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