The First Day of Summer (inspiring verses)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Acharya Buddharakkhita (trans.), Maggavagga: Verses on the Path (Dhammapada XX)

Sun (Surya, Sol) in hand on the Ganges in India (Immortal Technique, Point of No Return)

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Sol, European gate (Bryan1974/flickr)

273. Of all the paths the Noble Eightfold Path is best; of all the truths the Four Noble Truths are best; of all things passionlessness [freedom from craving] is best: of all humans the One Who Sees (the Buddha) is best.

• What is Eightfold Path to noble attainments (stages of enlightenment)? It is the cultivation of virtue (precepts, restraints), concentration (mental collectedness, absorption), and wisdom (right view, insight).
• What are the  Four Ennobling Truths? Meditative contemplation of the causal links of Dependent Origination for the direct realization of disappointment, its cause, its cessation, and the path leading to its cessation, which is the Noble Eightfold Path.

274. This is the straight path without deviation for the purification of liberating-insight. Tread this path and you will bewilder Mara [the Corrupter, Death personified, the Killer, the Obstructer of liberation].

275. Traveling this path you will make an end of all suffering. Having discovered how to pull out the thorn of lust [craving], I make known the path [to deathlessness].

276. You yourselves must strive [to win the stream]; the buddhas only point the way. Those meditative ones who tread the path are released from the bonds of Mara.

Radiant golden Buddha, blue aura (WQ)

277. "All conditioned things are impermanent" -- when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

278. "All conditioned things are disappointing [unsatisfactory]" -- when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

279. "All things are impersonal [not-self]" -- when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.

280. The idle person who does not exert when one should, who although young and strong is full of sloth, with a mind full of vain thoughts -- such an indolent person does not find the path to wisdom.

281. Let a person be watchful of speech, well controlled in mind, and not commit harm in bodily action. Let one purify these three courses of action and win the path made known by the Great Sage.

282. Wisdom springs from meditation; without meditation wisdom wanes. Having known these two paths of progress and decline, let a person so conduct oneself that wisdom may increase.

283. Cut down the forest (lust) but not the tree; from the forest springs fear. Having cut down the forest and the underbrush (desire), be passionless, O meditators! ["Cut down the forest of lust, but do not mortify the body."]

284. For so long as the underbrush of desire, even the most subtle, of a man towards a woman [or a woman towards a man] is not cut down, one's mind is in bondage, like the sucking calf to its mother.

 

Golden Buddha with vast sky behind, track-free birds like arhats (mahabodhisociety.com)

285. Cut off this affection [attachment] in the manner of a person who plucks with hand an autumn lotus. Cultivate only the path to peace, nirvana, as made known by the Exalted One.

286. "Here shall I live during the rains, here in winter and summer" -- thus thinks the fool. One does not realize the danger (that death might intervene).

287. As a great flood sweeps away a sleeping village, so death seizes and carries away the person with a clinging mind/heart, doting on one's children and cattle [property, synonymous with "riches" in agrarian societies].

288. For one who is assailed by death there is no protection by one's kin. None there are to save one -- no sons[, nor daughters, nor mother], nor father, nor relatives.

289. Realizing this fact, let the wise person, restrained by virtue, hasten to clear the path leading to nirvana.

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I'm in love! (love addiction)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Ann Smith (Healthy Connections/PsychologyToday.com)

Danger, drama: Lana Del Rey wants the whole world to love her (New York Times)

Evolution of the parasite: Tapeworm, Flea, Leech, Vampire Bat, Banker...Love Addict

 

How To Break the Pattern of Love Addiction

Reinvent Yourself: future focus

Part 2. Might as well face it if you're "addicted" to love. Love does not cure all, not even close.

 

Rachel Uchitel, an alleged Tiger Woods' mistress, spoke openly about her addiction to love because of her participation in Dr. Drew Pinksy's "Celebrity Rehab." For many people this may be the first time they ever heard about love addiction, so here's a popular post about the topic from last year:

 

First things first. Take this brief quiz to see if you are likely a "love addict."

When is love an addiction?

1. Did you once think that if only someone loved you in that "special way" you would be happy for the rest of your life?

2. Were you/Are you pre-occupied with the notions of love as expressed in music, movies and fiction?

3. Have you ever tried to talk yourself into loving someone you weren't particularly fond of because you needed the love NOW?

4. Have you felt the need to prop up or do a total makeover on your partner early on in your relationship rather than admit that he/she wasn't right for you and end it?
5. Have you stayed in a bad relationship or repeatedly returned to an ex-partner because you couldn't stand to be alone?
6. When you are in a committed relationship do you wonder if you chose the RIGHT one or fantasize about a lover from your past, thinking you should have kept him or her and then you would be happier?
7. Have you used the words "soul mate" in reference to how love should be? ...

Not crazy in love, getting paid

No need to score or rate yourself. If you suspect you are a love addict -- don't feel too badly about it. I was a member of the love addicts club for a good portion of my life as well. I too was in love with love.

I have built my career on this issue, working with ordinary people who are lost when it comes to finding and sustaining a healthy relationship, stuck in a cycle of pain and disappointment in others and themselves.

They believe that either they just can't find the right one or that the early infatuation waned and they are no longer "in love." Some jump from one relationship to another in search of that wonderful feeling they once had.
 
Others stay, despite feeling dissatisfied, harboring secret thoughts of leaving, cultivating emotional affairs, or cheating from time to time, having no clue about the real problem.
 
To be clear, addiction can be defined in a general way as a compulsive (repeated action without choice) and chronic (ongoing over time) pattern of using a substance or behavior for soothing, comforting, and/or arousal. It is used as a means of medicating uncomfortable feelings. "Addicts" typically continue use of their behavior or drug of choice despite negative consequences.
 
Sex addiction is a compulsive pattern of pursuing sexual arousal independent of emotional attachments. [While this seems common and promoted among American males, it gets so out of control -- for example with online porn addiction -- as to be devastating; attend an SAA meeting and find out how bad if you doubt that such a condition can even exist.]

 

Love addiction [more common and promoted among American females, so much so that we may consider it "typical" gendered behavior] is a little harder to define simply because by nature we are all "addicted" to love -- meaning we want it, seek it, and have a hard time not thinking about it. More

   All Princess Sleeping Beauty needs is Love's True Kiss to get better. O where, O where could it be found? On the lips of the prince...or the wicked witch of the fairy queendom? Lana Del Rey -- an expert after filming the Saga "Summertime Sadness" -- knows in "Once Upon a Dream"

• SCIENCE: Artificial vaginas are on the way
• PHOTO: What's up with Cameron Diaz's face?
• Involuntary sterilization then and now
• Parenting: Pop Psychology
• Kylie Jenner goes crazy at the MMVAs
• Kim Kardashian tries to go crazier at Bonaroo 
• The most popular erection drug is not Viagra
• Grow close by asking right questions 
• How much time should couples spend together? 5 tips

Baby born with four hands, feet

I'm in love! - "West Coast" (video)

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Lana Del Rey (lanadelrey.com), "West Coast"

In "Ultraviolence," out June 17th, Cuban Lana Del Rey sings about the West Coast

Love is a burning thing. With eyes half open we step into a ring of fire, like Johnny Cash

Part 1. As a primer to love addiction and sex addiction, it might be good to start with this new smash hit all over Los Angeles radio. Now that Amber Larson and Seth Auberon have taken the helm as Wisdom Quarterly's Features Editors, it might give me time to explore affection, emotions, love, and sensuality as addictions the Buddha warned about. But we don't listen. We love it, which is why we were reborn into this Kama Loka, the "Sensual Sphere." And this song by Lana (of "Summertime Sadness" and "Maleficent" fame), better than any, suggests how we are seduced into coming here rather than forced. More importantly, what keeps us here now, like monkeys with our paws in this honey trap? And having been burned again and yet again, what could keep us coming back?

Lana, superstar, H&M supermodel

Down on the West Coast they got a saying
"If you're not [th]inking then you're not playing."
But you've got the music; you've got the music in you, don't you?

Down on the West Coast I get this feeling
Like it all could happen; that's why I'm leaving
You for the moment, you for the moment, Boy Blue, yeah you.

You're flying high at the show, I'm feeling hot to the touch
You say you miss me, and I say I miss you so much
But something keeps me really quiet, I'm alive, I'm a lush:
Your love, your love, your love

I can see my baby swinging
His Parliament's on fire and his hands are up
On the balcony and I'm singing
Ooh, baby, ooh, baby, I'm in love

(MM) Lana Del Rey performs "West Coast" on the West Coast, Coachella 2014

I can see my sweet boy swaying
He's crazy y Cubano como yo la la
On the balcony and I'm saying,
Move baby, move baby, I'm in love

I'm in love (I'm in love)
I'm in love (I'm in love)

Down on the West Coast they got their icons
Their silver starlets, their Queens of Saigon
And you've got the music; you've got the music in you, don't you?

Down on the West Coast they love their movies
Their golden gods and rock 'n roll groupies
And you've got the music, you've got the music in you, don't you?

You push it hard, I pull away, I'm feeling hotter than fire
I guess that no one ever really made me feel that much higher
Te deseo, cariño; boy, it's you I desire
Your love, your love, your love

I can see my baby swinging
His Parliament's on fire and his hands are up
On the balcony and I'm singing,
Ooh, baby, ooh, baby, I'm in love...

• VIDEO: Have you ever had a threesome? (Jimmy Kimmel) 
• Pioneering actress, activist Ruby Dee passes on

Telling the Devil to go to Hell? (comedy)

I. Rony, Wisdom Quarterly; "Swear To God" with Rev. Winton Dupree (aka Bob Odenkirk)

"The more you are motivated by LOVE, the more fearless and FREE your action will be" - DL

Ferocious avian (garuda) temple guardians warding off serpents (nagas), Thailand

 

Reverend Winton Dupree (Mr. Show)

I have a question, and I know you all have it, too. "What is up Lucifer's butt?" All he wants to do is mess us up, the crapple pie eater!

Now, I'll tell you what. I am the only preacher with the f'n cahones -- you know this, you all know this -- to say:
 
"Goddam you, Mara! I dam thee straight to purgatory! You goddam so-and-so and son of a B!" Can I get an f'n A?
 

Tricky Mara Devaputra

"F'n A!" Thank you, friends.
 

Now the Lord said, "I am the Light of the World."

 

Now he could as easily have said, "I am King Sh-t of F--- Mountain! Why would you mess with me?!"

WARNING: Rated X! Extreme Christian profanity and ungodly obscenities steeped in liberal comic mockery of fundamentalist fervor and hypocrisy! (Mr. Show with Bob & David/HBO)

• The Buddha's encounters with the real Mara (sutras)
• Encounters with the metaphorical Mara (Abhidharma)

No thanks, Mara!

Dhr. Seven, Dhr. Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

The Killer's disciple holding up the characteristic devil's horns (mudra) of the Dark Lord

  

But would the esteemed reverend's approach be any way to rebuke Mara Devaputra (the Killer as an angelic being of light, aka deva-putta, "son of god")? Anger in the face of anger is failure. Hatred is weakness; fear is disease.

Remember Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree. He faced Mara again and again, sometimes in a fearsome guise, sometimes in seductive mode. Mara is scheming. Mara does not play fair.

Mara (Death personified), L.A. Day of the Dead

Resistance is futile, if by "resistance" one means direct opposition. Mara (Temptation itself) is stronger than a human. But there are many things one can do: stand aside, not take the bait, distract oneself, abandon clinging by insight, or win by virtue rather than fighting.
 
Mara has no real interest in forcing only in provoking. Instead of coercing by brute strength, he inspires us to be the source of our own ruin.
 
For example, in Sutra 50 of The Middle-Length Discourses, Maha Moggallana -- one of the Buddha's chief male disciples, foremost in mystical powers -- eludes Mara. He then warns the inimical spirit what awaits as the karmic result of such harmful behavior toward enlightened disciples of the Buddha.
 
Maha Moggallana can warn Mara (Namuchi) from direct experience. For he himself, long ago, was a mara known as Mara Dusi, and he himself met with the horrific-hellish results Mara Namuchi would eventually face if he did not desist.

 

But Mara, it seems, does not listen. He does not believe there will be any karmic results for himself. He is, after all, no mere flesh and bones being. He wields dark powers, namely, the power to influence the thoughts of others, to shapeshift, to lead others astray by inspiring in them latent defilements (fear, anger, lust, delusion, discouragement, laziness, etc.)
 
Mara does not insert these into a person's mind/heart; he instigates and awakens what is there dormant and unabandoned. These things -- whether conceived of as momentary states or innate traits -- cannot be successfully opposed for very long by mere willpower or force of any kind. They can, however, be suppressed, outmaneuvered, eluded, abandoned, and completely let go by meditation (cultivation of skillful states and traits).

 

Siddhartha did not fight under the tree. But he stood his ground, it's true, refusing to rise and leave the meditation mat even at the threat of an imminent attack by an army of ogres (yakkhas) led by Mara on a giant war elephant. Finding this approach futile, Mara then sent in his three seductive "daughters" (Craving, Boredom, and Cupidity).

What to do?

The rewards of peace and ahimsa

In fighting, don't fight. In struggling, don't struggle. And in striving, the same: neither striving nor giving up. In this way one does not fall back and one does not ruin oneself by one's own efforts and over-exertion. Carry on without relenting. Elegant balance. Calm persistence. And in no long time, one realizes the fruits of compassion and wisdom.