Via Ram Dass \ Words of Wisdom - April 1, 2018

When you learn to honor everybody you meet as your teacher, you'll see that there is nothing else you can do but be conscious, for the good of yourself and your fellow men and women. You begin to see that everything in your universe becomes your teacher - so your teacher is everywhere. You don’t have to rush to India because it’s always right where you are.

There are beings who can get as high as any enlightened being ever got, sitting in the middle of Topeka, Kansas or in the middle of New York, or in the middle of anywhere. It depends on your readiness, and that has to do with your karma or your readiness to get on with it.

Ram Dass

Via Daily Dharma: Love Sees Clearly

Boundless love, in contrast to clinging and attachment, is the wish for everyone everywhere to have happiness and its causes. It banishes hatred. Love sees everything without distortion.

—Anne C. Klein, “The Four Immeasurables”

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Via Daily Dharma: Integrate Meditation into Every Moment

No matter what we encounter, whether it is possible for us to practice formally or not, we can still put ourselves in touch with that sense of simplicity and attentiveness, the basic presence that formal meditation cultivates—and project that out.

—Judy Lief, “On the Contagious Power of Presence”

Via Daily Dharma: Be Consistent, Not Insistent

To keep your practice consistent, remember what the famous Nike ad says: “Just do it.” Don’t concern yourself with trying to get to some particular place or state of mind. Each day’s zazen will be a little different, just like the rest of life.

—Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, “An Introduction to Zen”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - March 28, 2018

Compassionate action is a path on which we grow in awareness and insight. As we grow, we become purer instruments for change. We become hollow reeds for the healing music of life. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: You Must Walk the Path Yourself

It is essential at the beginning of practice to acknowledge that the path is personal and intimate. It is no good to examine it from a distance as if it were someone else’s. You must walk it for yourself.

—Robert Aitken, “The Teacher in Everything”

Via Daily Dharma: Do Not Avoid, Do Not Desire

In birth there is nothing but birth and in death there is nothing but death. Accordingly, when birth comes, face and actualize birth, and when death comes, face and actualize death. Do not avoid them or desire them.

—Eihei Dogen Zenji, “Birth and Death”

Via Daily Dharma: Dharma Works. Do You?

If you are willing to do whatever it takes to find your way out of suffering—and it means confronting the roots of resistance and craving right here, right now—you can reach complete success.

—Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Getting Started”

Via Daily Dharma: What Sound Meditation Can Teach Us

Sounds, like everything else, arise and pass away. Just by listening, you can experience the insight of impermanence.

—Sylvia Boorstein, “Sound Meditation”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - March 25, 2018

You and I are in training to be conscious, to be conscious and compassionate in the truest, deepest sense—not romantically compassionate, but deeply compassionate. To be able to be an instrument of equanimity, an instrument of joy, an instrument of presence, an instrument of love, an instrument of availability, and at the same moment, absolutely quiet.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Creating New Habits

Sitting practices that focus on relaxing the underlying tensions and holdings you feel in your body, as well as restrictions to the breath, help you mitigate the legacy and habit patterns of reacting, clinging, and aversion.

—Will Johnson, “Full Body, Empty Mind”

Via Daily Dharma: Compassion Starts Close to Home

Thinking of yourself first, when your goal is to help others, might seem counterintuitive, but in fact it is the only way it can work.

—Cyndi Lee, “May I Be Happy”

Via Daily Dharma: Stick with It

This is why we practice meditation—so that we can treat ourselves more compassionately; improve our relationships with friends, family, and community; live lives of greater connection; and, even in the face of challenges, stay in touch with what we really care about so we can act in ways that are consistent with our values.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Sticking with It”

Via Daily Dharma: Know Your Mind, Live Your Life

If you want to be happy, you have to check the way you lead your life. Your mind is your religion.

—Lama Thupten Yeshe, “Your Mind Is Your Religion”

Via Ram Dass

The final awakening is the embracing of the darkness into the light. That means embracing our humanity as well as our divinity. What we go from is being born into our humanity, sleepwalking for a long time, until we awaken and start to taste our divinity and then want to finally get free.

We see as long as we grab at our divinity and push away our humanity we aren’t free. If you want to be free, you can’t push away anything. You have to embrace it all. It’s all God.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: What’s at the Root of Happiness?

It takes some training to equate complete letting go with comfort. But in fact, “nothing to hold on to” is the root of happiness. There’s a sense of freedom when we accept that we’re not in control.

—Pema Chödrön, “The In-between State”

Via Daily Dharma: A Practitioner’s Basic Question

The basic problem is one of self-knowledge: do we really understand what motivates us?

—David Loy, “The Nonduality of Good and Evil”

Via Daily Dharma: We All Need External Support

Before meditating, we pay homage to what’s traditionally known as the three jewels [the Buddha, dharma, and sangha], which buttress our practice . . . We aren’t meant to go at it alone.

—Elizabeth Zach, “Health Care for All Beings”