It's called the American Dream because...

You have to be asleep to believe it!
Seven (Wisdom Quarterly) and Ven. Nyanasatta, Uprisingradio.org, PublicMeditation.org

Power to the 99 percent. On Saturday October 1st, thousands of Los Angelenos took to the streets in an action inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests becoming part of the larger movement.

Today is Day 35 in suddenly cold, rainy, then sunny Los Angeles. Wisdom Quarterly has been out and about organizing, encouraging, and providing meditation, yoga, veggie food, and educational programs.

"What do meditation and yoga have to do with this movement?" the reporter asked. The answer is clear:

Meditation, yoga, compassionate eating, and education all have one aim -- waking up. That is the goal, and that is also the goal of this movement. Rise above. See that we really are all connected. The separation is an illusion. The "system" promotes that illusion.

And the answer is in the body, this body, right here and right now.

Celestial beings are delightfully distracted have difficulty perceiving suffering (of aging, sickness, death, distress). Beings cycling through unfortunate planes of rebirth (animals, hungry ghosts, odd monsters, the miserable) are overwhelmed by distressed, in too much pain to pay attention in any way that would benefit them. Humans have a balance of leisure of woe.

Meditation Flash Mob: Texas (Greenheart Creative/Vimeo)

Meditating Mindfully
The way to enlightenment is by setting up four "foundations" of clear attention. This means mindfulness (non-judgmental bare attention or consideration of reality just as it is) regarding the:

1. BODY (breath, postures, clear comprehension, repulsiveness, material elements, states of decay)
   
2. FEELINGS (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant)
   
3. CONSCIOUSNESS (lust, aversion, ignorance/delusion, shrunken, distracted, developed, undeveloped, inferior, superior, unconcentrated, concentrated, unfreed, freed)
   
4. OBJECTS OF MIND (defined in detail by the Buddha and called the Five Hindrances, Five Aggregates of Clinging, internal and external sense bases, Seven Factors of Enlightenment, and the liberating Four Noble Truths).

UprisingRadio.org brings this special video report recorded and edited by Bipasha Shom

In early Buddhist texts ten forms of recollections are described. According to the Ekottara Āgama, the ten are MINDFULNESS of:

1. the Buddha
2. the Dharma
3. the (accomplished) Sangha
4. Mindfulness of giving
   
5. Mindfulness of the heavens (devas)
   
6. Mindfulness of stopping and resting
7. Mindfulness of discipline
8. Mindfulness of breathing (to be here now in the body)
   
9. Mindfulness of the body
10. Mindfulness of death

• PublicMeditation.com
• Public Meditation Project, DC
• Public Meditation Project, Vancouver
• Greenlightthemovie.com
• Join Women Occupy
• Call Hillary Clinton: Support Flotilla to Gaza and UNESCO!
• Join the Condi crime Facebook group
• Support justice and equality in Palestine and Israel

Meditating on Inner Light

Wisdom Quarterly
(Sammyundead/Flickr)

The "counterpart sign" (patibagha nimitta) is literally an inner light produced by prolonged attention in meditation. "Where attention goes energy flows" has become a popular slogan of the Law of Attraction movement. Nowhere is it more evident than during sitting practice.

We can worry ourselves sick by focusing on stimuli (thoughts, memories, ideas) that produces alarm. We can lull ourselves into fantasy by reflecting on the pleasant aspects of something. But the way of mindfulness is to take things just as they are without evaluating, judging, or resisting them.

Dispassionate observation leads to detachment and liberation, a temporary release of the heart from the burdens it takes as its own the rest of the time.

Gently, non-judgmentally, serenely bringing the mind back to the meditation object again and again as many times as it wanders will eventually produce a meditation sign. Whether using the breath or a candle flame, an image of the Buddha or a photo (perhaps of oneself) to project loving-kindness (metta) towards are all suitable.

Why does the light not come, and what can be done to invite and encourage it?

First, it is necessary to establish oneself in VIRTUE (five or more precepts) so that the mind/heart are free from reproach. One neither has cause to worry about or regret what one has done or left undone.

Second, it is necessary to focus, collect, and CONCENTRATE the mind on a single object. This means purposely excluding all distractions and other concerns. This is when the light comes as a side effect of purification.

Third, the light itself is not important. But with it one is able to cultivate liberating insight called WISDOM. This is done by applying the mind on four "foundations."

• Tibetan approach to Four Foundations
• BOOK: The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
• Mahayana and the Four Foundations
  

Insight Meditation in Business

(dhamma.org)

Learn how senior business leaders in India across various industries and sectors cope with uncertainty and change in a challenging market environment. In a series of candid interviews, senior executives discuss how the practice of insight meditation (vipassana) enables them to more effectively:

• manage their stress
• increase employee engagement of competition
• make decisions from a base of personal wisdom and authenticity

Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka
in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin

There is a special Website related to meditation courses conducted from time to time by S.N. Goenka and his assistant teachers specially for business executives and government officials. For most of his life Goenka worked as a prominent international businessman based in Burma and India. He was a keynote speaker on the subject of spirituality in business at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It was held on January, 2000. He also addressed the World Peace Summit held at the United Nations in August, 2000 and was the keynote speaker at the Spirit in Business Conference (SiB) held in New York City in April 2002. More

• Download the eBook
  

Afghanistan: Living Through War (video)

AsiaFoundation.org, Wisdom Quarterly
Treasures from Afghanistan (davidderrick blog)

(AsiaFoundation) What does daily life look like for the average Afghan being attacked by the American military machine?

While Americans threaten the people of Afghanistan and Afghans whither in the face continued threats to their peace and security, many of the people in the ancient Buddhist land remain optimistic regarding their country's future. (The original Kapilavastu, Siddhartha's hometown, may well have been in the Bamiyan Valley). The Asia Foundation puts us on the ground in Afghanistan to see what life on the streets looks like for many of the nation's citizens. More

They had the nerve to shoot at us, the invading force there to rape them.
Could you believe that? We had to kill them. They had no reason to shoot.

• Hiro Yamagata's plan for light Buddhas in Bamiyan
  
• AUDIO: Afghan women resist, preserve shelters (NPR)
• The rapid rise of "America's man" in Kandahar

Smaller Buddha at Bamiyan UNESCO site (panoramio.com)

An Exposition on "Right Mindfulness"

Ven. P.A. Payutto (translated from Thai by Wisdom Quarterly and Dhamma-Vijaya)

In the Noble Eightfold Path the practice leading to the complete cessation of unsatisfactoriness (dukkha, suffering) is "right mindfulness" (samma-sati).



It is counted as the second factor of the Concentration Section, the "Higher Mental Training." The usual definition of right mindfulness given in the sutras (discourses) is as follows:



"Monastics, what is right mindfulness? The following is called right mindfulness, namely, that a practitioner in this Doctrine and Discipline:



"1. One contemplates the body in the body with effort, clearly comprehending and mindfully, eradicating covetousness and distress with regard to the world;[1]



"2. One contemplates feeling in feelings with effort, clearly comprehending and mindfully, eradicating covetousness and distress with regard to the world;



"3. One contemplates the mind in the mind with effort, clearly comprehending and mindfully, eradicating covetousness and distress with regard to the world;

"4. One contemplates phenomena [2] in phenomena with effort, clearly comprehending and mindfully, eradicating covetousness and distress with regard to the world" (D.II.313).

• This gradual training is outlined in the discourse on the setting up of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and explained in detail by teachers in a living oral tradition.
  
  

"'Mindfulness' might also be defined as 'knowing where your elbow is at all times.' " (Fr.toonpool.com; loosely translated from German by Wisdom Quarterly).



Another definition, which appears in the Abhidharma ("Higher Teachings") texts, runs as follows:

"What is right mindfulness? Mindfulness (sati) means to bear in mind or bring to mind. It is the state of recollecting, the state of remembering [keeping in mind], the state of non-fading, the state of non-forgetting. It means the mindfulness that is a Spiritual Faculty, the mindfulness that is a Spiritual Power, right mindfulness, the mindfulness that is an Factor of Enlightenment, that which is a Path Factor, and that which is related to the Path. This is what is called right mindfulness" (Vbh.105, 286).

• These are all references to the great importance of mindfulness in the "37 Requisites of Enlightenment" (bodhi-pakkaya-dhamma), where it occurs 14 times.

Right mindfulness, as defined in the discourses, is a synonym for the principles of Dharma known as the Four Foundations (sati-patthana). The four elements of this group have the abbreviated names of:

1. mindfulness (or "contemplation") of the body (kaya-anupassana);
2. mindfulness of feelings (vedana-anupassana);
3. mindfulness of mind (citta-anupassana);
4. mindfulness of mind-objects (dhammas or phenomena).

Before investigating the meaning of right mindfulness in terms of the Four Foundations, it is appropriate to point out a few things on the subject of sati to serve as a basic foundation for study. More

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

[1] "Ananda, whatever is of a nature to dissolve (paloka), this is called 'the world' in the Discipline of the Nobles. What is of a nature to dissolve? The eye, Ananda...visible objects...visual consciousness... visual contact... the ear... sounds...mind contact, and whatever arises conditioned by mind contact, whether felt as pleasant or painful or neutral -- that is of a nature to 'dissolve'."

[2] Namely, all mental and physical phenomena (listed and explained in the discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (MN 10)

• Thailand photos (Southeast Asia)