Via Daily Dharma / The Joy of Problems

People get stuck for decades with the same problems over and over. Focusing expands you. Then you live in more ways and have new problems. Somebody once asked me what I thought mental health was. I said, “New problems!”

—Eugene T. Gendlin, "Focusing"

Via Thinking People / FB: Ignorance

Via FB / Shared brilliance from an anonymous source:

"Why should coal miners pay for PBS"? This was an actual question asked by the Trump administration yesterday. Obviously a blatantly stupid question. We have questions too. Why should a poor black family in Detroit pay for the President to go golfing? Why should a single mother of 3 who's working 2 jobs in Louisiana be denied health-care so that the CEO of Aetna can get a tax-break? Why is the guy washing dishes in Baton Rouge paying for the President's wife's secret service protection so she can live comfortably in NYC? We could do this all day. But here's the real question the Trump administration and the Republicans who empower him need to answer: Do you have a heart? Did no one teach you to care about your neighbors? Do you know what "empathy" means? Did no one ever teach you to "share" when you were in kindergarten? Have you never heard the phrase "do unto others"? I can't think of a group of people who need to watch Sesame Street MORE than the Republican party. Perhaps they would learn some common decency." 

Not sure whose brilliance this is but I was instructed to copy and paste.

Via Daily Dharma / Reality Check

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

—Philip K. Dick, "Drowning in Narcissism"

Via Daily Dharma / The Right Way to Cling:

The only permanence is the permanence that I cling to in my mind: my ideals of how to live; how to be happy; how to raise my children; how to furnish my home; how to better the world; how to fill my time.

—Judith Hertog, "Circling Lhasa"

Via FB: Adulting 101 and self-care

Recently, I've noticed an uptick in the number of people who are suffering from depression, anxiety, and stress. Many people are experiencing fear, anger, sadness, guilt, shame, and grief. Some of these negative feelings and emotions can be attributed to Trump, Republicans, and our geo-political situation. A variety of factors contribute to our mental health and it is important that we employ daily self-care. 

I'm not qualified to give anyone advice with respect to mental or emotional health and well-being. However, I do validate you as an individual, and I can empathize with your situation. 

To date, I'm angry (at Trump et al). I'm ashamed of my fellow countrymen. I'm anxious about the future, and I feel grief and sadness for what could've been. 

Here are some rudimentary coping mechanisms that I incorporate to keep myself sane, healthy, productive, and happy. We all know the benefits of the following and sometimes a reminder helps. 

You may or may not agree with my wellness philosophy, which is fine. Please share your wellness philosophy. 

Sleep - "Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. For example, sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke." - National Institute of Health. Naps are wonderful! 

Exercise - The Mayo Clinic reports that regular exercise combats diseases, controls weight, improves mood, boosts energy, better sleep, better sex... Health conditions can limit or inhibit exercise. (Talk to your medical health professional).

Stress Reduction - Mayo Clinic: Meditate, breathe deeply, be present in the here and now, slow down, reach out and talk to others, laugh, listen to music, exercise, enjoy nature and the environment, unplug, yoga, join a community, create ART, get a massage, take daily walks, journal... 

Eating well - "Eating vegetables provides health benefits – people who eat more vegetables and fruits as part of an overall healthy diet are likely to have a reduced risk of some chronic diseases. 

Vegetables provide nutrients vital for health and maintenance of your body." US Government Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Balanced diet.

Alcohol & Tobacco - Be smart with the substances and chemicals that you put into your body. Moderation. 

Vitamins - I take a multivitamin daily. I see my doctor regularly and keep my vaccinations up to date.
Hydrate - I drink at least 1 gallon per day. 

Massage - Get a regular massage if this is possible.

Support - We all need a supportive community of family and or friends. I consider myself a life-long learner, and I'm always enrolled in courses continuing education. 

Professional help - if you find yourself suicidal or depressed, seek out help from medical professionals who are qualified to help you heal. If medical help is not possible, talk to someone.
Avoid the temporary diet-mentality - we must strive to do these thing for life. When we fall, and we will, get back in the saddle at your earliest convenience. 

What would you add or do differently?

So when you have a rough day, or when "He who's name shall not be mentioned" passes a new tweet... there is always: Psalm 109

Psalm 109

¹ My God, whom I praise,
    do not remain silent,
² for people who are wicked and deceitful
    have opened their mouths against me;
    they have spoken against me with lying tongues.
³ With words of hatred they surround me;
    they attack me without cause.
⁴ In return for my friendship they accuse me,
    but I am a man of prayer.
⁵ They repay me evil for good,
    and hatred for my friendship.

⁶ Appoint someone evil to oppose my enemy;
    let an accuser stand at his right hand.
⁷ When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
    and may his prayers condemn him.
⁸ May his days be few;
    may another take his place of leadership.
⁹ May his children be fatherless
    and his wife a widow.
¹⁰ May his children be wandering beggars;
    may they be driven^[a] from their ruined homes.
¹¹ May a creditor seize all he has;
    may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
¹² May no one extend kindness to him
    or take pity on his fatherless children.
¹³ May his descendants be cut off,
    their names blotted out from the next generation.
¹⁴ May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
    may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
¹⁵ May their sins always remain before the Lord,
    that he may blot out their name from the earth.

¹⁶ For he never thought of doing a kindness,
    but hounded to death the poor
    and the needy and the brokenhearted.
¹⁷ He loved to pronounce a curse—
    may it come back on him.
He found no pleasure in blessing—
    may it be far from him.
¹⁸ He wore cursing as his garment;
    it entered into his body like water,
    into his bones like oil.
¹⁹ May it be like a cloak wrapped about him,
    like a belt tied forever around him.
²⁰ May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers,
    to those who speak evil of me.

²¹ But you, Sovereign Lord,
    help me for your name’s sake;
    out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
²² For I am poor and needy,
    and my heart is wounded within me.
²³ I fade away like an evening shadow;
    I am shaken off like a locust.
²⁴ My knees give way from fasting;
    my body is thin and gaunt.
²⁵ I am an object of scorn to my accusers;
    when they see me, they shake their heads.

²⁶ Help me, Lord my God;
    save me according to your unfailing love.
²⁷ Let them know that it is your hand,
    that you, Lord, have done it.
²⁸ While they curse, may you bless;
    may those who attack me be put to shame,
    but may your servant rejoice.
²⁹ May my accusers be clothed with disgrace
    and wrapped in shame as in a cloak.

³⁰ With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord;
    in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him.
³¹ For he stands at the right hand of the needy,
    to save their lives from those who would condemn them.

 

The question is, how do you awaken out of the illusion that you are separate?

The doorway out of that is through the heart. We say, “My heart goes out to you.” The heart keeps a doorway into the unitive nature of the universe, and it’s the love that flows through it. Love doesn’t know boundaries. The mind creates the boundary of separation between me and you. The heart just keeps embracing and opening out, so that when you open your heart you open into the universe to experience the preciousness, the grace, the sweetness, and the thick interconnectedness of it all.

It’s even more than interconnected. It’s all one thing, and it just keeps changing its flow and patterns, and you’re just a part of it.

Via Daily Dharma / On Diligence

Each step may seem to take forever, but no matter how uninspired you feel, continue to follow your practice schedule precisely and consistently. This is how we can use our greatest enemy, habit, against itself.

—Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, "Tortoise Steps"

Via Daily Dharma / Internal Enemy

Usually we define our enemy as a person, an external agent, whom we believe is causing harm to us or to someone we hold dear. But such an enemy is relative and impermanent. One moment, the person may act as an enemy; at yet another moment, he or she may become your best friend. This is a truth that we often experience in our own lives. But negative thoughts and emotions, the inner enemy, will always remain the enemy.

—Dalai Lama, "The Enemy Within"

2CELLOS - Now We Are Free - Gladiator [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

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