Via Daily Dharma: Meditation Off the Cushion

When I put so much stock in formal meditation, I forget that it’s only one way of helping me see the magic that surrounds me and that is me.

—Barry Evans, “I Like It ...but Is It Meditation?”

Via Daily Dharma: Attention Reveals Connection

Paying attention provides the gift of noticing and the gift of connecting. It provides the gift of seeing a little bit of ourselves in others, and of realizing that we’re not so awfully alone.

—Sharon Salzberg, “A More Complete Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: Everyone Has a Purpose

Each of us has something to do in this lifetime; we have to find out what it is and do it.

—Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, “No Excuses”

Via Daily Dharma: Forgiving Yourself Be Done

One of the most difficult people to forgive can be yourself. Yet with patience and gentle determination, it can be done.

—Allan Lokos, “Lighten Your Load”

Via Daily Dharma: Resist the Mental Clock

Meditation teaches us to be wary of allowing ideas of time to interfere with our activity. Through experience, we discover how not to lose our self, but instead to be fully engaged in the “doing” of whatever it is we decided that we must do.

—Les Kaye, “The Time Is Now”

Via Daily Dharma: Let Go Strategically

The key is not to grasp, or swim against the tide, but to go along and allow the elements to balance. By skillfully and strategically letting go, I can safely reach the shore.

—Kim Larrabee, “Drowning on My Cushion”

Via Daily Dharma: Inner Simplicity

Our lives may be complicated on the outside, but we remain simple, easy, and open on the inside.

—Tsoknyi Rinpoche, “Allow for Space”

Via 3 of 7 Daily Dharma: Maintain Clarity by Being Present

Confusion proliferates when we can’t stay present with whatever we encounter.

—Elizabeth Mattis, “Open Stillness”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 4, 2017

If you want to be in a peaceful world, you damn well better be peaceful, because if you are full of anger you are not going to bring about much peace.

The qualities in yourself determine what qualities are in the world.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Uncover Your Limiting Beliefs

The moment you leave the circumstances you’ve grown accustomed to, you are in foreign territory, and it’s easier to realize how much narrow-mindedness you are carrying around, including all your opinions, judgments, habits, and so on.

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

Leonard Cohen - Leaving the Table

For more about Cohen’s life and his relationship to Zen Buddhism, read Pico Iyer’s “Leonard Cohen Burns, and We Burn With Him.”

Via Daily Dharma: Discipline Is Wedded to Joy

Without spiritual discipline we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.

—Joan Gattuso, “The Balancing Buddha”

Via Daily Dharma: The Heroes Within You

The superheroes we need don’t come from faraway planets or live in secret hideouts on remote islands. Our heroes must be summoned from within.

—Andrew Olendzki, “Guardians of the World”

Via Ram Dass: Words of Wisdom - October 1, 2017

What love has been for me has been the whole ‘heart’ part of my journey. I have gone from having special people that I loved and others that I hated to realizing that everybody I meet is the ‘beloved’ in drag. Everybody is ‘the one’ and my job is to see through the story line their mind is caught in, not to reject the story line, not to judge it, it’s not better or worse than my storyline. It’s about not getting caught in it, and being able to see what is behind it.

It’s behind the soul, and because we can’t talk about it, touch it, smell it, taste it, we tend to think it doesn’t exist, and yet here we are - that’s the beautiful perplexity of it all.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Why You Must Accept Who You Are

Understanding and accepting who you really are right now is as important as the commitment to become someone more open and generous.

—Dale S. Wright, “The Bodhisattva's Gift”

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 -