Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better
Religion & Spirituality:Buddhism
In the spirit of the holiday season, I am re-releasing a popular episode from 2019: The Boundless Heart - Bodhicitta. It is my wish that we all try to practice being a Bodhisattva during this holiday season … Starting with me! ;)
Stating the obvious, it's been a rough 7 years or so. Years marked by war, pandemic, social injustice, tribalism and, overall, something called "high conflict" made popular by Amanda Ripley's book of the same name, where conflict is the ruling energy and that leads to the stress, fear, anxiousness, and despair most of us have been feeling. She writes:
The challenge of our time is to mobilize great masses of people to make change without dehumanizing one another. Not just because it’s morally right but because it works. Lasting change, the kind that seeps into people’s hearts, has only ever come about through a combination of pressure and good conflict. Both matter. That’s why, over the course of history, nonviolent movements have been more than twice as likely to succeed as violent ones.
It with this in mind I offer the replay of this 2019 episode, a reflection on bodhicitta, the good heart—something we can all practice even if we don't participate in nonviolent movements or the "good conflict" Amanda Ripley refers to.
I know it's been far too easy for me to react in anger when I'm really just afraid and to dismiss instead of disagreeing, which is a dehumanizing activity. So, in the spirit of holiday peace, good will, and reflection, I will remember the bodhicitta.
Bodhicitta characterizes the path of a Mahayana practitioner. It is Bodhicitta that creates a Bodhisattva and it is Bodhicitta that ultimately creates a Buddha.
In Tibetan, compassion is translated as the nobility or greatness of heart which implies wisdom, discernment, empathy, unselfishness, and abundant kindness. Bodhicitta is compassion working with a mind awakened by right view. It is the joining of compassion and emptiness.
We'll examine how to use the Four Bodhisattva Vows to supercharge Right Intention with Right View and discover the same spacious freedom of a flower that blooms despite its circumstances.
Please join me as you listen to this "best of" episode.
Everyday Buddhism 30 - The Buddha Sat Right Here with Dena Moes
Everyday Buddhism 29 - Right Speech is Right Listening
Everyday Buddhism 28 - June Weddings, Relationships, and Perfection?
Everyday Buddhism 27 - Right Mindfulness and Meditation
Everyday Buddhism 26 - Why Sangha? Bringing Buddhism to Life
Everyday Buddhism 25 - Pureland Buddhism with Satya Robyn
Everyday Buddhism 24 - Appreciating Life Through Death Meditation
Everyday Buddhism 23 - Japanese Psychology and Buddhism with Gregg Krech
Everyday Buddhism 22 - Release Your Cows
Everyday Buddhism 21 - Tibetan Buddhism: There is Only One Dharma
Everyday Buddhism 20 - A Bright Dawn: Conversation with Rev. Koyo Kubose
Everyday Buddhism 19 - Bodhi Day Special: The Grace of Light
Everyday Buddhism 18 - The 5 Precepts: Gentle Guides Not Commandments
Everyday Buddhism 17 - Radically Happy: Conversation with Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon
Everyday Buddhism 16 - Simple Awareness and the Many Forms of Meditation
Everyday Buddhism 15 - A Buddha Belongs to the World
Everyday Buddhism 14 - Protesting? What's in Your Mind?
Everyday Buddhism 13 - Right Effort: Joyful Balance
Everyday Buddhism 12 - MORE Koans: Bringing Them Into the Everyday
Everyday Buddhism 11 - Koans: Reaching the Limit of Thought
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