Saturday, December 29, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: One Continuous Life

With practice, one day we will recognize that all phenomena are composed of and dependent upon the interaction and merging of [the] four elements. We will realize that all of it—the entire universe—is just one continuous manifestation. And that we, ourselves, are no different.

—Ayya Khema, “The Elemental Self

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: One Continuous Life

With practice, one day we will recognize that all phenomena are composed of and dependent upon the interaction and merging of [the] four elements. We will realize that all of it—the entire universe—is just one continuous manifestation. And that we, ourselves, are no different.

—Ayya Khema, “The Elemental Self

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Staying Steady

Buddhist practice can help us enormously in continuing to give our attention to what’s actually appearing, as opposed to being swept away by the drama of the process.

—Frank Ostaseski, “On What to Do When the Going Gets Rough

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 26, 2018 🌟


What is common to all forms is not another form. What is common to all forms is choiceless awareness, it is pure love, it is flow and harmony with the universe. It is the absence of clinging. How does it all come together? If you follow all of the forms to the apex, you are pushed beyond form and into the moment. The passing show of forms, being created and existing then disappearing into formlessness.

 - Ram Dass -

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: How to Love

Being is the source of love because learning to love means learning to be content with the life you have been given. Being fully present to what is—without judging or evaluating or wanting something different—is the most basic act of love.

—C. W. Huntington Jr., “The Miracle of the Ordinary

Via Daily Dharma: A Gift Beyond Value

When we stop being busy and productive and switch to just being still and aware, we ourselves will also feel support, intimacy, and happiness, even if no one else is around. These positive feelings are a product that is much desired but that cannot be bought.

—Jan Chozen Bays, “The Gift of Waiting

Via Words of Wisdom - December 23, 2018 🌟 Inbox x


The minute you project a future, you've just trapped yourself in your mind. You say, "Well, I'm gonna get enlightened next December," then that changes everything you do until then, and then in December you're going to have to give up that model anyway. It's like those guys who said the end of the world would come. When the end of the world didn't come, they were confronted with the fact that they had been caught in their own minds.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Taking the First Step

This wish for perfect enlightenment for the sake of others is what we call bodhicitta, and it is the starting point on the path. By becoming aware of what enlightenment is, one understands not only that there is a goal to accomplish but also that it is possible to do so.

—H.H. the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, “The Bodhisattva Vow: Eight Views

Via Daily Dharma: Renewal

From the macro to the micro, life seems to suggest that renewal is not only possible but also the great way of all things.

—Taylor Plimpton, “Starting Over, Again

Via Daily Dharma: Keeping Our Balance

Equanimity acts like the ballast of a ship. Although the ship is blown one way or the other by the winds of life, it neither sinks nor goes too far off-course.

—Christopher Willard, “How Parents and Children Can Learn Balance and Equanimity from the Eight Worldly Winds

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Via Lion's Roar: Nichiren Shonin: A Teacher of Equality




I see all living beings equally.
I have no partiality for them.
There is not “this one” or “that one” to me.
I transcend love and hatred.

I am attached to nothing.
I am hindered by nothing.
I always expound the dharma
To all living beings equally.
I expound the dharma to many
In the same way as to one.

I always expound the dharma.
I do nothing else.
I am not tired of expounding the dharma
While I go or come or sit or stand.
I expound the dharma to all living beings
Just as the rain waters all the earth.

Lotus Sutra, Murano version 

Via Daily Dharma: Greet Fear with Curiosity

When fear arises, practice can be a very powerful aid to the whole spirit. Don’t be afraid of the fear. Be curious.

—Interview with Rick Fields, “In Light of Death

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 19, 2018 🌟


Everybody you know, you see, you remember, you will meet, is another face of God, is another doorway through. Is another way that God has come to you to awaken your attachments, to bring them to the forefront, to allow you to see through them.

- Ram Dass -

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Finding Meaning in the Moment

Abandoning any hope of fruition does not mean abandoning our projects and ambitions. Instead it points to a way of going about things that is present focused rather than fixated on results.

—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Abandon Any Hope of Fruition

Monday, December 17, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Illuminating the Mind

When addressed skillfully, darker energies can be resolved and transmuted—to become powerful guardians of the dharma, supporting us as we find our way through the often turbulent waters of the psyche.

—Lawson Sachter and Sunya Kjolhede, “The Mind’s Dragons

Sunday, December 16, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Find Joy in Being Here

Renunciation, though often understood to mean “giving up,” is, more accurately, the willingness to experience things as they are, not as we want them to be. Here you discover true freedom, the deep, quiet joy that has always been present in you.

—Ken McLeod, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 16, 2018 🌟


For a relationship to remain as Living Spirit, one of the best ingredients to put into the stew is truth. Gandhi spent his life in what he called experiments in truth. Learning how to just be straight.

- Ram Dass -

Saturday, December 15, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Letting Go and Reaching Out

If we’re able to catch an angry thought as it’s budding, we can let it go. The same is true of despair or hopelessness. And when letting go is too difficult, a good medicine for dealing with these emotions is to reach out and help others, healing them and ourselves.

—John Daido Loori Roshi, “Between Two Mountains

Friday, December 14, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: A Recipe for Compassion

It is not sufficient merely to see that sentient beings are suffering. You must also develop a sense of closeness with them, a sense that they are dear. With that combination—seeing that people suffer and thinking of them as dear—you can develop compassion.

—Jeffrey Hopkins, “Everyone as a Friend

Thursday, December 13, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Cultivating Insightful Curiosity

We need to be able to utilize the positive energy of wondering, of wanting to know the truth for ourselves and working to do that, and not get lost in cynicism or endless speculation.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Sitting on the Fence

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 12, 2018 🌟


The Living Spirit, the Beloved, is always right here. It is merely your mind that prevents you from acknowledging its existence. The minute you either quiet your mind or take your heart and open it out so that it draws your mind along with it, only then do you rend the veil and do you see that the Beloved is right there.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Right Time for Meditation

You should not limit your meditation to only in the morning or only in the evening: you should do it any time, all the time. Practice time is always now—it’s never in the future.

—Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, “Do Nothing

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Seeing Things Clearly

What’s the world? [It’s] any preoccupation that gets you stirred up, that disturbs you right now… If it arises in the mind, make yourself understand: The world is nothing but a preoccupation. Preoccupations obscure the mind so that it can’t see itself.

—Ajahn Chah, “The Last Gift

Via Tmblr: Map of Homosexual Rights Worldwide


Monday, December 10, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Effortless Ease

Perhaps the greatest irony of healing is that it occurs when we accept our felt experience, rather than rely on willpower or focused effort to get rid of the unwanted.

—Josh Korda, “A Safe Container for Fear

Sunday, December 9, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Inside-Out Happiness

The Buddha taught that true happiness, or fulfillment, is independent of outer causes and conditions. So for Buddhists, the pursuit of happiness involves training in looking inward.

—Pamela Gayle White, “The Pursuit of Happiness

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 9, 2018 🌟


For a long time I thought truth had to mean only words, but it doesn't. There are truths that are only communicated in silence. And you have to figure out when to use words and when to use silence, because the absolute truth is silent.

- Ram Dass -

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: An Invitation to Kindness

Imagine for a moment that everything you are experiencing is your very, very best friend saying hello… Such a hello is much more than just a passing handshake or kiss on the cheek… The sights and sounds around us when fully acknowledged are quite an invitation indeed.

—Michael Carroll, “Gently Bowing

Friday, December 7, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Looking Deeply Into Life

Concentration will bring stability, stillness, and spaciousness; inquiry will bring alertness, vividness, brightness, and clarity. Combined, they will help you to develop creative awareness, an ability to bring a meditative mind to all aspects of your daily life.

—Martine Batchelor, “A Refuge Into Being

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: The True Value of Waking Up

Every moment of heightened consciousness is precious beyond price, for awareness is the primary currency of the human condition.

—Lama Surya Das, “Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

The Bahá'í Faith is Homophobic

A few months ago I wrote this letter to the National Spiritual Assembly of Brasil:


A Assembléia Espiritual Nacional dos Bahá'ís do Brasil
Sede Nacional
SHIS QL 08 Conjunto 2
casa 15 - Lago Sul
CEP 71625-220 Brasília/DF

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

My name is Daniel Orey. I live in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais. Both my husband and I have been professors here at the Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto since 2011.

In 2009, when we were still living in Sacramento, California my voting rights were removed because of my marriage (08.08.08) to Milton, my non-Bahá’í Brazilian husband.  I later resigned from the Faith because I was hurt by feeling treated as a 2nd class citizen by the Bahá´ís, and our deep disappointment with the Bahá’í Administration in regard to its inability to welcome and protect all people from prejudice.
 
I am still happily married and living with my husband here in Ouro Preto, in fact, this year we are celebrating our 20th anniversary together, and our 10th as a legally married couple. The Brazilian government has allowed me a permanent visa because of our marriage and I have applied for dual citizenship. The Consulate General of Brazil in San Francisco and the Federal Police have always been encouraging, inclusive and welcoming to us, I spoke about this in 2013 in a TEDx talk, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZNPNEgmUs

My husband and I are both tenured professors. Together we have spoken at numerous international congresses, and participate in research groups in Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, Nepal, Ohio and California. No one, but the Bahá’ís, seem to have a problem with our status as a legally married couple.

Recently, when discussing this dilemma with a gay Bahá’í, he informed me that now, there is more tolerance within the Bahá’í community for gays and lesbians. He said he was discussing this with other LGBTq Brazilian Bahá’ís and that there is no problem anymore with LGBTq Bahá’ís and that we would be welcome and will not face any prejudice.

I am somewhat surprised by this.

My point in writing is this, I am curious if the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Brasil is able to respect my marriage to my non-Bahá’í husband and therefore accept me and other LGBTq people in similar circumstances, that is as full members of the community. In so doing, would I be required to divorce my husband?

Thank you so very much for your time.

THEIR RESPONSE IS BELOW
 
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Via Daily Dharma: Reaping the Rewards

Whoever you are, if you have a true and sincere mind, if you are not careless in the least, if you do not go along with what worldly people do, but do the contrary, then you will be able to attain the benefit of Buddhism.

—Master Hsuan Hua, “After the Monastery

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 5, 2018 🍁

 
I would say that most of us stay locked in our separateness and we are very frightened of coming out of it, we feel very vulnerable. In truth you’re not vulnerable at all. Who you think you are is vulnerable. Who you are is not vulnerable. This is the truth of it.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Complete in Connectedness

Pervading all is a groundless awareness, delicate and strong at the same time. Everything becomes we, a beating heart with a transparent, radiant smile. And we are awake.

—Judith Simmer-Brown, “Insomnia

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: The Subtlety of Effort

There’s no switch that turns on enlightenment. You move toward it with your effort. It’s an effort that might be unrecognizable to those who think “effort” means trying hard. You have to try soft—to be curious and open to whatever it is that results.

—Nancy Thompson, “Being Held by the Dharma

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 2, 2018 🍁


Part of your curriculum with aging is to shift your game in order to honor the systems of which you're a part so that you finish your work on earth. In other words, you get free. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Middle Path

Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure than he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them.

—Matthieu Ricard, “A Way of Being

Friday, November 30, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Find the Middle Way

Without spiritual discipline we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.

—Joan Gattuso, “The Balancing Buddha

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Why Genuine Transformation Is Possible

No matter how high the mountains of the great dharma are, no matter how deep the sea of ignorance is, they will be as nothing before a boundless spirit of determination.

—Koun Yamada, “Great Faith, Great Doubt, Great Determination

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 28, 2018 🍁


Reflection will give you a chance to stand back in your soul, witness consciousness, look at your life, and see how much of the systems of which you're a part you are still attractive or aversive. Because ultimately the art form is to be, as Christ said, 'In the world, but not of the world.'

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Turning Dreams into Reality

Daydreaming is very seductive; when the thoughts “If I were… If I had… ” come up, they pull you in… When we ask the question “What is this?” it will bring us back to the moment. What is happening now? What is right here to enjoy and to appreciate?

—Martine Batchelor, “What Is This?

Via Daily Dharma: A Step on the Path

The entire process of sitting down to eat, reflecting on food and its preparation, and then the eating of it should be a method—one among many—to take us further on the path to enlightenment.

—Venerable Yifa, “Thought for Food

Via Daily Dharma: The Root of Forgiveness

The practice of forgiveness happens when we are able to realize the underlying cause of our anger and impatience, and this allows us to distinguish between someone’s unskillful behavior and essential goodness. Serenity and calm develop as we learn to accept imperfection in others and ourselves.

—Michele McDonald, “Finding Patience

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 25, 2018 🍁


The romantic quality of love which is between separate entities is a doorway into the deeper love ... a lot of people experience a quality they call love but they’re doing it with their mind, they’re not really opening their hearts fully, they are loving, meaning I am attracted to … or I am attached to… when we talk about love versus fear for example, we are talking about ‘being’ versus ‘fear’, or ‘unity’ versus ‘separateness’, would be the other way of saying it.

So I would say that when the fear dissipates you are feeling at home in the universe. Meaning your identity with your separateness isn’t overriding your feeling of connection with everything to the point that you’re feeling cut off and vulnerable - which is where the root of the fear is. So as you cultivate that unitive quality the fear dissipates, so the relation is one between love and fear, but it’s not the love in the sense of ‘I love you’, its the sense that we are together in the space of love.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Don’t Miss a Moment

In dharma practice, we both prepare for the long haul and remain open to immediate insight and change… The perspectives of both gradual and sudden transformation may remind us that, as the Buddha taught, every moment of mindfulness matters!

—Donald Rothberg, “Present Moment, Urgent Moment

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: The Greatest Gift

Let’s find a way to share our gifts of spontaneous love and compassion moment by sacred moment, seeing all the while the Great Gift of interconnectedness and heart… Let us be reminded of that and rejoice in the light of the season and the many opportunities to heal the gap between us and others.

—Lama Surya Das, “Resacralizing the Holidays: Holy Day Mindfulness

Via Daily Dharma: The Best Things Are Free

Life, it turns out, is unsatisfactory, as long as we allow our hopes and fears to be the authors of our expectations… Thankfully there’s a practice that helps us recognize the source of this disappointment and opens us to this richness. And it’s free.

—Alex Tzelnic, “Coming to Terms with the First Noble Truth (and My Shopping Addiction)

Via Daily Dharma: The Free Flowing Mind

If the mind congeals in one place and remains with one thing, it is like frozen water and is unable to be used freely: ice that can wash neither hands nor feet. When the mind is melted and is used like water, extending throughout the body, it can be sent wherever one wants to send it.

—Takuan Soho, “The Right Mind and the Confused Mind

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Life, Face-forward

When we turn away from our distress, we inevitably abandon our loved ones as well as ourselves. But when we mindfully and compassionately incline toward whatever is arising within us, we can be truly present and alive for ourselves and others.

—Christopher K. Germer, “Getting Along

Monday, November 19, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Makes Perfect

By engaging with exertion over and over again, the practice of mindfulness and loving-kindness becomes familiar territory for you, and is no longer a big deal. It is a part of you and not a project, but a way of life.

—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Practice the Five Strengths

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 18, 2018 🍁



In this culture, we are rewarded for knowing we know. It’s only when we come to the despair of seeing that the rational mind just isn’t going to be enough – it’s only when you see the assumptions you’ve been working with are not valid that there is the possibility of change. Albert Einstein said, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move towards higher levels.” And again, “Man must be able to develop a higher form of thought if he’s ever going to be able to use his energy with wisdom.”

- Ram Dass -

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Finding Real Peace

Real peace is not simply the absence of violent conflict but a state of harmony: harmony between people; harmony between humanity and nature; and harmony within ourselves.

—Bhikkhu Bodhi, “Fostering Peace, Inside and Out

Friday, November 16, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Radical Acceptance

Something happens when we don’t resist, when we don’t hate ourselves for what we’re experiencing. Our hearts open, and we realize we’re not alone in our suffering. Even the suffering, we begin to see, is a vehicle for a larger sense of connection to all of life. Once we have that, we have faith.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Reclaiming Faith

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Patience

Patience is the only thing that defeats anger. Don’t be disappointed if you can’t do it right away. Even after years of practice you may find that you’re still losing your temper. It’s all right. But you will also notice that the power of anger has weakened, that it doesn’t last as long, and does not as easily turn into hatred.

—Nawang Gehlek Rimpoche, “Anger and Patience

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 14, 2018 🍁

 
When we're identified with awareness, we're no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time. 
 
-   Ram Dass  -

Via Daily Dharma: For the Love of the Spiritual Life

Grace provides the framework within which a meaningful life is lived. Love is the substance of it day to day. To live a spiritual life, then, is essentially to do things “for the love of it”—to do things without attachment to a result or reward.

—Dharmavidya David Brazier, “Let Grace In

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: It All Boils Down to This

Understanding that we all want happiness and don’t want suffering is the basis for love, compassion, kindness.

—Jeffrey Hopkins, “Equality

Monday, November 12, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Trust Yourself

Until we have awakened to the perfection of our fundamental nature, we harbor traces of doubt—about our teacher, our practice, and ultimately ourselvesThe more effectively we live up to the precepts, the more likely we are to trust and realize our true self.

—Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, “Don’t Just Sit There

Via Ram Dass /Words of Wisdom - November 11, 2018 🍁

The dance goes from realizing that you're separate (which is the awakening) to then trying to find your way back into the totality of which you are not only a part, but which you are.

- Ram Dass -

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Priceless Peace

If we can let go of our various worries and cares, peace will arise in our hearts. This is why the Buddha taught us to center our hearts in concentration so as to give rise to stillness, peace, and the inner wealth with which we’ll be able to pay off all of our debts.

—Ajaan Lee, “Sowing the Seeds of Freedom

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: 20/20 Dharma Vision

What we most frequently see when the mind is focused and clear are the habits of mind that create unnecessary suffering, habits fueled by greed and hatred and delusion…The practice of seeing clearly is what finally moves us toward kindness.

—Sylvia Boorstein, “The Wisdom of Discomfort

Friday, November 9, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Invincible Purity

As we listen more deeply to suffering, we begin to notice non-suffering. The heart realizes its innate courage, strength, and invincibility. This journey through pain and suffering burns away the impurities, and what is revealed is something pristine, clear, and beautiful, like a moonlit pearl: the tender, merciful heart, and its infinite ability to receive the cries of the world.

—Thanissara, “The Grit That Becomes a Pearl

Thursday, November 8, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: The Heart of Virtue

Mindful speech and the ability to really listen are at the heart of all relationships. And thoughtful, kind, and effective interactions are at the center of our ethical core, the foundation of any spiritual practice.

—Marshall Glickman, “Talk Like a Buddha

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 7, 2018 🍁


The truth is everywhere. Wherever you are, it’s right where you are, when you can see it. And you can see it through whatever vehicle you are working with, you can free yourself from certain attachments that keep you from seeing it. The scientist doesn’t stop being a scientist, nor anybody stop being anything. You find how to do the things to yourself which allow you to find truth where you are at the moment. I’d say we never find out anything new; we just remember it. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: A Rude Awakening

The pain of remorse can motivate a profound desire within us to live more awake and more genuinely. From the pain of deep humiliation—from seeing how we go against our true nature—real humility can awaken.

—Ezra Bayda, “The Sweet Pain of Remorse

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Via 20 of 50 Daily Dharma: Wake Up in This Moment

Every mindful moment in which generosity displaces greed, compassion takes the place of hatred, and insight dislodges delusion, is a moment in which we are awake. If we can manage one moment of wisdom, why not another?

—Andrew Olendzki, “A Tough But Not Impossible Act to Follow

Monday, November 5, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Unquenchable Effort

The most important thing is to keep working for the world we long for, even when the odds seem overwhelming. After all, isn’t this the essence of the bodhisattva’s vow that many of us have recited again and again? All beings are numberless, I vow to save them.

—Noelle Oxenhandler, “With Eyes in All Directions

Sunday, November 4, 2018

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 4, 2018 🍁


You would not have taken birth on this particular plane of existence unless you had work to do in the areas of life and death, or rather security of your separateness, anxiety about it, lust, greed, power. Those are the prerequisites for your taking birth on this plane.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Letting Go to Gain it All

Whenever you see yourself identifying with anything stressful and inconstant, you remind yourself that it’s not-self: not worth clinging to, not worth calling yourself. This helps you let go of it. When you do this thoroughly enough, it can lead to awakening.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “There is no self.

Via Daily Dharma: Pain’s Hidden Virtue

The gateway to compassion and lovingkindness is to be able to feel our own pain, and the pain of others. If we are able to open in this way, our hearts can melt, and the healing salve of compassion can anoint all our wounds.

—Lama Palden, “The Gateway to Compassion

Via Daily Dharma: Divine Messengers

People who are awake see the manifestation of the dharma in everything. A pebble, a bamboo tree, the cry of a baby, anything can be the voice of the dharma calling. We should be able to practice like that.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Three Gems

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Natural Perfection

Not being aware of your own faults is the greatest fault. But if you are aware and make adjustments immediately, you can then be faultless at all times and everywhere.

—Master Sheng-Yen, “How to Be Faultless

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 31, 2018 🍁


In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Bring Everything onto the Path

Everything is an occasion for the dharma to unfold. It is a virtual truism that no circumstance is not apt, to the attentive mind, for spiritual growth, from abject poverty and tragedy to joy and surfeit.

—Neil Gordon, “Children and Dharma: An Introduction

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: The End of Suffering

If we can learn to understand [our] suffering and open to the reality of it, then instead of simply being overwhelmed by it, we can investigate its causes and begin to let them go.

—Joseph Goldstein, “Facing the Heat

Monday, October 29, 2018

Via Daily Dharma: Compassion in Action

We must join hearts and minds—with each other, with those of other faiths, and with those of a secular orientation—to bring forth the kind of world that corresponds to our deepest moral aspirations.

—Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, “A Call to Conscience

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 28, 2018 🍁


Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Nothing to Improve

Meditation is a haven away from the ubiquitous world of self-improvement. It’s not just that there’s no such thing as “bad” meditation, but there’s no such thing as “good” meditation either. It is what it is.

—Barry Evans, “The Myth of the Experienced Meditator