Sunday inspiration: The Five Mindfulness Trainings for awakened communities
Many of us are hoping that the Age of Aquarius will bring an enlightened new future after 2150 years of the Piscean Age, and Pluto entering Aquarius is likely to give this a kick-start. There is plenty of bad news surrounding Pluto’s entry into Aquarius and transforming the realms of technology and science (Russia threatening nuclear war, the threat of artificial intelligence taking over), but Aquarius is also the sign of awakening and community.
Yesterday I watched a beautiful biography of Thich Nhat Hahn, the late Vietnamese Buddhist monk, in which he called for ” a real awakening, a real enlightenment. New laws and policies are not enough. We need to change our way of thinking and seeing things.” To support this awakening he has offered a framework of five mindfulness trainings to reflect on actions, thought and speech to create more happiness and peace in the world around us. I have reprinted them here for you but you may want to read them in the original, linked here. “If we live according to the Five Mindfulness Trainings, we are already on the path of a bodhisattva. Knowing we are on that path, we are not lost in confusion about our life in the present or in fears about the future.”
Reverence For Life
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that […]
