Via thecalminside

“Express yourself completely, then keep quiet. Be like the forces of nature: when it blows, there is only wind; when it rains, there is only rain; when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.”

- Lao Tzu

Via Daily Dharma: Spring Cleaning for Your Mind

If I view [everyday chores] as tasks to rush through on the way to something more important, they become a crushing waste of time. But from the perspective of Buddhist teachings, each of these activities is a golden moment, an opportunity for full awakening.

—Anne Cushman, “Clearing Clutter”

Via Calm in Side

“If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn, let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything, give everything up.”

Lao Tzu

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Via Daily Dharma: Agree to Disagree

It is inevitable that there will be a wide range of beliefs, opinions, practices, and behaviors in this large and diverse world. It is not inevitable that people must hate one another on account of this.

—Andrew Olendzki, “Advice for Conflict”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 9, 2018

Within the spiritual journey you understand that suffering becomes something that has been given to you to show you where your mind is still stuck. It’s a vehicle to help you go to work. That’s why it’s called grace.

- Ram Dass -

Via / Daily Dharma: Focus on Giving, Not Getting

On the spiritual path, there’s nothing to get, and everything to get rid of. Obviously, the first thing to let go of is trying to “get” love, and instead to give it. That’s the secret of the spiritual path. One has to give oneself wholeheartedly.

—Ayya Khema, “What Love Is”

Via Tricycle / Unpacking Bodicitta

The sudden lightning glares and all is clearly shown,
Likewise rarely, through the Buddhas’ power,
Virtuous thoughts rise, brief and transient, in the world.

Virtue, thus, is weak; and always
Evil is of great and overwhelming strength.
Except for perfect bodhichitta,
What other virtue is there that can lay it low?

 

—The Way of the Bodhisattva

Via Daily Dharma: The Path of Understanding

Bodhicitta is the path of understanding who you are in the fathomless nature of infinite contingency, and then developing the skills to navigate this reality—your life—in a way that is awakening for both yourself and for others.

—Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel, “Nurturing the Intelligent Heart”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 6, 2018

When I meditate I sit quietly, I withdraw the awareness of my ears hearing, my eyes seeing. I don’t move around much. I sit quietly and I go deep inside. What happens when you grow old? You lose your hearing, you lose your sight, you can’t move around very much. What an ideal time for doing inner work.

Aging has its own beauty. It is a beautiful stage for doing inner work. You have a chance to not be so dependent on social approval. You can be a little more eccentric. You can be more alone. And you can examine loneliness and boredom instead of being afraid of them. There is such an art and a possibility of aging...

- Ram Dass - 

Via Daily Dharma: The Power of Simplicity

The principle of renunciation is not to encourage a state of lack, but to establish as complete a state of simplicity as possible. In that simplicity you can more clearly see those patterns of wanting, not wanting, fearing, hoping, as they take shape.

—Interview with Venerable Ajaan Amaro by Mary Talbot, “Just Another Thing in the Forest”

Via Daily Dharma: Embrace Uncertainty

We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased.

—Pema Chödrön, “The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being Human”

Via Daily Dharma: Buddhahood Is Within You

Some people think that one can become a buddha through meditation. This is wrong. The potential for Buddhahood is within your own nature.

—Master Sheng-Yen, “Being Natural”

Via Daily Dharma: Connecting to the Body

In body awareness meditation, we open to a reunion of body and mind by exploring the sensations of our thoughts and feelings.

—Ruth King, “Soothing the Hot Coals of Rage”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 2, 2018

Don’t get caught in righteousness; don’t get caught in helping somebody. It doesn’t mean don’t help them; just don’t get caught in it… If you really want to help somebody, instead of helping them for yourself, give up helping anybody. And then just be with them and see what happens. 

-  Ram Dass  -

Via Daily Dharma: Open to Your Feelings

When we open to our feelings as they arise, we create the causes and conditions of mental and physical health.

—Josh Korda, “Flowing Feelings”

Via JMG: Majorities In 44 States Now Back Same-Sex Marriage

Just in from PRRI Polling:

Recent dramatic shifts in support for same-sex marriage are also evident at the state level. Today, majorities in 44 states believe gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to legally marry, compared to only 30 states in 2014.

In only six states does the issue of same-sex marriage garner less than majority support: Alabama (41%), Mississippi (42%), Tennessee (46%), West Virginia (48%), Louisiana (48%), and North Carolina (49%). But notably, only one state, Alabama, has a majority of residents who oppose same-sex marriage.

Substantial regional disparities in views of same-sex marriage are evident. New England is generally more supportive of same-sex marriage than any other region in the U.S. Roughly eight in ten residents of Vermont (80%), Massachusetts (80%), and Rhode Island (78%) support the policy.

And nearly three-quarters of Americans living in Connecticut (73%), New Hampshire (73%), and Maine (71%) support it. A number of Southern states have only a slim majority expressing support for same-sex marriage, such as Kentucky (51%), Arkansas (52%), and Georgia (52%).

Read the original and more at JMG here

Via Daily Dharma: True Peace

Suffering comes to an end only when a person is so in touch with life that he or she is completely at peace, regardless of physical or emotional circumstances.

—Ken McLeod, “Bodhicitta Explained”

Via Daily Dharma: Uncontrollable Joy

We can’t control joy. It is something that bobs up when we are truly alive and meet the whole world in an instant.

—Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, “Simple Joy”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - April 29, 2018

It is important, as we get older, to learn how to grieve. Although this may sound self-evident, experience has taught me that it is not. In a culture that emphasizes stoicism and forward movement, in which time is deemed “of the essence,” and there is little toleration for slowness, inwardness, and melancholy, grieving – a healthy, necessary aspect of life – is too often overlooked.

Over the years, in working with people who are grieving, I’ve encouraged them first of all to surrender to the experience of their pain. To counteract our natural tendency to turn away from pain, we open to it as fully as possible and allow our hearts to break. We must take enough time to remember our losses – be they friends or loved ones passed away, the death of long-held hopes or dreams, the loss of homes, careers, or countries, or health we may never get back again. Rather than close ourselves to grief, it helps to realize that we only grieve for what we love. 

- Ram Dass -