Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 19, 2018

There is a lovely story of a boy who goes to a Zen Master and asks, “Master, I know you have many students, but if I study harder than all the rest of them, how long will it take me to get enlightened?” The master said, “ten years.” The boy said, “well, if I work day and night and double my efforts, how long will it take?” The master said, “twenty years.” Now the boy talked of further achievement and the master said, “thirty years.” The boy replied, “why do you keep adding years?” And the master answered, “since you will have one eye on the goal, there will only be one eye left to have on the work. And it will slow you down immeasurably.”

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Growth Demands Wholehearted Effort

When you admit to yourself, “I must make this change to be more happy”—not because the Buddha said so, but because your heart recognized a deep truth—you must devote all your energy to making the change.

—Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Getting Started”

Via Daily Dharma: Say “Yes!”

Think of equanimity as the ability to quickly and deeply say “Yes!” to each new sensory arising.

—Shinzen Young, “The Power of Gone”

Via Prince Ea / The Simple Secret to Happiness

 

The Buddha was once asked a question by a very frantic disciple.
He asked…

“Buddha! Buddha! Just give me the secret, just please,
just give me the answer; how do I become enlightened?
I gotta go, I just need something quick! Please, can you just
give it to me right now?”

The Buddha replied, “No, no, no. It can’t be done.”

The disciple begged, “I gotta go, I gotta go! Please, please just
tell me. Just tell me, I gotta go, please!”

Then the Buddha said, “Ok, I will give you the secret. Here it is:
When you eat, eat. When you drink, drink.”

That was it. The most powerful practice you can do every day.

To be here now. To only focus on what you’re doing. 

When you walk, walk. When you’re with somebody, be with them.

Don’t be thinking about a million things, don’t be stressing about
the past or the future, just be with them. 

Just be here now.

Love, 

Prince Ea

Via Daily Dharma: Adopt a Sacred Outlook

When we discover the Buddha that we are, we realize that everything and everyone is Buddha... When we regard thoughts and emotions with humor and openness, that’s how we perceive the universe.

—Pema Chödrön, “Where is Buddha?”

Hamlet, Act III, Scene I [To be, or not to be] William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 15, 2018

The best preparation for dying is to be here now. Then when this moment is the moment of death, I will be here now, which is the optimum way to be when you’re dying. It’s quiet simple. It really is.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Enlightened Pause

In doing nothing, in simply stopping, we can live freely and true to ourselves and our liberation will contribute to the liberation of all beings.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “Simply Stop”

Via Daily Dharma: A Commitment to Freedom

Samaya is our commitment to awakening—to experiencing life directly, free from the projections of thought and feeling. It is also our commitment to use whatever we encounter in life to further that awakening.

—Ken McLeod, “How Samaya Works”

Via Daily Dharma: Body of Wisdom

Even as one’s mindfulness develops to incorporate and comprehend other key facets of human experience—feelings, the mind, and mental objects—the body remains the locus of self-realization.

—Atia Sattar, “Brown Body, White Sangha”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 12, 2018

To bring to our daily life a quality of awareness, an open-heartedness, a consciousness that understands the interrelationship of all things, means that you can begin to hear the way in which you can live on Earth in harmony with all things.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Intelligent Faith

Faith is vital, but the way in which one arrives at one’s faith is important. When faith arises as a result of analysis, it is much more stable, because that analysis will astutely detect and be able to resolve whatever doubts one might have.

—Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, “The Path of Faith and the Path of Reasoning”

Via Daily Dharma: Transform Adversity into Wisdom

Cultivating an awareness of the gifts of adversity can help us to not only weather the difficult storms of our lives but also come out wiser and more compassionate than ever before.

—Carolyn Gregoire, “Buddhist Thank-You Cards”

The Buddha And The Beggar - ชายขอทาน

Via Daily Dharma: Quenching the Fire of Anger

Like a forest fire, anger tends to burn up its own support. If we jump down into the middle of such a fire, we will have little chance of putting it out, but if we create a clearing around the edges, the fire can burn itself out. This is the role of meditation: creating a clearing around the margins of anger.

—Mark Epstein, “I’ve Been Meditating for Ten Years, and I’m Still Angry. What’s the Matter with Me?”

Via Daily Dharma: Compassion’s Rule of Thumb

As self-compassion grows, compassion for others naturally follows.

—David Rome, “Focusing”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 8, 2018

I am still a person with an ego and in form, in which there is a little bit of stuff in which I’m somebody. So I’m in training to become nobody. And this is my training field, right here. I have to sit day after day with hundreds and thousands of people looking up at me, like this, saying ‘Yes, oh yes, oh Ram Dass yes, oh yes, ah thank you, ah Ram Dass.’
That is my fire. It’s all those mind nets saying, ‘This is who you are, this is who you are, this is who you are, this is who you are.’ And if I get stuck in being the actor, in being somebody who’s doing good, watch it! Then my mind creates a reality in which everybody that comes into my mind field is somebody for whom good needs to be done…
We can play the roles, but let’s not get stuck in them. …it’s so seductive to get caught in roles.

- Ram Dass - 

Via Daily Dharma: Synergy in Presence

In the Buddhist path we are bringing together our actions, our view, and our practice. It is a balance of awareness, insight, and action, working harmoniously together.

—Judy Lief, “Is Meditation Enough?”

Via Daily Dharma: Step into Self-Forgiveness

It will come as no surprise that one of the most difficult people to forgive can be yourself. Yet with patience and gentle determination, it can be done.

—Allan Lokos, “Lighten Your Load”