Via Daily Dharma: For Whom Do You Practice?

If we wish to live well in the world, not just amble along through life without any examination of our being, then we must engage in the effort to find meaning in our lives. In order to do this, we have to find a way to balance our own interiority with an empathic recognition of others.

—Eido Frances Carney, “The Way of Ryokan”

Via Daily Dharma: Let Yourself Be

Everything in nature has a physical body, yet a rock doesn’t call itself a rock or a flower call itself a flower. Only humans are stuck on how they should be. The healthiest way of being is to have no need to explain our being, but for it to manifest naturally.

—Shodo Harada Roshi, “Finding Our Essence of Mind”

Via 4 of 27 Daily Dharma: One Step at a Time

It is extremely difficult to accomplish an important task all at once, but even the hardest can be accomplished by undertaking it gradually, like the case of an ant and its nest.

—Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, “Brief Teachings”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 14, 2018

Demanding as that sounds, it is what, in the spiritual sense, we are all here for, and compassionate action gives us yet one more opportunity to live it. It is an opportunity to cooperate with the universe, to be part of what the Chinese call the great river of the Tao.

It is not a coincidence that Hanuman, who in the Hindu cosmology is called the “embodiment of selfless service,” is the son of the wind god. When we give ourselves into becoming fully who we are by doing fully what we do, we experience lightness, we are like kites in wind, we are on the side of the angels, we are entering lightly.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Love’s Embodiment

I couldn’t flourish as a human being as long as I saw myself as the passive recipient of love. (There’s an awful lot of waiting in that position, and then damage control when it doesn’t work out, and also numbness.) But I could certainly flourish as love’s embodiment.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Why We Are All Capable of Indestructible Love”

Via Daily Dharma: Courageous Restraint

To forbear is indeed an act of courage and not a symbol of cowardice. It takes great effort and resolution to endure pain and hardship. It requires tremendous confidence to bear insult and disgrace without a hint of retaliation or self-doubt.

—Master Hsing Yun, “Don’t Get Mad, Don’t Get Even”

Via Daily Dharma: Practice First, Ask Questions Later

Someone sitting for the first time can learn more about meditation in thirty real-time minutes than any experienced meditator can explain to them in that same amount of time.

—Barry Evans, “Meditation 101: Less is More”

Via Daily Dharma: On Love and Attention

People become more desirable when we are attentive to them. Their most lovable qualities reveal themselves to us only after we have begun to love them.

—Nicole Daedone, “Love Becomes Her”

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

  

One dies as one lives. What else can better prepare you to die than the way you live? The game is to be where you are – honestly, consciously, and as fully as you know how. Once you have awakened, you can’t fully go back to sleep. Regardless of what happens in the world, I’m still going to follow Maharaji’s instructions every day – to love everyone, serve everyone, and remember God – love, serve, remember. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Go Where the Suffering Is

If you’ve taken a vow to save all sentient beings, it’s time to go to where the suffering is.

—William Alexander, “With Your Hair on Fire”

Via Daily Dharma: Keep Tabs on What Distracts You

The power we have is our awareness, and you can develop it right now. Start paying attention to what sites you visit, how often you’re looking at your phone, how long you’re spending in front of a screen all day.

—Leo Babauta, “Dropping Distraction”

Via Daily Dharma: Mindlessness Only Postpones

Mindlessness, however petty, is reckless at its heart. It only postpones; it never takes us anywhere. Mindfulness, by contrast, is patient, careful.

—Joan Duncan Oliver, “Do I Mind?”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 4, 2018

We all love our own melodramas. We each have one. Everybody thinks they're somebody doing something, or somebody thinking something, or somebody wanting something: "I've gotta have sex tonight or I'll die." "I'm so lonely!" "I can't meditate!" "I'm so high!" We all get so involved in our melodramas, so busy thinking we're the actors, so busy thinking we're doing it all - and it's really all just this lawful stuff running off. How funny!

But in order to see that, in order to begin to appreciate the lawfulness of the unfolding, we need to develop a little perspective. It can be a nice meditation to take a seed, and put it in a bit of earth. Put it on a kitchen window sill, and watch it grow into a plant, into a flower. Just observe it everyday. Use that as your daily meditation exercise; see the way the whole process unfolds. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Our Heart’s Capacity

We use only five to ten percent of our heart’s capacity to love and feel kindness. Instead of boxing in our hearts we must try to slowly expand that box till we’re able to love all humanity.

—Nawang Khechog, “Elevated Music”

Via Daily Dharma: Awareness Meets Emotion

You don’t have to “do” anything; awareness simply meets emotions as they arise.

—Tsultrim Allione, “Feeding Your Demons”

Via Daily Dharma: Examining Our Judgment

Our Buddhist practice drives us to examine the self, but also to examine the self’s ideas about the other, and to admit that any problem we encounter is at least partly of our own making.

—Sallie Tisdale, “Beloved Community”

Via Daily Dharma: Karmic Opportunity

You are constantly creating new karma, and that gives you a golden opportunity. With your reaction to each experience, you create the karma that will color your future.

—Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche, “The Power of the Third Moment”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - January 31, 2018

We’ve lived our lives with negative images of ourselves, from childhood on, and we’ve built upon those images, and built upon them, and they became very heavy weights. These thoughts about us are a part of our ego, and they’re manifested through our roles of child or husband, wife, breadwinner, all of those roles. They’re built upon the thoughts of, “I’m not truthful” or “I’m not likable”, “I’m not good” – all of those negative images.

Once you identify with your soul you start to taste the love in your true self, in your spiritual heart and it’s different than all of the loves you’ve ever had. It’s just different; it’s unconditional love. 

- Ram Dass - 

Via Daily Dharma: Having Faith in Enlightenment

Awakening the enlightened mind may not be a question of self-improvement, which is never-ending; it may be a question of faith, which is always available right now.

—Hannah Tennant-Moore, “Buddhism’s Higher Power”