Head & Heart Together
*** You can download this book for free at https://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html under the category of 'Essays'. ***
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#2~27: The Lessons of Gratitude
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(a) You can 'appreciate' your mean difficult boss who forced you to learn how to be patient. But, as for those who went out of their ways to give you a help to improve the quality of your life, you have to feel 'grateful' and 'indebted' to.
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(b) No matter how mean or abusive your parents have been, as long as they did not leave you to starve to death when you were a baby, you are still indebted to them. However, just because you carry them on your shoulder for 100 years, it is not good enough to pay them back.
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(c) The best way to repay anyone is: (i) to work hard so that the help you received will bear as much fruit as to deserve the benefactor's resources - such as time, money or energy - invested in you instead of dissipating them; (ii) to become a person of integrity and 'wisdom' or help your benefactor to become a such a person too. ('Wisdom' in this context means to live following the Buddha's teachings.)
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(d) Since we have been going through trillion times of rebirths, everyone we meet in this life must have been a family member in one birth or another. The lesson here, though, is not that you should love everyone you meet. The real message from the Buddha is that you should wake up to the meaning-less-ness of this never-ending rebirth cycle of infinite debts, entanglements and suffering and that you should find a way to end all these through nirvana, awakening or release.
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[cf.] Considerations on how to help others wisely:
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"Limitless Compassion, Limited Resources"
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1094889330883149&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
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"Unlimited Compassion, Limited Resources" (1)~(8)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1068501266855289&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
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#28~40: No Strings Attached. Generosity.
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(a) Giving a gift is not an obligation. You give one wherever you are inspired.
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(b) The donor should be glad before, while and after giving. The recipient should be free of passion/craving, aversion and delusion.
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(c) The teaching of Dhamma should be rewarded not by a gift but by the listener's respectful learning and practicing.
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#41~64: The Power of Judgment. Admirable Friends. ('Friends' include 'teachers'.)
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(a) An 'admirable friend' is someone who has integrity and wisdom and whose actions you want to model after. Even if someone is a 'good person', if his standards/values are not necessarily what you want to internalize, he won't be a good friend for you.
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(b) In order to see your delusion, you need an admirable friend's criticism - gentle or harsh.
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(c) If you focus on 'yourself' or your 'pride' rather than on improving your 'actions', you won't be able to take a criticism, and you won't be able to have an admirable friend. But you have to test your friend's suggestions instead of going blind.
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(d) Without integrity yourself, you won't be good at judging others' integrity. By carefully evaluating your actions all the time and learning from mistakes, you will sharpen your discernment.
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(e) A teacher-student relationship or friend-friend relationship can last only as long as the relationship can help integrity and wisdom to grow. If it does not work, go separate and don't take it personally.
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(f) If one becomes a person of integrity and wisdom, it will benefit the entire world. This is why judging one's own and others' actions is not only justified but in fact necessary. The goal of the Buddhist practice is not to be 'easy-going' or 'positive' or 'happy' with a dull mind like an animal but to eradicate or reduce craving, aversion and delusion.
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[cf.] Khaggavisana Sutta "We praise companionship - yes! Those on a par, or better, should be chosen as friends. If they're not to be found, living faultlessly, wander alone like a rhinoceros."
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/snp.1.03.than.html
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# None: Think Like a Thief.
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#65~71: Strength Training for the Mind.
Mental food. Watch why you want to eat. Don't take more from the world than you are willing to give back.
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#72~89: Mindfulness Defined. Mindfulness, alertness, ardency, appropriate attention, contentment, patience, intelligence.
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#90~94: The Joy of Effort. Diligently keep evaluating your actions with honesty, not as signs of what kind of person you are but as experiments. You don't mature if you demand that the world should please or entertain you.
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#95~102: Head & Heart Together. Goodwill, compassion, equanimity.
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[cf.]
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(i) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1072471653124917&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
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(ii) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1103963433309072&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
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(iii) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1104038103301605&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
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#103~122: The Wisdom of Ego. Mature wisdom requires a mature ego.
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(a) 'Ego' = 'A healthy and well-integrated self'.
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(b) If you pursue ego-less-ness, which is a spiritual bypassing, you might become destructive to yourself and others or end up with an enlarged toxic super-ego.
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(c) Each person should take a full responsibility for developing a healthy ego and keeping an inner balance/stability. This will benefit the entire world.
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(d) #118~119: Expecting no return is not the way. The whole purpose of the Buddhist practice is to gain the true happiness of nirvana by paying the cost of walking the eightfold path. Helping others is also a trade between investing one's time and energy and the expectation that the recipients will work to bear fruit. (See #2~27 in this album.)
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[cf.] "You Are Your Own Child, Too"
https://facebook.com/keepsurfinglife/albums/840366193002132/
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#123~124: Ignorance. Craving and delusion.
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#125~142: Food for Awakening. No bare attention but appropriate attention.
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#143~193: The Buddha via the Bubble. How the Western tradition of reading the Christian Bible has resulted in a mistaken belief about 'all paths leading to the top of one and the same mountain', especially misrepresenting and distorting the Buddha's teachings. This elucidates why there are so many misunderstandings about the Buddha's teachings. ('Common core beliefs of all great religions'?)
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[cf.] #93~136: The Roots of Buddhist Romanticism. The Western Obsession with Oneness/Nonduality and Interconnectedness.
https://facebook.com/keepsurfinglife/albums/1209061849465896/
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[cf.] #137~159: Perennial Issues. 'Common Core Beliefs of All Great Religions'?
https://facebook.com/keepsurfinglife/albums/1145865939118821/
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#194~210: Freedom from Buddha Nature.
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