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Via Daily Dharma / Learning from the Birds

I stand in the middle of perfection. There is no one else around me. The cries of the geese are beautiful. They hold only joy, not a trace of fear.

—Rick Bass, "A Great Migration"

Via Daily Dharma / Receiving Love

That’s exactly what happens in sitting in stillness in Zen. You’re simply soaked in that divine love that is beyond words, and you allow it to fill you, inundate you, and move you so that you can live a life grounded on that, offering yourself to others.

—Jane Lancaster Patterson, "Other Fingers Pointing to the Moon"

Via Ram Dass

 

You can’t say, “I’m not going to have anything to do with politics.” You can say it, but you’ve got to watch where you’re saying it from. You may say, “I’m not going to get involved with politics because I am so busy with something else, and I’ll vote, but I’m not going to put my time into campaigning for candidates and things like that, or issues, because my energies are best used here.” That’s fine. If you’ve thought it through and felt that way and can look somebody in the eye and say, “This is the way it is.” If you’re saying, “I’m not having anything to do with politics because it’s too dirty and because I don’t approve of it,” forget it – you are abdicating your responsibility to society. It’s as simple as that.

We’re at an interesting moment within the shift of collective consciousness, specifically around the way in which we’re integrating the changes in power structures. Now business holds sway over government, over religion, in terms of social power. And business is like pirates on the high seas – the question is, do you control it from the outside, or does it control itself? Does the whole process have a meta-game that’s controlling itself, and can you stand back far enough to see how it’s playing out? How is the shift in collective consciousness going to evolve and what part do you play?

Part of the curriculum is looking at the systems that you are a part of and being able to say, “That system needs work.” It’s important to be able to shift your game so that you’re not simply pushing the system away and saying “I don’t think about that stuff, because it’s too complicated. Let somebody else worry about it.” Because as long as you get really frustrated with the system, you may be standing in the way of everybody’s survival.

- Ram Dass

Via Dialy Dharma / Your Inner Buddha

Any Buddha or Bodhisattva is merely a symbol of the best of our own inner processes, and we are all universal beings in touch with the universal flow.

—Glenn Mullin, "Prayer: Glenn Mullin"

Via Daily Dharma: Total Freedom

You start with freedom from thirst, hunger, disease, the basic freedoms that the state has to help its citizens achieve. Then you go beyond that to social freedom, from discrimination, inequality, from crime, and lawlessness, and insecurity, which the state also has to provide. Then ultimately you find further up the ladder political freedom, the freedom from authority and tyranny. And then Buddhism brings you even past that, to seek freedom from internal bondage.

—Matthieu Ricard, "Bhutan on the Brink"

Via JMG: AIDS Memorial Museum Planned For San Francisco

March 13, 2017 LGBT History, LGBT News

The New York Times reports:

The National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park here is a somber glen of plants, trees, walks, grass and cairn, with thousands of names etched in stones and pavement. Visitors’ emotions run high, but the details of exactly how AIDS devastated and transformed the world are not found here. “The story of AIDS is more than a disease,” said John Cunningham, executive director of the grove. “The real underpinnings of that story are about humanity, social justice, human rights and what it means to be a citizen of the world. Somehow there needs to be a keeper of the story.”

Now there is a move to create just that: a place to chronicle the AIDS tragedy more comprehensively, to explore the pandemic’s many facets in a permanent national exhibition and repository. It would be similar to institutions commemorating other cataclysmic events: the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.

The effort is in its nascent stages, being discreetly explored by the staff and board of the grove, which Congress designated a National Memorial in 1996. (It is the only AIDS-related monument to receive such status.) So far, the grove has engaged consultants, some with a history of fund-raising for museums, to begin gauging the interest of wealthy donors, especially those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Hit the link for much more about the planning. Wilton Manors is already home to the World AIDS Museum. (Tipped by JMG reader Lisa)

Make the jump here to read the original and more at JMG

Via Daily Dharma / Holy Action

In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, "Freedom in the Midst of Action"

Via Ram Dass

 

Now when most of us think of yogis, we think of somebody sitting, like Milarepa, up in a cave in the mountains, cross-legged and naked. There was snow, and ants were eating him, and the only food he took was nettle soup, and he ate it for so long he developed a green nettle fur all over him. But he was busy freeing himself from the dharma in order to come into union. Now that kind of moratorium is pretty unrealistic for most Westerners, so what role does yoga play in the West for us at the moment?

Well, along the way it will teach you how to control your consciousness, calm your own mind down, find a center, and get your body into harmony with your thoughts. It will get you back far enough inside yourself so that you can start to see how it all is, and start to experience compassion for yourself and for others around you.

https://www.ramdass.org/?mc_cid=b02dbb4ce6&mc_eid=472da7a04f

Via Daily Dharma / Unlikely Dharma

Everything preaches the dharma—nuclear waste, skunks, flowers, grass—and does so fully and completely.

—Roshi Nancy Mujo Baker, "On Not Being Stingy"

Via Daily Dharma / Steering the Heart

No matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can always set our compass to our highest intentions in the present moment. Perhaps it is nothing more than being in a heated conversation with another person and stopping to take a breath and ask yourself, “What is my highest intention in this moment?”

—Jack Kornfield, "Set the Compass of Your Heart"

Via Daily Dharma / The Value of Routine

If we are to close the gap between ideal and actuality—between the envisaged aim of striving and the lived experience of our everyday lives—it is necessary for us to pay greater heed to the task of repetition.

—Bhikkhu Bodhi, "Vision and Routine"

Via FB: WEAPONS IN THE SPIRITUAL WAR AGAINST EVIL

Altruism, Assertiveness, Beauty, Bravery, Brevity, Charity, Cheerfulness, Clarity, Cleanliness, Compassion, Commitment, Confidence, Concentration, Consideration, Contentment, Cooperation, Courage, Courtesy, Creativity, Curiosity, Detachment, Determination, Devotion, Discretion, Education, Empathy, Endurance, Energy, Enthusiasm, Faith, Flexibility, Focus, Forgiveness, Freedom, Friendliness, Generosity, Gentleness, Grace, Gratitude, Happiness, Helpfulness, Honesty, Honor, Hope, Hospitality, Humility, Idealism, Imagination, Immaculacy, Independence, Industry, Initiative, Integrity, Joy, Justice, Kindness, Knowledge, Love, Loyalty, Meekness, Mercy, Moderation, Modesty, Nobility, Non-Violence, Obedience, Optimism, Patience, Peace, Perseverance, Prayerfulness, Prudence, Purity, Radiance, Reliability, Remembrance, Resilience, Resourcefulness, Respect, Responsibility, Reverence, Sacrifice, Self-Control, Self-Discipline, Selflessness, Serenity, Servitude, Silence, Sincerity, Steadfastness, Strength, Tolerance, Thoughtfulness, Thrift, Tranquility, Trustworthiness, Truthfulness, Understanding, Unity, Will-Power, Wisdom, Wonder, Zeal

Via TED: Megan Phelps-Roper: I grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/03/07/watch-former-god-hates-fags-protester-explains-what-finally-broke-her-indoctrination/?utm_source=ET&utm_medium=ETFB&utm_campaign=portal&utm_content=inf_17_60_2&tse_id=INF_7730a9d0037e11e78c985b6a21c9be24

Via Daily Dharma / Buddha Wisdom

When a distraught mother asked [the Buddha] to heal the dead child she carried in her arms, he did not perform a miracle, but instead instructed her to bring him a mustard seed from a house where no one had ever died. She returned from her search without the seed, but with the knowledge that death is universal.

—The Buddha, "Who is the Buddha?"

Via Ram Dass

Just play with the silence for a moment. Instead of using it as expectancy, waiting for something to happen, flip it just slightly and just be in it. Are you really here or are you just waiting for the next thing? It’s interesting to see where we are in relation to times; whether we’re always just between what just happened and what happened next, or whether we can just be here now.

So, let’s just find our way here to be together. If you’re feeling agitated, just notice the agitation. If you’re warm, be warm. If you’re cold, be cold. If you’re overly full, be overly full. Be it, whatever it is, but put it all in the context of a quiet space, because there’s a secret in that, and it’s worth playing with it.

That there’s a place that we can be inside of ourselves, inside of the universe, in which and from which we can appreciate the delight in life. Where we can still have equanimity, and quality of presence, and the quietness of peace.

Via Daily Dharma / Embodying the Universe:

If cosmologists themselves are a manifestation of the same universe that they study, then with them the universe is comprehending itself. When we come to see the universe in a new way, the universe is itself coming to see itself in a new way.

—David Loy, "In Search of the Sacred"

Via Daily Dharma / Mindful Training

If we train ourselves to reach for a snack or pick up the phone to text-message whenever we feel frightened or bored, this is definitely training. The next time we feel uncomfortable we will also tend to reach for some comfort outside ourselves, eventually establishing a deeply ingrained habit, another brick in the wall of our mental prison.

—Gaylon Ferguson, "Fruitless Labor"

Dalai Lama: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)