Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 11, 2018

 

The universe is made up of experiences that are designed to burn out our reactivity, which is our attachment, our clinging, to pain, to pleasure, to fear, to all of it. And as long as there are places where we’re vulnerable, the universe will find ways to confront us with them. That’s the way the dance is designed...

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: For Whom Do You Practice?

If we wish to live well in the world, not just amble along through life without any examination of our being, then we must engage in the effort to find meaning in our lives. In order to do this, we have to find a way to balance our own interiority with an empathic recognition of others.

—Eido Frances Carney, “The Way of Ryokan”

Via Daily Dharma: Let Yourself Be

Everything in nature has a physical body, yet a rock doesn’t call itself a rock or a flower call itself a flower. Only humans are stuck on how they should be. The healthiest way of being is to have no need to explain our being, but for it to manifest naturally.

—Shodo Harada Roshi, “Finding Our Essence of Mind”

Via 4 of 27 Daily Dharma: One Step at a Time

It is extremely difficult to accomplish an important task all at once, but even the hardest can be accomplished by undertaking it gradually, like the case of an ant and its nest.

—Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, “Brief Teachings”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 14, 2018

Demanding as that sounds, it is what, in the spiritual sense, we are all here for, and compassionate action gives us yet one more opportunity to live it. It is an opportunity to cooperate with the universe, to be part of what the Chinese call the great river of the Tao.

It is not a coincidence that Hanuman, who in the Hindu cosmology is called the “embodiment of selfless service,” is the son of the wind god. When we give ourselves into becoming fully who we are by doing fully what we do, we experience lightness, we are like kites in wind, we are on the side of the angels, we are entering lightly.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Love’s Embodiment

I couldn’t flourish as a human being as long as I saw myself as the passive recipient of love. (There’s an awful lot of waiting in that position, and then damage control when it doesn’t work out, and also numbness.) But I could certainly flourish as love’s embodiment.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Why We Are All Capable of Indestructible Love”