake the practice of meditation, should cherish one thought only: “When I attain perfect wisdom, I will liberate all sentient beings in every realm of the universe.” –The Diamond Sutra       

  The form of the vow indicates that the person who makes it will refuse the ultimate prize of complete enlightenment until and unless all other beings attain it first. Nor is this vow restricted only to human or even sentient beings; it includes trees, grass, shrubs, and stones as well. This is because Mahayana compassion and the bodhisattva’s vow are not directed solely toward the human realm, for if it excluded nonhuman beings, it would not be perfect compassion, it would not be unconditional. The cycle of birth and death and its suffering includes all living things, not just human life. Now obviously the number of beings to be saved is indeed vast, even innumerable, as the vow says, and because bodhisattvas are really only human beings, and limited in the way all conditioned beings are, it would seem that in reality there will never be a time when their work is finished. Thus, in making the vow, they destine themselves to be forever excluded from the ultimate goal. In life after life, in all the realms of suffering, bodhisattvas work ceaselessly to save all others while they themselves are never completely free of pain and delusion. One of the startling paradoxes of Mahayana Buddhism is that it is the bodhisattva alone—skillful, wise, and compassionate—who will never attain full, perfect buddhahood, always remaining behind while others go on.                                               

So what, after all, is a buddha? What, after all, is perfect enlightenment? Buddhists over two thousand years ago asked these same questions, and in answering them created the movement within Buddhism that we now know as Mahayana. True enlightenment, they said, is not the complete, final cutting-off of the round of rebirth and suffering and the entering of final nirvana (Skt., nirupa-dhishesha nirvana). Instead, one achieves the only real enlightenment precisely at that point when, out of compassion for the suffering of living beings, one deliberately refuses to attain the stage of final nirvana and enlightenment unless all other living beings attain it too. Thus, the paradox is that in refusing what is traditionally considered to be the ultimate goal of Buddhism and choosing to remain behind to serve as a guide, one really acquires the only true enlightenment and nirvana.

The mental activities of living beings might be counted, And so might the number of atoms in a land; The extent of space might be assessed, But the virtues of the will for enlightenment cannot be measured: It produces all the buddhas of all times, And perfects happiness in all worlds, Increases all excellent virtues, Extirpates all confusion, Reveals all wondrous realms, Eliminates all obstacles, Develops all pure lands, Produces all enlightened knowledge.

From The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra, translated by Thomas Cleary © 1993. Reprinted with permission of Shambhala Publications. Thomas Cleary is the translator of over fifty volumes of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Islamic texts.

It cannot really be otherwise. If enlightenment is, among other things, complete selflessness, then only when we have rid ourselves of selfishness to the point where we are no longer greedy even for the fruits of training do we really reach the “goal” of the Way. In gladly giving up the goal, we acquire it. The arousing of the thought of enlightenment, then, which Dogen says is the compassionate vow to save all beings, is really a remarkable, wonderful occasion. It is remarkable and wonderful because the very ability to make such a vow and mean it most sincerely must be the appearance in one’s life of a selflessness and compassion that are truly buddha-like. It is, according to Dogen, the manifesting of buddhanature itself. Dogen says in the same chapter of the Shobogenzo,

In Buddhism, the ultimate attainment is Bodhi [Skt., Pali, “awakening”], which is also buddhahood. If the highest, perfect enlightenment is compared with the initial arousing of the thought of enlightenment, it is like comparing the great conflagration at the time of the world’s end with the light of a firefly. Still, if one arouses the thought of enlightenment, the thought of emancipating all other living beings even before one is emancipated oneself, there is no difference between the two. A buddha is simply a person who thinks, “How can I cause beings to enter the supreme dharma and rapidly become buddhas?” This is the life of a Tathagata.

However, even this exertion of one’s own inherent enlightenment nature in the perpetual act of helping all others to realize their enlightenment nature is not the final truth. After all, Shakyamuni did not dedicate his life simply to helping us to become completely enlightened and to escape the world of karma and rebirth. He taught us, rather, to teach others to teach others, until such time as the world is full of beings whose sole aim in life is to be of service to others. Thus, to arouse the thought of enlightenment is not just to make a determination to enlighten all beings; it is the determination to motivate all living beings to motivate all living beings, on and on. “Benefiting living beings,” says Dogen, “means causing living beings to arouse the thought of emancipating all others even before each is himself emancipated. We cannot become buddhas in any other way than through the power of causing this thought [of emancipating all others before oneself is emancipated] to arise in others.” Thus, Dogen universalizes the bodhisattva vow and the thought of enlightenment; his vision is that of a world in which all beings are motivated by this vow. It cannot be otherwise, according to him, for if any being enters the dharma for himself, and not for others, it is not the dharma and he has not entered. To practice the dharma is to “drop off mind and body,” and when mind and body have been forgotten to the extent that we are no longer selfishly motivated to acquire even the wonderful prize of enlightenment for ourselves, we have really entered the dharma, really aroused the thought of enlightenment.

♦

From How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo, by Francis Dojun Cook © 1999. Excerpted with permission of Wisdom Publications.

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Friday Q&A: Questions for Shelly Prosko about Yoga for Chronic Pain

Friday Q&A: Questions for Shelly Prosko about Yoga for Chronic Pain Nina Zolotow

Wisteria Buds by Melina Meza

“You don’t have to be afraid of pain. If it’s going to be there, you can let it be there—but don’t let the mind be in pain with it.” —Upasika Kee Nanayon, from Tricycle Magazine’s Daily Dharma At the recent MISTY yoga therapy conference in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, physiotherapist and YFHA contributor Shelly Prosko and I talked about yoga and chronic pain, which she has been teaching for some time with Neil Pearson, who is also a physiotherapist. I was so happy to get to pick Shelly’s brain on this topic, which I get so many questions about from our YFHA readers! So today it’s me asking the questions and Shelly answering them. —Baxter Baxter: Can you start by talking about the problem of chronic or persistent pain—how you define it? Shelly: To put it simply, chronic pain or persistent pain (we use the terms interchangeably) is different than acute pain in that it lasts longer than three to six months or longer than one would expect for normal tissue healing to last. Persistent pain can be a symptom of an underlying condition or it can be a diagnosis on its own. And many other symptoms can accompany persistent pain that may contribute to the overall pain experience, such as fatigue, sleeplessness, altered breathing pattern, protective postures, and guarded movement. There are also psychosocial and emotional issues that can be associated with persistent pain, such as anxiety, depression, feelings of social isolation, loneliness, hopelessness, as well as cognitive changes, such as reduced memory and learning ability, and altered thought patterns, such as pain “catastrophization” and rumination. Persistent pain is a serious and widespread health concern that affects approximately 1.5 billion people worldwide. According to the Institute of Medicine of The National Academies, at least 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which is more than from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer combined. But because persistent pain is a very complex phenomenon involving all aspects of your existence, people who suffer from it need to be treated, managed, and guided in a way that supports a holistic approach. Unfortunately, this type of treatment is not often provided, and the result is staggering rates of disability, depression, prescription painkiller drug abuse and overdose, suicide, and inability to successfully control or manage pain. There are many possible reasons why this epidemic is poorly managed—which I won’t go into here—but whatever the reason(s), I believe there is hope! I’m convinced we can significantly improve the care and support of those with persistent pain with ongoing education about pain and pain management strategies that includes enthusiastic participation of the person who is suffering.  Baxter: Can you tell with our readers a bit about the new information you shared with me earlier regarding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for healthcare providers in US regarding the use of narcotic meds and the gap you see that is creating so many problems for those suffering with chronic pain?  Shelly: On March 15, 2016, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released guidelines for healthcare providers who prescribe painkillers (narcotics/opioids) for patients with persistent pain. These guidelines were a response to the rising rates of opioid abuse and overdose and a parallel increase in opioid prescriptions. They were also a response to solid evidence that showed opioids are not very effective in alleviating persistent pain or helping people improve function (and in some cases, long-term opioid use even appears to be correlated with hyperalgesia, or increased pain sensitivity). The CDC states that these guidelines are intended to: “ensure that clinicians and patients consider safer and more effective treatment, improve patient outcomes such as reduced pain and improved function, and reduce the number of persons who develop opioid use disorder, overdose, or experience other adverse events related to these drugs.” Although these guidelines were established with the best of intentions, there has been some backlash and gaps in treatment guidelines have surfaced. One year after the guidelines were released, a follow-up survey was conducted by the Pain News Network and the International Pain Foundation. The survey was divided into sections for healthcare providers and people in pain. The results were disheartening, to say the least. They showed that both healthcare providers and people in pain believed that the guidelines have resulted in more harm than good. And a whopping 90% agreed that the guidelines have not improved the management of pain. The Pain News Network reports that the guidelines have failed, saying there was: “a failure to stop abuse and overdoses, hoarding behaviors by well-intentioned patients, increased use of illegal drugs and, worst of all, suicides increase.” (In Canada, there are similar opioid prescription guidelines that organizations such as Pain BC have responded to by their outlining valid concerns in a formal document.) So there now appears to be a huge gap in education, guidance, and training for healthcare providers on what to do either in lieu of prescribing or in conjunction with changing opioid prescriptions. We can't just implement the new guidelines without providing other evidence-based, safe, and effective options that are accessible and feasible to deliver. In my opinion, this is a crisis! There is so much work to be done. The good news is that there are many people and organizations out there doing phenomenal work to help improve overall pain management that uses an evidence-based, holistic approach and empowers the person in pain to be involved in a successful way. Baxter: What you just said—that chronic pain is quite complex and that the use of narcotic/opiod medicines is not proving very effective in treatment—is so important because it opens the door to using yoga to address the whole person as well as the underlying causes of a person’s ongoing pain. You yourself are part of a training program that teaches people how to more effectively address pain using yoga tools. Can you give us a brief overview on how that looks and some of the key tenants of your approach?  Shelly: Yes, I have the privilege of learning from and training and teaching with Neil Pearson, the founder and creator of Life is Now Pain Care. The Pain Care Yoga (PCY) training program is for yoga teachers/therapists, healthcare professionals or any movement or bodywork practitioners who work with people suffering from persistent pain. It also includes courses and resources for people in pain. The Pain are Yoga program is an educational and practical program that enhances the ability of people to manage pain, move with more ease, and live well again by integrating pain science education, yoga philosophy and techniques, and the lived experience of pain. It allows people in pain to access a variety of self-care practices that provide a more self-empowered approach to pain care, in addition to their current medical care. The self-care practices include breath and body awareness practices, self-regulation practices, movement guidelines to follow when moving during pain, and unique daily planning strategies that have been shown to be successful with people in pain. A good description of how a program like this can help someone suffering from persistent pain is this testimonial from a patient of mine: “What helped me the most was learning how to breathe and paying attention to it more often. I realized I was almost always holding my breath when I moved because I thought that would actually protect me, but it didn't, it actually made my pain worse. The other thing that really helped me was to trust myself and my spine and know that my body wasn't going to break. Yoga helps me practice letting go and move more freely and I can feel that immediately helps my pain. It's amazing how much more in tune I am with my body. Now I am more aware and know when I'm tense, and I can change it and then my pain changes. Shelly (yoga) has taught me how I can help myself, and not just rely on others to fix my pain. The pain doesn't control me anymore. I feel like I'm more myself again. It feels really good, and hopeful."    Baxter: Can you tell us about one practical yoga tool or technique for addressing persistent or chronic pain?     Shelly: If we want to take advantage of the capacity of our nervous system to change pain, we first need to practice awareness! And research suggests that mindfulness methods that focus on awareness of subtle non-pain sensations show a reduction in persistent pain. A breath awareness practice means paying attention to a variety of characteristics of the breath, without trying to change anything, and without getting caught up in elaborative stories or thoughts. In other words, simply notice the breath. The technique includes paying attention to the rate, pace, depth, sound, length of inhale and exhale, temperature of the breath, how the breath moves in the body, or other qualities like if the breath feels rigid or smooth or if you feel like you are breathing more through one side of the nostril than the other. The next step is to then learn a breath regulation practice (pranayama). Neil Pearson has an example of a guided breath regulation and awareness practice here.    Baxter: You and Neil do workshops and trainings in many locations. Where can our readers find out about opportunities to study and learn with you?  Shelly: Readers can find Neil’s schedule and calendar of events at www.lifeisnow.ca and can follow Life is Now Pain Care on Facebook and Twitter. My schedule and calendar of events is at www.physioyoga.ca. You can also follow me at Prosko PhysioYoga Therapy on Facebook and Twitter or sign up for my newsletter to keep up to date with what I am offering. For people who cannot travel to study with us, we have a short introductory online webinar accessible through Yoga U Online: Yoga, Neuroplasticity and Pain: New Hope for Self Empowerment and Healing. And Neil has a phenomenal online Pain Care for Life curriculum with the first 5 steps for free, as well as many other resources on his site. We also have Overcome Pain with Gentle Yoga video practices as a complement to (not to replace) one’s pain care program. They are available for download on vimeo or order as DVD. The four-minute trailerhttps://vimeo.com/ondemand/overcomepaingentleyoga2 outlines the seven practices of different themes. And I have a series of Creating Pelvic Floor Health PhysioYoga videos that can be useful for people suffering from chronic pelvic pain (as a complement to their existing treatment). Thank you, Baxter, for this opportunity to share all this. There are others out there doing very valuable work to help people in pain improve pain management, movement, function and quality of life. Together I believe we can all make a difference!   

Shelly Prosko, PT, PYT, CPI. As a Physical Therapist and Yoga Therapist, Shelly is dedicated to bridging the gap between yoga and modern healthcare philosophies, and believes this integration is highly effective in creating and sustaining optimal health. She received her Physical Therapy degree at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, her Medical Therapeutic Yoga training at Professional Yoga Therapy Institute, Yoga Teacher Training at Blissology, and Pain Care Yoga (PCY) Certification at Life is Now. Shelly has been integrating yoga into her physical therapy treatments since 1998, addressing a wide variety of conditions including persistent pain. Currently, she travels globally offering specialty PhysioYoga and Life is Now PCY courses, lecturing at medical college programs, instructing at numerous therapeutic yoga programs, and presenting at international conferences. She is dedicated to actively promoting the integration of yoga into healthcare by inspiring, empowering, and educating health professionals, yoga practitioners, students, and people in pain about ways yoga can be used safely and effectively to address a variety of health issues and improve quality of life. Please visit www.physioyoga.ca for more information.  Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect Friday Q&A: Questions for Shelly Prosko about Yoga for Chronic Pain http://ift.tt/2nmU3wS themostdangerous1 http://ift.tt/2nrIEwm via IFTTT

How to Fail - Tricycle Daily Dharma

How to Fail | May 12, 2015 

                             If you want to be a complete human being, if you want to be genuine and hold the fullness of life in your heart, then failure is an opportunity to get curious about what is going on and listen to the storylines. Don't buy the ones that blame it on everybody else, and don’t buy the storylines that blame it on yourself, either. - Pema Chödrön, "How to Fail"

#wisdom  #inspire #Tricycle Daily Dharma​ #how to fail

Instead of focusing on some thoughts and feelings and pushing away others, just look at them as feathers flying in the wind. The wind is your awareness, your inborn openness and clarity.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche, "Feathers are Harmless"

(via Tricycle Daily Dharma)

Fuerza Bruta

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"Tricycle Daily Dharma reading strikes again:"

“Every Situation, An Opportunity”

Spiritual practitioners thrive in unpredictable conditions, testing and refining the inner qualities of heart and mind. Every situation becomes an opportunity to abandon judgment and opinions and to simply give complete attention to what is.

- Shaila Catherine, "Equanimity in Every Bite"

If, as I believe, meditation is simply awareness, then any past knowledge I have about it is not only useless, but slops over into my immediate experience. Knowing is antithetical to openness, and it's the adventure of not knowing that's the genius of meditation.

Barry Evans

Karma means that we are not defined by our situation but rather by the choices we make.

Gyalwang Drukpa, “How to Combat Fear” - via Daily Dharma, Tricycle

From "Karma" by Traleg Kyabgon . Via Tricycle's Daily Dharma

If we want to overcome our anxiety and feel good about ourselves, it’s not enough to invest in outer things. We have to make investments in our inner life as well. . . . It’s about keeping grounded and having perspective. It’s never too late to open that door.

Lawrence Levy, "Why Former Pixar CFO Lawrence Levy Walked Away from It All" (via Daily Dharma, The Tricycle)

The Right to Ask Questions - Tricycle Daily Dharma

The Right to Ask Questions | May 1, 2015                                

Practice makes extraordinary demands of us. It requires that we take nothing for granted, that we accept nothing on faith alone. If we practice with diligence and honesty, then we must question everything about ourselves; we must challenge our most basic beliefs and convictions, even those we may have about the dharma itself. - Larry Rosenberg, "The Right to Ask Questions"

The Tricycle Community - [email protected]

#wisdom #Buddhism #daily dharma #Larry Rosenberg