Friday, November 1, 2019

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Makes Progress

Practice, both the athletic and the spiritual kind, is not a manifestation of perfection, but an acceptance of imperfection. One does not achieve or attain compassion; one develops it by meeting the moment over and over again.

—Alex Tzelnic, “(Meta)Physical Education: Temper Temper”


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Thursday, October 31, 2019

Via Daily Dharma: How to Navigate Conflict Compassionately

When we feel conflict with others, understanding their suffering is the first step in being able to communicate, forgive, and begin again.

—Michele McDonald, “Finding Patience”


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Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 30, 2019 💌


"The final awakening is the embracing of the darkness into the light. That means embracing our humanity as well as our divinity. What we go from is being born into our humanity, sleep walking for a long time, until we awaken and start to taste our divinity. And then we want to finally get free, but we see as long as we grab at our divinity and push away our humanity we aren’t free. If you want to be free, you can’t push away anything. You have to embrace it all. It’s all God." 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Wisdom Leads to Compassion

Compassion is the natural functioning of wisdom. The clearer one sees, the more readily one uses loving words.

—Gerry Shishin Wick Sensei, “Zen in the Workplace”


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Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Ram Dass - Why Do We Practice?



Ram Dass discusses the intricate internal balance we have to constantly work on in terms of our aversion and attraction towards spiritual practices. Our life becomes a gentle process of constantly reinvesting ourselves into the spirit, and sometimes it does feel forced, sometimes it's frustrating, and sometimes it feels like we're going nowhere. But as Krishna Das says, every time we practice we are planting seeds, and it's not up to us to force them to grow, they sprout in their own time...

Today's Gay Wisdom / The Passionate Shepherd

1618 -
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
Christopher Marlowe 1599

Raleigh’s Reply
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields:
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,—
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Sir Walter Raleigh, 1599

Via Daily Dharma: The Moment You Create Your Karma

With your reaction to each experience, you create the karma that will color your future. It is up to you whether this new karma is positive or negative. You simply have to pay attention at the right moment.

—Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche, “The Power of the Third Moment”


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Monday, October 28, 2019

Via LATimes


Ram Dass on Being Love

Excerpt from an 8/2 webcast on Meditation and Mindfulness. Please click the following link for additional teachings on Love:


Via Ram Dass / Om Namah Shivaya





“One of Shiva’s consorts is Kali. She is that aspect of the mother that dances over death, and she consumes impurities into herself. Tonight, we are going to consecrate a fire to Kali and offer her our impurities. And we’re going to chant to Shiva. The whole process is one of incredible purification. It deepens, quiets, straightens all of our beings. It takes the emotional qualities of the devotion that we have touched here and turns it into the strength of steel. So that our love, which is Shiva’s love, is quiet, clear, and strong. So that we go into the marketplace with the strength of Shiva, and the tenderness of Krishna. That is what the balance is about.” 

– Ram Dass

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 27, 2019 💌


"When you say, 'I am,' followed by any other words, you are already trying to stand somewhere. There’s nowhere to stand in this whole dance. You can’t stand somewhere when you say, 'I am good.' There is stuff in you that isn’t so good. You say, 'I am young,' yet get old. 'I am alive,' you will be dead. Every definition of yourself is a prison you put yourself in, seemingly to protect yourself. But it ends up creating anxiety and fear. Most of the behavior that our society performs is motivated by fear. And it is the fear of what is. "

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Trust Your Compassionate Intentions

When a compassionate intention arises, don’t evaluate it. Trust it. Just do it.

—Colin Beavan, “Intuitive Action”


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Via Daily Dharma: How to Benefit from Unavoidable Suffering

Suffering can be our greatest source of transformation. The dharma teachings show us how to use all the stuff of life—particularly those unavoidable experiences of pain, loss, and suffering—as fodder for awakening.

—Carolyn Gregoire, “Buddhist Thank-You Cards”


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Saturday, October 26, 2019

Via Daily Dharma: The Dharma of Our Hearts

There’s a level where this dharma is just human dharma—it doesn’t have any special language. It’s just about our hearts—whether they’re suffering or not, and how they can bind or how they can open.

—Interview with Ayya Tathaaloka and Thubten Chodron, “The Whole of the Spiritual Life”


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Friday, October 25, 2019

Via Daily Dharma: Choosing the Present Moment

The present moment is not defined solely by letting go of past and future, nor by accepting and appreciating what arises right now, but by choosing in this very moment how we make sense of the world.

—Jack Petranker, “The Present Moment”


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Thursday, October 24, 2019

Via Daily Dharma: Expressing Your Needs without Clinging

Expressing my needs, without making them into demands, can be as much a path to growth as letting them go. Needs aren’t the problem; it is rigidly clinging to a particular strategy to meet them that produces suffering.

—Katy Butler, “Say It Right”


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Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Aditya Hridayam Punyam Sarva Shatru Vinashanam



“Loosely translated, it means, ‘As for the being who keeps the sun in the heart, all evil vanishes for life.’ That is, when you remember the Atman, the Buddha, the place in your heart, the being, the inner guru, the light that comes from your own heart, then you no longer live with that which takes people from God, because all you see is God and that which brings you to it. When you do this mantra sometimes, you sit in front of the sun, and you let the sun come into your heart until the warmth in your heart becomes like a thousand suns and the light pours out from you.” 

– Ram Dass 


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Via Daily Dharma: Learning Buddhism

When we become fundamentally aware of the mind’s incessant need to reify experience into fixed categories that are convenient to the self, then we are learning Buddhism.

—Victor Hori, “Sweet and Sour Buddhism”


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Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 23, 2019 💌



"Open and stay centered. If you remain centered, your calm presence helps to free all those around you. Go inside yourself to that quiet place where you are wisdom. Wisdom has in it compassion. Compassion understands about life and death. The answer to dying is to be present in the moment."

- Ram Dass -