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Daily Dharma
  • Tricycle Community 6 comments

    We Can Still Be Crazy Paid Member

    Posted by Monty McKeever on 21 Sep 2010
    Today's Daily Dharma, Lovingkindness—maitri—toward ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy, we can still be angry. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest. -Pema Chodron, "We Can Still Be Crazy" Read the complete article here. More »
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    Daily Dharma: The Natural Activity of Mind Paid Member

    Posted by Philip Ryan on 10 Sep 2010
    Just as awareness is a natural activity of mind, so, too, feeling, perceiving, and thinking are natural, impersonal activities of mind. They condition judging, liking, disliking, explaining, strategizing, and rehearsing. While these are all natural activities of mind—meaning they appear due to causes and conditions— these secondary activities of mind enhance the sense of self even as they ensnare it into identifying with the content of thoughts. Deeply habituated cultural, social, religious, familial, and personal karmic conditionings dominate the untrained mind. More »
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    Natural Creativity Paid Member

    Posted by Monty McKeever on 03 Sep 2010
    Today’s Daily Dharma: When we speak about natural creativity and its expression, we are not talking about something separate from our own mind and experience. All that we call “existent phenomena” is experienced by mind. This awareness is primordial and omnipresent—is there ever a time when we don’t experience? Experience can be dull, we may be asleep, we may be ignorant or distracted, but we are always “awake” in one way or another—experiencing our thoughts, our emotions, our state of mind, experiencing our dullness, our distractedness or joy. There has never been a time when we have been inanimate, like a rock. This creative energy never leaves us, whether we turn toward ignorance or enlightenment; whether our intelligence is obstructed or not; whether we operate from the ego or from a bigger state of mind. More »
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    Lovingkindness Begins at Home Paid Member

    Posted by Philip Ryan on 31 Aug 2010
    One way to develop metta (lovingkindness) within us is through the following meditation practice, which we start by extending loving feelings toward ourselves. It’s very simple: At first, sit in some comfortable position, and keeping an image or felt sense of yourself in mind, slowly repeat phrases of lovingkindness for yourself: May I be happy, may I be peaceful, may I be free of suffering. Say these or like phrases over and over again. We do this not as an affirmation, but as an expression of a caring intention. As you repeat the words, focus the mind on this intention of kindness; it slowly grows into a powerful force in our lives. - Joseph Goldstein, "Triumph of the Heart" Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel's Tricycle Retreat starts in six days on Tricycle.com! More »