Via Daily Dharma: The Meaning of Dharma

First, one must get to know oneself. Then, having become familiar with oneself, one can live one’s life more deeply. Living one’s life more deeply is the meaning of dharma.

—Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, “Intelligence & Investigation”

Via Ram Dass

I’m for the long, long view. Every time things like this happened, Maharajji would say, “It’s perfect. It’s perfect.” Now I know that many of you are feeling repulsed or apoplectic about that statement, but we’ve got to keep our quietness inside. We’ve got to keep our love. Our compassion. We’ve got to keep our wisdom during this time.

In this political scene, I don’t think we all should sit back and say, “It’s just perfect.” But I want to say you should not do social action with frustration and anger, but with love. The fear, the anger, and all those things, that’s the work. Is that inside you? Love it. Those things are thoughts, and those thoughts are not productive. If you identify with your soul, you love those thoughts. And I think it’s hard to do that. The hardness is the work.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Mind's Clouds

The light of the sun is always naturally present. Clouds are just temporary . . . . In the same way, the nature of the mind is naturally present, and the obscurations and the afflictions are just adventitious.

—Kenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, “On What Is Most Important”

Via Enough Passivity / FB:

Via Daily Dharma: What We Project

We will attract the same kinds of people we really are. If we have a mind full of defilements, we will attract that to us. Therefore we have to purify our mental state, because whatever is within we will project out.

—Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, “No Excuses”

Via Ram Dass

“Christ was lost in love.”

– Neem Karoli Baba

Via Daily Dharma: Understanding Difference Will Deepen Practice

A spiritual tradition is neither generic nor universal. To see what makes one’s own tradition uniquely itself is to be disabused of the notion that it is what all sensible, thinking people would arrive at if only they would get enlightened.

—Rita Gross, “Buddhist to Buddhist”

Via Daily Dharma: First Comes Hope, Then Action

Hope opens the door to possibility and allows us to envision change, particularly change that we desire. But hope alone will not affect change—that requires movement.

—Andrew Mellen, “UnStuff Your Life”

Via Pinter...

Via Daily Dharma: Practicing Meditation as an Art

If we take up meditation as we would any other artistic pursuit, it is unlikely we will have any regrets. Quite the contrary, the practice’s significance will grow and unfold throughout our lives.

—Ken McLeod, “The Progress Question”

Via Daily Dharma: Going Against the Stream

The Buddha described his teaching as “going against the stream.” The unflinching light of mindful awareness reveals the extent to which we are tossed along in the stream of past conditioning and habit.

—Stephen Batchelor, “Foundations of Mindfulness”

Via Ram Dass

I would say that most of us stay locked in our separateness, and we are very frightened of coming out of it. We feel very vulnerable. In truth, you are not vulnerable at all… You just think you are vulnerable. Who you think you are is vulnerable; who you are is not. This is the truth of it. That’s what Christ was saying over and over again, but nobody seemed to want to hear him. It’s very hard to open your heart when you are not vulnerable, but your experience says that you are.

When you are in the presence of unconditional love, that’s the optimum environment for your heart to open, because you feel safe. You realize nobody wants anything from you. The minute that heart opens, you are once again letting in the flow, and that flow is where you experience God.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Simplifying a Complicated Life

If we can allow some space within our awareness and rest there, we can respect our troubling thoughts and emotions, allow them to come, and let them go. Our lives may be complicated on the outside, but we remain simple, easy, and open on the inside.

—Tsoknyi Rinpoche, “Allow for Space”

Via Daily Dharma: Lifting Others Up

Equality is about giving up the constant desire to lift yourself above others so that you appear superior to them. Awakening is about lifting everybody up together with you.

—Dawa Tarchin Phillips, “What To Do When You Don't Know What's Next”

Via Daily Dharma: An Invitation to Presence

The invitation to open to our experience—whatever it is from moment to moment—is always there, no matter how many times we need to rediscover it.

—Aura Glaser, “Into the Demon's Mouth”

Via Daily Dharma: Tune In to What Matters Most

Whatever you most care about, let this tenderness of heart energize your meditation. The sincerity of your longing will carry you home.

—Tara Brach, “Finding True Refuge”

Via Ram Dass

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 things that open your heart open you out into the universe and allow you to experience 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.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Where to Find Enlightenment

The path of enlightenment is not the path to enlightenment, a way to get to this so-called awakened state. The path of enlightenment is what is underneath our feet.

—Douglas Penick, “What Are You Meditating For?”

Via FB: Senator Kamila Harris -- as shared by Jim Hardwick

"I was speaking to a high school class a few weeks ago and one of the students asked me what we are going to do about a divided America.

"I said I rejected the premise. America isn’t divided. When people wake up at three o’clock in the morning, often in a cold sweat, they are never thinking about life through the lens of being a Democrat or a Republican. The vast majority of folks are thinking about their personal health, the health of their children, the health of their parents, can they get a job, can they keep a job, can they pay the bills by the end of the month, can they retire with dignity?

"The point is that the vast majority of people have so much more in common than what separates us. 

The way we come out of this political nightmare is to reject the false premise that we are a divided country.

"And that means we have to acknowledge what unites us: the universal truths and the universal values that define us. It means we have to listen to one another. It’s why, for example, about once a month I’ve been asking supporters like you to take our issues survey—it’s because I want to know how you’re feeling right now. Not through the lens of partisan politics, but through your eyes, your hopes, and your fears.

"The problem with Washington is that too many people have accepted the false premise that there are core party issues, not issues that are important to those we are supposed to protect and empower.

"I’m a realist, but I’m also an optimist. I believe we can listen and push past the cliche in Washington to get things done that will help people.

"That means we have to be ready to both listen to one another and to fight for the values and the concerns that keep all of us up at night."