Via Ram Dass / 4 of 21 Words of Wisdom - January 10, 2018

I don't want people doing their practices because they ought to be good. I want you doing your practices like you go to the toilet. You don't go to the toilet because you're good, I mean, you know why you go to the toilet. That's the way spiritual practices should be done. It's a great advertisement for spiritual practice: Come spend the weekend with spiritual practices, it's like going the toilet!

-  Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Zig Zag Practice

Practice is never a straight line to a fixed goal. It is always a mixture of moments of confusion and moments of clarity, periods of discouragement and periods of aspiration, times of feeling like a failure and times of going deeper.

—Ezra Bayda, “Reflect, Without Thinking”

Via Daily Dharma: Finding Freedom Through Attitude

The attempt to look at your attitude—what you are feeling and thinking and the frame that holds it, and then your attitude to your attitude, is one of the routes to freedom.

—John Tarrant, “In the Wild Places”

Via Daily Dharma: Honesty’s Advantage

Being honest about our limitations protects us from becoming patronizing and self-satisfied. When we are more honest, we don’t have as much to prove.

—Judy Lief, “On Beginning at the Beginning”

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Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - January 7, 2018

The reason we are addicted to power is because of separateness—separate nations, separate states, separate religions, and separate people. When you are separate the whole universe is powerful, and you are so little…When you get into your soul, the whole world is made of love—trees are made of love; beings, in their souls, are made of love.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Sorting Out Love and Attachment

Attachment is the very opposite of love. Love says, “I want you to be happy.” Attachment says, “I want you to make me happy.”

—Tenzin Palmo, “No Excuses”

Via Daily Dharma: The Compassion We Give, The Compassion We Want

To be compassionate to those we do not have to be compassionate towards, and to those who expect little if any compassion—is this not the same contract we hope exists between us and some further, more powerful force?

—Rick Bass, “Animal Realm”

Via Daily Dharma: Jealousy Is a Warning

When I start feeling jealous of others, it’s a warning sign that I’ve become a little bit too entranced by some idea of myself and have lost touch with the reality of my life.

—Shozan Jack Haubner, “Middle Way Manager”

Via Daily Dharma: Letting Go of Perfection

A good fit is not the same as a perfect fit, if such a thing even exists. Rather, a good fit contains good imperfections, things that don’t fit, problems you can sink your teeth into.

—Andrew Cooper, “The Good Fit”

Via Daily Dharma: Right Action through Community

Connection with others loosens the bonds of self-concern and helps us find our best course of action in the world.

—Henry Shukman, “The Meeting”

Via Ram Dass / 7 of 25 Words of Wisdom - January 3, 2018

  You can get to the place of being loving awareness, but before you can love the universe or other people you have to be able to love yourself. That love throws you into the next plane, which I call the soul plane. It is spiritual, but it also deals with separation, because the soul wants to meld with the One. The One is love, light; the One is peace, compassion. The soul wants to meld with that.

-  Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Joyful Reflection

The process of setting intentions and joyfully reflecting on them is how, over time, we transform extrinsic into intrinsic motivations, and thereby sustain the energy and purpose to live true to our best aspirations.

—Thupten Jinpa, “Two Exercises for Turning Intention into Motivation”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 31, 2017

You can't push yourself into enlightenment... You can only wait for grace.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Wise Resolutions

The most comfortable and wisest people are those who watch their health when they are healthy; guard their country when it is untroubled; and cultivate their fields well when weeds are nonexistent or scarce.

—Venerable Chwasan, “The Grace in This World”

Via Daily Dharma: True Self-Refinement

Through the constant refining of the self—of teasing out what is not self and letting it go—we suffer less, get unburdened, feel lighter.

—Mary Talbot, “Saving Vacchagotta”

Via Daily Dharma: Accept Yourself

In accepting yourself, you’re simply agreeing to the fact that you are already accepted by the entire universe, just as you are.

—Ruben L. F. Habito, “Be Still & Know”

Via Daily Dharma: Our Fearsome Friend

If we understand fear as an evolved survival mechanism, we gain some perspective and perhaps some release from our identification with the feeling. We might even arrive at a place where we can bow down to fear, seeing it as a friend who is looking out for our very life.

—Wes Nisker, “It’s Only Natural”

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

For respect to come to you, you must respect yourself first. And for you to respect yourself first, you've got to make contact with that part in you that is worthy of respect. Not your will, but a deeper part of your being or discipline.

-  Ram Dass  -