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

“If there is one thing that a person needs from another human being, it’s to be appreciated, to be listened to, to be heard. Just as you are, not as I would make you."

- Ram Dass

From our new free 4-week online course 'The Yoga of Relationships: Exploring Connection and Sexuality Through the Lens of the Soul" - beginning September 24th.

Claim your spot here.

Via Daily Dharma: Where We Belong

We can get dragged back into the past, which can lead to depression, or we can become anxious about the future, which can lead to fear. Conscious breathing returns us to the here and the now, where we really belong.

—Gary Gach, “Brief Teachings”

Via Daily Dharma: Trusting Your Creativity

When we trust our creative energy, we encounter a supreme kind of enjoyment—an amazement at the natural unfolding of life beyond our ordinary way of looking at things.

—Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “Free Expression”

Via Daily Dharma: Enlightened Transitions

All the transitions in life—dream, meditation, death, and rebirth, all the unending transitions in what we call existence and nonexistence—are each and every one a path of enlightenment.

—Douglas Penick, “Bidia Dandaron”

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

"If I’m going to die, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart. If I’m going to live, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart. "

- Ram Dass, from his newly released book with co-author Mirabai Bush 'Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying'

Order your copy here.

Via Daily Dharma: Supportive Awareness

Awareness is the basis, or what you might call the “support,” of the mind. It is steady and unchanging, like the pole to which the flag of ordinary consciousness is attached.

—Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, “The Aim of Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: Simple Insight

The depth of experience, insight, and realization that can come from the practice of self-reflection is not a result of intellectual analysis or complex theories. Our challenge is to just see reality as it is.

—Gregg Krech, “Naikan Therapy”

Via Daily Dharma: Lovingkindness Is the Answer

In situations of conflict, lovingkindness and compassion grow when we understand them to be the most beneficial motivation for responsive and effective action.

—Joseph Goldstein, “Triumph of the Heart”

Via Daily Dharma: Emerging into Serenity

How does one come to a confident and positive view that is not naive, given the state of the world? By walking through one’s own anger and despair and emerging into serenity.

—James Thornton, “Radical Confidence”

Via Daily Dharma: The Ultimate Gift

To donate money, to offer your time and skills, to give food or drink, and to share tears or laughter, are all valuable ways to express generosity towards others…[but] the ultimate gift of all is the gift of our presence.

—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: The Joy of Generosity”

Via Daily Dharma: The Dharma’s True Home

Liminality—in-between-ness—is the dharma’s dwelling place…The dharma’s true home is always in between, and that’s why it can set us free.

—Kurt Spellmeyer, “The Wisdom of Uncertainty”

Via Daily Dharma: The Joy of Work

Absorption in a task frees up psychic energy that would otherwise be constrained by the myriad concerns and perceptual habits of the quotidian ego. This brings a sense of enjoyment and a more vital relationship to the world.

—Andrew Cooper, “The Transcendent Imperative”

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

I think that the assignment for us is very clear in terms of the game on Earth. I think it is to be instruments that allow the whole process to move and change in a way that ends up celebrating life rather than ultimately destroying it. And it has to come out of non-attachment.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: An Inner Search to Truth

What we are looking for lies within us, and if we gave out time and energy to an interior search, we would come across it much faster, since that is the only place where it is to be found.

—Ayya Khema, “Thirsting for Enlightenment”

Via Daily Dharma: The Universe of Wonder

To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe—to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it—is a wonder beyond words.

—Joanna Macy and Sam Mowe, “The Work That Reconnects”

Via Daily Dharma: The Power of the Ordinary

As inner strength develops from the accumulation of mindfulness in the ordinary moments of life, equanimity follows.

—Gil Fronsdal and Sayadaw U Pandita, “A Perfect Balance”

Via Daily Dharma: Drop the Math and Just Be

To be in a real relationship, a loving relationship, is simply to be willing to respond and be there for the other person without always calculating what we are going to get out of it.

—Barry Magid, “No Gain”

Via Daily Dharma: A Brighter World

When we share our light with others, we do not diminish our own light. Rather, we increase the amount of light available to all... When out of gratitude we use our candle to light other people’s candles, the whole room gets brighter.

—Master Sheng Yen, “Rich Generosity”

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

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.

 - Ram Dass -