Flower of the Day: 07/30/14

"When you fall in love with someone, you project all of your dreams onto them and you start to daydream. The other person does the same thing, and you both go on trying to keep this dream alive while avoiding the truth. You avoid revealing yourself to the other, just as you avoid seeing the other’s revelation because it could be a threat to your dream. Thus, the truth becomes a threat, because you prefer to keep on living in your dreamworld."

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Romantic Love | July 30, 2014

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In Buddhist practice, we discover that mindful attention can reveal a deeper truth in whatever object we are paying attention to. The same is true in romantic love. When we use our attention to touch and open the deeper truth in a person, we not only catalyze the experience of love, we become love. The source of love is revealed to be within us; we no longer have to go looking for it somewhere outside. 

 

- Nicole Daedone, "Love Becomes Her" 

 

Via Daily Dharma

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Blowin' in the Wind | July 29, 2014

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How do we renounce? How do we work with this tendency to block and to freeze and to refuse to take another step toward the unknown? If our edge is like a huge stone wall with a door in it, how do we learn to open the door and step through it again and again, so that life becomes a process of growing up, becoming more and more fearless and flexible, more and more able to play like a raven in the wind? 

 

Pema Chödrön, "Like a Raven in the Wind" 

 

There Goes the Gayborhood? By Amin Ghaziani

Flower of the Day: 07/28/14

"We waste a great part of our journey looking for someone to blame for our unhappiness, and believing that we are not good or worthy enough to be happy. This addiction to accusing others is so deeply rooted and can be so subtle that, when you least expect it, you find yourself accusing the other and believing that you are a helpless victim. But when you can transform this victim within you and free yourself from the lenses that distort your perception, you experience a major change in perspective: you stop seeing the glass half empty and start seeing it as half full."

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Heart of Mine | July 28, 2014

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Men ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain: there’s no through trail.
In summer, ice doesn’t melt
The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.
How did I make it?
My heart’s not the same as yours.
If your heart was like mine
You’d get it and be right here. 

 

—Han-Shan and Gary Snyder, "Parting Words Summer 2014"

 

Via Daily Dharma

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Clear Insight | July 27, 2014

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A clear insight into the nature of physical forms and mental events will release you from all suffering and stress. 

 

—Upasika Kee Nanayon, "Tough Teachings to Ease the Mind"

 

Flower of the Day: 07/27/14

~ Worldwide current of Prabhu Ap Jago for peace in the Middle East ~
PRABHU AP JAGO, PARAMATMA JAGO, MERE SARVE JAGO, SARVATRA JAGO
 
“This mantra in itself only has an effect on the body, mind and spirit. But if one is aware of the meaning of the words and sings them with awareness, then this song is transformed into a prayer. It becomes a prayer from God to God. The meaning of this mantra is: ‘God awaken, God awaken in me, God awaken everywhere.’ But we can understand its meaning in other ways as well. Since we know that God is love, we are also saying: ‘May love awaken, may love awaken everywhere’, or still, ‘Open my heart, and with my heart open, I ask you to open the hearts of my brothers and sisters.”

Sri Prem Baba

Flower of the Day: 07/25/14

"Trust and freedom are intimately related to vulnerability. Human beings fear being vulnerable, which is why trust and freedom are rare phenomena. A leaf doesn’t know where the wind is blowing, but that doesn't stop it from going with the wind. If you are a leaf full of expectations, always trying to control the wind's direction, your life will become full of challenges. This controlling self is fear itself trying to make things go the way it imagines they should be. But this approach always ends up creating separation, destruction and suffering."

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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A Place for Desire | July 25, 2014

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The ultimate aim of my own Buddhist practice is an indestructibly confident and happy state of life through which I can help suffering people. Finding a balanced place for desire in that pursuit helps keep me motivated to do the hard, personal work demanded of a Buddhist practitioner. 

 

—Jamie Liptan, "Chanting for Stuff" 

 

Flower of the Day: 07/24/14

"The mind tries to understand the truth, as it wants a rational answer to everything, so it actively seeks out these answers. But these answers only arrive when the mind quiets down. This is when you understand the truth, and when knowledge becomes wisdom. Knowledge only transforms into wisdom through experience, not through the mind." Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Real Devotion | July 24, 2014

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Real devotion only arises when you have a glimpse of emptiness, some glimpse of the nature of mind. Once you have some very precise insight as to how emptiness helps to alleviate suffering, then devotion is based on a real, embodied experience. 

 

—Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche, "Keys to Happiness"

 

PLEASE SHARE! SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE! In Tune - Kellee Maize

The Imitation Game - Official Trailer - The Weinstein Company

Flower of the Day: 07/23/14

"The deepest reason for our being here on this planet is to awaken love. This is what moves us in this world, what makes us get up in the morning, and keeps us alive. Some people are aware of this, and they experience the joy of being alive. If you are not aware of this, you feel anxious because you are unable to find any meaning in life. You have no reason to get up in the morning. This generates depression and the feeling that you don’t belong. Giving meaning to life is a choice: we choose what to do with our time. But we can only make this choice once we are mature enough to hear our heart's calling, which is always exclaiming, ‘Awaken love! Awaken in everyone and everywhere!’ "

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma:

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Non-Lying | July 23, 2014

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Fully facing, getting to know, and actually welcoming the various kinds of liar that I am gives me a taste of not excluding anything; a taste of no inside, no outside. The more I can do this with no outcome or gaining idea in mind, the more truth-speaking and selflessness can naturally arise. 

 

—Roshi Nancy Mujo Baker, "Non-Lying"

 

Via Gay Politics Report: White House bans LGBT discrimination by federal contractors

President Barack Obama on Monday signed an executive order protecting LGBT employees of federal contractors and the federal government from workplace discrimination. The order makes it illegal to fire or harass employees of federal contractors based on their sexual orientation or gender identity and also bans discrimination against transgender employees of the federal government. The order did not include a religious exemption opposed by LGBT groups. NBC News (7/21), The Huffington Post (7/21), Politico (Washington, D.C.) (7/21), The Washington Post (tiered subscription model)/PostPartisan blog (7/21)

Flower of the Day: 07/22/14

"Who am I? Who inhabits this body? Who is playing this game of life? Why am I here and what am I here for? Why am I being led to live certain experiences? Sensible people ask themselves these questions. This sensibility is where you begin remembering who you really are."

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma:

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Mindful of the Dharma | July 22, 2014

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We can be mindful of the dharma as we go about our lives. Then we notice our imperfections, but rather than becoming frustrated by our inability to rid ourselves of these shortcomings, we notice that our interdependence with all life also brings us kindness and joy, unconditionally.

 

—Rev. Patricia Kanaya Usuki, "The Great Compassion"