A
string of beads has a thread running through all the beads, keeping
them together. What we need is a thread too—of sanity and stability.
Because when you have a thread, even though each bead is separate, they
hang together. When we have the teachings in us, stabilizing us, there’s
a thread to keep our life together that prevents us from falling apart.
|
To
forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. Buddhist teaching
suggests that the Self is an illusion, and identity is an ongoing
confluence of forces. That means that, very literally, our sense of self
is shaped by the world around us.
|
The
Muppets have dumped their partnership with Chick-Fil-A after having
sold the company Creature Shop toys for the chain's kid's meals. The
Jim Henson Company has posted a statement to their Facebook page:The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors. Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-Fil-A to GLAAD.(Tipped by JMG reader Alison)
Somewhere
this very moment, babies are born, fathers are dying, mothers are
grieving. Yet, pervading all is a groundless awareness, delicate and
strong at the same time. Everything becomes we, a beating heart with a transparent, radiant smile.
|
What
feature does all experience have in common? All experience is
groundless, open, empty. You can say, 'Well, this floor doesn’t feel
empty,' and you are right. It feels very solid. But emptiness refers to a
way of experiencing things. And when you experience things this way, it
is such a powerful experience that you almost always come out of it
saying, 'Oh! This is how things really are, this is reality.'
|
"Because
the rich are different from you and me, many of them are incredibly
self-centered. They don’t even see how funny it is — how ridiculous they
look — when they attribute the weakness of a $15 trillion economy to
their own hurt feelings. After all, who’s going to tell them? They’re
safely ensconced in a bubble of deference and flattery. Unless, that
is, they run for public office.
I didn't even think to check the children's programming category. Congrats to Dan and the It Gets Better team!
Truth
is best served by recognizing a viewpoint as only a viewpoint, and
refraining from taking that extra step of regarding it as true to the
exclusion of all other views. In other words, all views—even correct
views—are best held gently, rather than grasped firmly.
|
Just
as it is only the real Self that can see the real world behind the
appearances, so it may be that it is only the real seeker who can
recognize a genuine man or woman of wisdom.
|
The
unflinching light of mindful awareness reveals the extent to which we
are tossed along in the stream of past conditioning and habit. The
moment we decide to stop and look at what is going on (like a swimmer
suddenly changing course to swim upstream instead of downstream), we
find ourselves battered by powerful currents we had never even
suspected—precisely because until that moment we were largely living at
their command.
|
When
we ask, 'Why did this happen to me?' it is because of our limited view.
If we throw a stone up in the air and forget about it, when it falls
down on our heads, we shouldn’t complain, although we usually do. We
have this notion that what happens to us is somehow independent of our
own actions. We can ask, 'why did this happen?' But the more important
question is, 'what we are going to do about it?'
|
One
of the things that most nourishes true compassion is clarity—when we
know what we are thinking and know what we are feeling. This clarity
differentiates compassion from shallow martyrdom, when we are only
thinking of others and we are never caring about ourselves.
|
