Via Daily Dharma: Why You Should Be Expectation-free

Whatever you might gain from your practice won’t be anything like what you imagine it will be. So just leave those ideas as they are. They’ll pass of their own accord if you let them.

—Brad Warner, “A Minty Fresh Mind”

Via Daily Dharma: Why Doubt Can Be Helpful

If seen for what it is, doubt can even be a positive force in practice. Provided we don’t get lost in the negative beliefs that arise with it, it can lead to a deepening of our quest.

—Ezra Bayda, “Breaking Through”

Via Daily Dharma: Drop the Old Stories

A powerful mental shift takes place when we stop telling ourselves why something can’t happen. When we can envision a hoped-for future, we strengthen our belief that it is possible.

—Joanna Macy, “Allegiance to Life”

Via Ram Dass: Words of Wisdom - September 27, 2017

When people say, “What should I do with my life?” the more interesting question is, “How do I cultivate the quietness of my being, where ‘what I should do with my life’ will become apparent?”

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. The journey is constant, between listening to the inner voice and making the choice to take an action. The minute you make a decision, if you feel it is disharmonious with some other plane of existence, you must go back inside again. The art form of continually emptying to hear freshly. Imagine being in a relationship where the two people are meeting each other anew all the time. Imagine how freeing it would be for you.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Developing Heartfelt Appreciation

By developing a more heartfelt appreciation of what we have, we also begin to see more clearly what’s missing in the lives of others.

—Andy Puddicombe, “10 Tips for Living More Mindfully”

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Via Lion’s Roar magazine: Why Buddhism is True

Buddha photo: © Liewluck / Dreamstime. Darwin photo: Paul D Stewart / Science Photo Library.

Darwin and the Buddha agree on the problem, says evolutionary psychologist Robert Wright. The Buddha solved it. From the November 2017 Lion’s Roar magazine.

Melvin McLeod: Your new book, Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment, is getting more mainstream attention than any other Buddhist-oriented book I can think of. Were you consciously trying to reach people who would normally turn their nose up at a book about Buddhism?

Robert Wright: I wanted to show people that the Buddhist diagnosis makes sense from a modern point of view. It is compatible in many ways with modern psychology and evolutionary psychology. It makes perfect sense in light of the modern understanding of the evolutionary process that created us.

There are many people who are resistant to Buddhism — perhaps because they think it’s unscientific. I hope my trying to place the practice, philosophy, and psychology of Buddhism in the context of modern science will help make it more credible in the eyes of people who are currently suspicious of it.

Tell us about your background as a Buddhist practitioner.

Since college I tried to meditate every once in a while, but I never had what I considered success. Finally, in 2003, I went to a one-week silent meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts. That kind of flipped the switch. By the end of the week I felt much more appreciative of beauty, much less judgemental, and much calmer. I did another retreat in 2009, and since then I have been pretty consistent in my mindfulness practice.

So what have you discovered that Buddhism is right about?

In 1994, I wrote a book about evolutionary psychology called The Moral Animal. That project convinced me that natural selection did not design us to be lastingly happy. It did not design us to always see the world clearly. In fact, evolutionary theory predicts that if certain illusions help genes get into the next generation, then those illusions — about the nature of the self, and about other people and other things — will be favored by natural selection.

In my study of evolutionary psychology, I came to appreciate three things about the human condition: that, by its nature, happiness tends to evaporate; that in many ways we don’t see ourselves or the world clearly; and that, by nature, we are not always morally good, even though we’re good at deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re moral people.

I see Buddhist practice as, in some sense, a rebellion against natural selection.

Buddhism claims that these three things are connected. It says the reason we suffer, the reason we’re not enduringly satisfied, is that we don’t see the world clearly. That’s also the reason we sometimes fall short of moral goodness and treat other human beings badly. I was naturally interested in this proposition, given my background in evolutionary psychology.

What I’m arguing in this book is that looking at Buddhism through the lenses of modern psychology — and evolutionary psychology specifically — tends to validate Buddhism’s claims. When we look at the subtle ways natural selection has built illusion into us, that tracks the two most fundamental Buddhist claims about our illusions, namely that we fail to see the truths of not-self and emptiness.

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Via Daily Dharma: Rule No. 1

Just do your best. This is the whole of practice, the whole of our life.

—Elihu Genmyo Smith, “Do Your Best”

Via Daily Dharma: Do What Feels Right

Find one thing that makes you feel good and put it into practice. It is through this kind of action that we learn to live in harmony.

—Nikkyo Niwano, “A Cheerful 'Good Morning'”

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"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always."

- Mahatma Gandhi

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - September 24, 2017

You and I are in a situation of very dramatic change, and the interesting question is how you respond to change, whether it’s in your own body, or it’s in the social structures you’re in. What happens when the family breaks down? What happens when the government isn’t functional? What happens? What happens when your IRA isn’t as good as it was? Feel the chills run through you.

It’s interesting to look at whether change is your friend or you enemy, and whether you can find a place in yourself from which you can see phenomena changing without being trapped in the fear that is generated by being identified with that which changes. That’s what the issue is.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: A Practice for When You're Suffering

You can reverse the normal habit of turning to each new arising and instead turn to each new passing. Micro-relief is constantly available.

—Shinzen Young, “The Power of Gone”

Via TEDX / Theo E.J. Wilson

Via Daily Dharma: The Journey through Grief

With awareness, the journey through grief becomes a path to wholeness. Grief can lead us to a profound understanding that reaches beyond our individual loss.

—Mark Matousek, “A Splinter of Love”

Via Jim Parsons Opens Up About Marriage And Why He Didn't Hurry Into It

Via Daily Dharma: Helpful Habits

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 Khyentse Rinpoche, “Tortoise Steps”

Via Daily Dharma: Defining Freedom

What is freedom? It is the moment-by-moment experience of not being run by one’s own reactive mechanisms.

—Ken McLeod, “Freedom and Choice”

Via Daily Dharma: The Fear in Love

The most wrenching fear that one experiences is the fear one feels for others. Love is like that. When one loves, one fears for the other.

—Dharmavidya David Brazier, “The Gift of Fear”

Via Ram Dass /

You and I are not only here in terms of the work we’re doing on ourselves. We are here in terms of the role we’re playing within the systems of which we are a part, if you look at the way change affects people that are unconscious.

Change generates fear, fear generates contractions, contraction generates prejudice, bigotry, and ultimately violence. You can watch the whole thing happen, and you can see it happen in society after society after society.

The antidote for that is a consciousness that does not respond to change with fear. That’s as close to the beginning of that sequence as I can get.

- Ram Dass -