Via Daily Dharma: Sangha Is the Soil

If you don’t have anyone who understands you, who encourages you in the practice of the living dharma, your desire to practice may wither. Your sangha—family, friends, and copractitioners—is the soil, and you are the seed.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Fertile Soil of Sangha”

Via Daily Dharma: The Many Paths to Openness

Each of us has the possibility of finding a way to experience our lives free of struggle. And one of the common features of all these different ways is a sense of extraordinary openness.

—Ken McLeod, “The Way of Freedom”

Via Daily Dharma: Small Efforts, Big Changes

Positive transformation is usually incremental. Small efforts, if concrete, will pile up and bring about big personal, and even social, change.

—Shinso Ito, “Unconditional Service”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - January 17, 2018

As you get more conscious, every act you perform increases the amount of consciousness in the universe, because the act itself conveys the consciousness. In other words, I could tell you the greatest truths of the world but if I don’t understand them inside myself, forget it - because I’m not giving you the key that allows you to use it, which is the “faith” in it, which I can only convey through my own success in whatever I’m doing.

- Ram Dass -

Via Lionsroar / Death: The Greatest Teacher

The Buddha said the greatest of all teachings is impermanence. Its final expression is death. Buddhist teacher Judy Lief explains why our awareness of death is the secret of life. It’s the ultimate twist.

Make the jump here to read the full article and more

Via Daily Dharma: The Art of Wakefulness

To me, that’s what art and poetry are: trying to be awake in a room of people who are committed to being awake, and who are being attentive without necessarily acting.

—Marie Howe, “The Space Between”

Via Daily Dharma: Practice with Gentle Persistence

Refinement of attention is only achieved through a gentle and persistent letting go; it is never attained by the brute force of sheer willpower.

—Ajahn Brahm, “Stepping Towards Enlightenment”

Via Tricycle / Having Real Conversations (Even with My Sister)

When a gay Buddhist woman is asked by her sister why same-sex marriage is such an important issue, she is shocked into silence. Years later, she realizes that the only way we might communicate what we most care about is to have tolerance for another’s ignorance or confusion.

Make the jump here to read the full article on Tricycle

Via Ram Dass / 9 of 20 Words of Wisdom - January 14, 2018

You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success— none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.

Imagine that being in this love is like relaxing endlessly into a warm bath that surrounds and supports your every movement, so that every thought and feeling is permeated by it. You feel as though you are dissolving into love. This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It’s like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything.

When you tune in to that flow, you will feel it in your own heart—not your physical heart or your emotional heart, but your spiritual heart, the place you point to in your chest when you say, “I am.”

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Interdependence and Civil Rights

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to deliver the same message as Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching of interbeing. He wanted us to understand interrelatedness.

—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr”

Via Daily Dharma: A Marriage of Doing and Being

Meditation, simply defined, is a way of being aware. It is the happy marriage of doing and being.

—Lama Surya Das, “The Heart-Essence of Buddhist Meditation”

Via 1 of 3,073 Daily Dharma: Desire Isn’t Always Bad

Passions and desires, like words and concepts, are not negative in and of themselves. It is only when we become obsessed by our ideas about what we think we are or should be that we become blind to the reality before us.

—Mark Unno, “The Original Buddhist Rebel”

Via Daily Dharma: You Can’t Force Your Heart Open

A wide and caring heart is not a “should” or an obligation but a longing that awakens naturally.

—Radhule Weininger, “Brief Teachings”

Via 3 of 13 Daily Dharma: The Seed of True Kindness

When we start to develop maitri for ourselves—unconditional acceptance of ourselves—then we’re really taking care of ourselves in a way that pays off. We feel more at home with our own bodies and minds and more at home in the world. As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.

—Pema Chödrön, “Unlimited Friendliness”

Via BBC / Inter-American Human Rights Court backs same-sex marriage

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that same-sex marriages should be recognised.

The court's rulings apply to countries which have signed the American Convention on Human Rights.

Some of the signatories already recognise same-sex marriages while others recognise same-sex civil unions.

But others, such as Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Paraguay and Peru do not recognise either and will be expected to change their laws.

The court was established by the regional body, the Organization of American States (OAS), and signatories to the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights are bound by its rulings.

---

Western hemisphere countries where same-sex marriage is legal:

Image copyright Reuters

• Argentina
• Brazil
• Canada
• Colombia
• Mexico (certain states only)
• US
• Uruguay

---

The ruling comes as a number of Latin American countries have changed or are debating changing their laws to allow same-sex couples to marry.

Most recently, outgoing Chilean President Michelle Bachelet sent a gay marriage bill to Congress for debate.

Other western hemisphere countries, such as Ecuador, have introduced same-sex civil unions.

'Without discrimination'

The judges said that governments "must recognise and guarantee all the rights that are derived from a family bond between people of the same sex".

They also said that it was inadmissible and discriminatory for a separate legal provision to be established just for same-sex marriages.

The judges demanded that governments "guarantee access to all existing forms of domestic legal systems, including the right to marriage, in order to ensure the protection of all the rights of families formed by same-sex couples without discrimination".

Recognising the difficulty in passing such laws in countries where there is strong opposition to same-sex marriage, they recommended that governments pass temporary decrees until new legislation was brought in.

The judges issued the ruling in response to a motion brought by Costa Rica.

The Central American government asked the court to give its opinion on whether it had an obligation to extend property rights to same-sex couples. The court ruled that it did.

The Costa Rican government also wanted to know whether it should allow transgender people to change their name on their identity documents. Again, the court ruled that it should.

Costa Rica's Vice-President Ana Helena Chacón welcomed the court's ruling, saying it would be adopted "in its totality".

Read the article and more here

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”