Via Ram Dass

Worry and fear are not tickets on the express train. They are extra baggage. You were going that way anyway.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Putting Practice before Belief

All religions claim to teach noble truths; in a sense, it’s a given in this kind of discourse. What would happen if we stopped using that language? I think it would free us up to give primacy to the practices.

—Stephen Batchelor, “Understand, Realize, Give Up, Develop”

Via FB / From his deep studies of Gandhi and his own experience, Martin Luther King Jr. developed a list of six facts to help people understand non-violent resistance

"From his deep studies of Gandhi and his own experience, Martin Luther King Jr. developed a list of six facts to help people understand non-violent resistance and join with him in his vision.
King’s words are as insightful and thought provoking today as they were when he wrote them:

1. Non-violent resistance is not for cowards. It is not a quiet, passive acceptance of evil. One is passive and non-violent physically, but very active spiritually, always seeking ways to persuade the opponent of advantages to the way of love, cooperation, and peace.

2. The goal is not to defeat or humiliate the opponent but rather to win him or her over to understanding new ways to create cooperation and community.

3. The non-violent resister attacks the forces of evil, not the people who are engaged in injustice. As King said in Montgomery, “We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.”
4. The non-violent resister accepts suffering without retaliating; accepts violence, but never commits it. Gandhi said, “Rivers of blood may have to flow before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood.” Gandhi and King both understood that suffering by activists had the mysterious power of converting opponents who would otherwise refuse to listen.

5. In non-violent resistance, one learns to avoid physical violence toward others and also learns to love the opponents with “agape” or unconditional love–which is love given not for what one will receive in return, but for the sake of love alone. It is God flowing through the human heart. Agape is ahimsa. “Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate,” said King.

6. Non-violent resistance is based on the belief that the universe is just. There is God or a creative force that is moving us toward universal love and wholeness continually. Therefore, all our work for justice will bear fruit – the fruit of love, peace, and justice for all beings everywhere.”

Indeed...

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 27, 2017

You couldn’t possibly be lonely, because where could you go? Do you think if I go in my bathroom and lock the door I can be lonely? I can’t be. It’s always one thought away: The living spirit, the community of our consciousness, that guru inside, is always one thought away.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: A Pinch of Generosity

When you are practicing generosity, you should feel a little pinch when you give something away. That pinch is your stinginess protesting.

—Gelek Rimpoche, “Generosity (and Greed) Introduction”

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Via Daily Dharma: How Self-judgment Can Be Skillful

Joy is what healthy shame and honor are for: to help you see for yourself the well-being that comes from mastering higher levels of skill and harmlessness in your actions.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Why Shame Gets a Bad Rap”

Via Daily Dharma: Willing to Experiment

We do not need to be afraid of our mind. We can go on a journey of discovery and experiment.

—Martine Batchelor, “Meditation, Mental Habits, and Creative Imagination”

Via Daily Dharma: What Can You Give Up?

The spiritual path is about what we give up, not what we get.

—Tim Olmsted, “The Great Experiment”

Via Ram Dass / 25 of 34 Words of Wisdom - August 23, 2017

Since love is a state of being, and a Divine state at that, the state to which we all yearn to return, we wish to possess love. At best we can try to possess the key to our hearts, our Beloved, but sooner or later we find that even that is impossible. To possess the key is to lose it. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Ultimate All-Inclusive Sangha

Everyone I meet is in my sangha. I don’t know if that’s the proper definition, but that’s the way I’m going to hold it in my mind.

—Jeff Bridges, “The Natural”

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Via Daily Dharma: Realizing Goals Requires a Routine

The key to development along the Buddhist path is repetitive routine guided by inspirational vision.

—Bhikkhu Bodhi, “Vision and Routine”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 20, 2017

One of the big traps we have in the West is our intelligence, because we want to know that we know. Freedom allows you to be wise, but you cannot know wisdom.
You must be wisdom.

When my guru wanted to put me down, he called me ‘clever.’ When he wanted to reward me, he would call me ‘simple.’ The intellect is a beautiful servant, but a terrible master. Intellect is the power tool of our separateness. The intuitive, compassionate heart is the doorway to our unity. 

-- Ram Dass --

Via Daily Dharma: The Many Varieties of Belief

 We all believe in something: self, nonself, an omnipotent creator, karma, science, reality, emptiness, dragons, elves...  When we see that belief gives color to every stratum of our experience of reality, we can embrace others as kindred believers, regardless of the shades we tend to favor.

—Pamela Gayle White, “Real Belief”

Via Daily Dharma: Getting Our Effort "In Tune"

If effort isn’t balanced, the Buddha says, we’ll produce an untoward result, in the same way that a stringed instrument, if not tuned properly, will produce a dissonant sound.

—Peter Doobinin, “Skillful Effort”

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