Everyday Buddhism 14 - Protesting? What's in Your Mind?

09/23/18 • 60 min

Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better

In the first "Ask Me Anything" Episode, I respond to a listener's question about Buddhist insight into protesting. I circle around this question by sharing thoughts I had from my own life and two Dharma talks I gave in January and July of 2017.

Instead of focusing what we're protesting and why, I talk more about what was in my mind and how it made my feel. This is where I think the focus needs to be: "What's in your mind?" Does your urge for speech or action come from an intention of anger or intention of peace?

Can I help create peace, equality, and justice through a motivation of anxiety, anger, and divisiveness? If we come to the proposed solution as broken selves, can we help? Can we bring our own peace to unrest? Come and sit with me in the questions.

Previous Episode

Everyday Buddhism 13 - Right Effort: Joyful Balance

In this podcast, we'll look at the sixth part of The Eightfold Path and the first step into the area of meditation: Right Effort. Is your energy, your efforts, positive contributors to making you more content ... and making the people around you more content? If not, maybe you need to bring attention to and tweak your habits a little bit.

We'll look at the hindrances to right effort and the obstacles to concentration or destructive trains of thought. It's all about noticing and removing or replacing a little habit, followed by another, and another.

And guess what? It all hinges on paying attention; about noticing. That is the hard part. Adjusting your habits isn't as hard. Listen to find ways to help in creating "joyous effort" through "The Five Daily Guidelines" offered by The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: http://www.brightdawn.org/Five%20Daily%20Life%20Guidelines.pdf

Next Episode

Everyday Buddhism 15 - A Buddha Belongs to the World

Join me as I explore the very earthly foundations of Buddhism itself, as we turn the light of Dharma towards ecology. Siddhartha Gautama asked the Earth to confirm his enlightenment, his Buddhahood. He did not ask for help from heavenly beings. He asked the Earth.

In an episode celebrating "Earth Care Week", we'll reflect on climate change and think about our own personal relationship with the earth, as spiritual practice. In giving up grasping at heaven "out there", our home, Mother Earth, offers us the heaven right under our feet.

Thinking about the Earth and how to reconnect can be a central practice for centering your mind ... slowing it down ... and syncing your body and mind to the Earth's rhythm.