Flower of the Day: 08/21/14

“When you de-identify from your past, it will no longer exercise power over you. The past is still the past, but you’re no longer identified with it. It may even be a source of inspiration and understanding that you can use when necessary, but it stops draining your energy and awareness. The past no longer steals away your presence. However, this is only possible when you are in harmony with your past.”

Sri Prem Baba

BKS Iyengar

Via Daily Dharma

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A Whisper of Psychic Release | August 20, 2014

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The most fascinating and perhaps most significant of all interfaces is the one that separates yet connects the ridiculous and the sublime. The surprisingly narrow borderline between things holy and things profane, between prayer and laughter, between a Leonardo chalice and Warhol soup can, between the Clear Light and the joke, provides a zone of meaning as exhilarating as it is heretical: a whisper of psychic release so acutely yet weirdly portentous it just might offer a clue to the mystery of being. 

 

-Tom Robbins, "Now Showing: Satori"

 

Flower of the Day: 08/20/14

It is necessary to learn how to trust the commands that come from the heart. The spiritual master teaches you and guides you through his or her own intuition, but you will only learn if you are able to hear your heart; if you are able to discern. Discernment is an attribute of the Being, for it is a manifestation of your creative intelligence.”

- Sri Prem Baba

Flower of the Day: 08/19/14

“The fear of scarcity emerges in relation to money, but also in relation to feelings. When you are controlled by a fear of scarcity, you need to wield power over others in order to feel secure. This fear breaks your connection with the source and you feel powerless. So the only way you get power is through robbing other people’s energy by making them feel inferior, guilty, incompetent, or wrong. In other words, making them feel fearful as well. This lowers the other person’s awareness to the same level as your own, and you feel stronger. But the price you pay is very high, because this creates karma that will pursue you indefinitely.”

Sri Prem Baba

Flower of the Day: 08/18/14

“I have been speaking about the importance of kindness and friendship during our groups. The sangha, a community of spiritual seekers, is one of the sacred jewels of the path to enlightenment: it is the body of the master teacher. So the health of the master’s body depends on the friendships of his or her students and their ability to work together in harmony.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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No Boundaries | August 19, 2014

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Pain and joy, love of life, and fear of death know no boundaries of us and them. We can all wake up to realize that our happiness depends on the happiness of our neighbors and vice versa, and our real safety is in togetherness, not intractable conflict. 

 

-Stephen Fulder, "Do We Really 'Have No Choice'?"

Via Daily Dharma

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Good at Heart | August 18, 2014

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As long as we have fire when we need it, water when we need it, warm food on the table, tasty curry, what else do we need? Happiness is to be good at heart. 

 

- Madeline Drexler, “The Happiness Metric”

 

Flower of the Day: 08/17/14

“Choice is a power through which we can move in this world, however sometimes an apparent paradox occurs. In certain situations you discover that despite your choices, things happen the way they were supposed to. It’s as though there was already a plan mapped out. So work towards making conscious choices, but don’t blame yourself when that is not possible. Remember that even a wrong choice is right because it helps you to increase your capacity to discern. It can also teach you to see the brightness of the right path until there comes a time when you no longer doubt. The ‘wrong’ path is usually unlit and you receive clear signals not to take it, while the right path has a luminosity that inspires you.”

Sri Prem Baba

Flower of the Day: 08/16/14

"The conditioned mind is under the spell of the cosmic illusion that restricts one’s ability to love and makes one a prisoner of suffering. The conditioned mind is a prisoner of its own prejudices and beliefs. This generates anguish, because one’s essence is in search of freedom. The key that opens this prison door is love."

Sri Prem Baba

Listen to the satsang audio >

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Transcend What? | August 16, 2014

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Buddhist training isn't a method for transcending our basic nature--our nature isn't the trap. Aversion and grasping together are the trap, and nondiscrimination the way out. 

 

- Sallie Tisdale, “The Buddhist Sex Quandary”

 

"The real self is dangerous: dangerous for the established church, dangerous for the state, dangerous for the crowd, dangerous for the tradition, because once a man knows his real self, he becomes an individual. He belongs no more to the mob psychology; he will not be superstitious, and he cannot be exploited. and he cannot be led like cattle, he cannot be ordered and commanded. Integrated persons become individuals, and the society wants you to be non-individuals.

Instead he will live according to his light; he will live from his own inwardness. His life will have tremendous beauty, integrity."

~Osho

Flower of the Day: 08/15/14

“If you find yourself stuck at a certain point, suffering and controlling, this means that you are under the dominion of a force called ‘obstinacy’. Obstinacy is a distortion of willpower. In other words, it is willpower that is being used by fear and hatred. There is an insistence on accomplishing what the ego determines. So, I invite you to relax and surrender to the guidance of the mystery. Maybe you’ll have a nice surprise.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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The Reality of Freedom | August 15, 2014

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Instead of creatively realizing their freedom, many choose the unreflective conformism dictated by television, indulgence in mass-consumerism, or numbing their feelings of alienation and anguish with drugs. In theory, freedom may be held in high regard; in practice it is experienced as a dizzying loss of meaning and direction. 

 

Stephen Batchelor, “Buddhism Without Beliefs”

 

Where The Bears Are - Season 3: Episode 2 BEARS IN THE HOUSE

Anthony Bourdain for HRC's Americans For Marriage Equality

Via JMG: American Bar Association Resolution: LGBT Rights Are Basic Human Rights

 

Here's the resolution in full:

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association recognizes that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have a human right to be free from discrimination, threats and violence based on their LGBT status and condemns all laws, regulations and rules or practices that discriminate on the basis that an individual is a LGBT person;

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges the governments of countries where such discriminatory laws, regulations, and practices exist to repeal them with all deliberate speed and ensure the safety and equal protection under the law of all LGBT people;

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges other bar associations and attorneys in jurisdictions where there are such discriminatory laws or incidents of targeting of LGBT people to work to defend victims of anti-LGBT discrimination or conduct, and to recognize and support their colleagues who take these cases as human rights advocates; and

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges the United States Government, through bilateral and multilateral channels, to work to end discrimination against LGBT people and to ensure that the rights of LGBT people receive equal protection under the law.

(Tipped by JMG reader Wilson)

Labels: ABA, human rights, LGBT rights

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via Daily Dharma

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Non-Killing | August 14, 2014

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From the intrinsic standpoint--one of body, of Buddha-nature--non-killing means that there is nothing being born and nothing dying. The very notions of 'birth' and 'death' are extra. Life does not divide up into things to be killed or not killed; it is just this one body, constantly changing.

 

- Bernie Glassman, “The First Precept”

 

Flower of the Day: 08/14/14

“Suffering is something that nobody wants, but no one lets go of it. This is because leaving behind suffering also means letting go of one’s defenses and control, and becoming vulnerable. Through this surrender, one begins to enjoy the wisdom of uncertainty, and becomes as light as a leaf that is taken by the wind.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

 

Listen to the satsang audio >