Via Daily Dharma: For the Love of the Spiritual Life

Grace provides the framework within which a meaningful life is lived. Love is the substance of it day to day. To live a spiritual life, then, is essentially to do things “for the love of it”—to do things without attachment to a result or reward.

—Dharmavidya David Brazier, “Let Grace In”

Via Daily Dharma: It All Boils Down to This

Understanding that we all want happiness and don’t want suffering is the basis for love, compassion, kindness.

—Jeffrey Hopkins, “Equality”

Via Daily Dharma: Trust Yourself

Until we have awakened to the perfection of our fundamental nature, we harbor traces of doubt—about our teacher, our practice, and ultimately ourselves…The more effectively we live up to the precepts, the more likely we are to trust and realize our true self.

—Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, “Don’t Just Sit There”

Via Ram Dass /Words of Wisdom - November 11, 2018 🍁

The dance goes from realizing that you're separate (which is the awakening) to then trying to find your way back into the totality of which you are not only a part, but which you are.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Priceless Peace

If we can let go of our various worries and cares, peace will arise in our hearts. This is why the Buddha taught us to center our hearts in concentration so as to give rise to stillness, peace, and the inner wealth with which we’ll be able to pay off all of our debts.

—Ajaan Lee, “Sowing the Seeds of Freedom”

Via Daily Dharma: 20/20 Dharma Vision

What we most frequently see when the mind is focused and clear are the habits of mind that create unnecessary suffering, habits fueled by greed and hatred and delusion…The practice of seeing clearly is what finally moves us toward kindness.

—Sylvia Boorstein, “The Wisdom of Discomfort”

Via Daily Dharma: Invincible Purity

As we listen more deeply to suffering, we begin to notice non-suffering. The heart realizes its innate courage, strength, and invincibility. This journey through pain and suffering burns away the impurities, and what is revealed is something pristine, clear, and beautiful, like a moonlit pearl: the tender, merciful heart, and its infinite ability to receive the cries of the world.

—Thanissara, “The Grit That Becomes a Pearl”

Via Daily Dharma: The Heart of Virtue

Mindful speech and the ability to really listen are at the heart of all relationships. And thoughtful, kind, and effective interactions are at the center of our ethical core, the foundation of any spiritual practice.

—Marshall Glickman, “Talk Like a Buddha”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 7, 2018 🍁

The truth is everywhere. Wherever you are, it’s right where you are, when you can see it. And you can see it through whatever vehicle you are working with, you can free yourself from certain attachments that keep you from seeing it. The scientist doesn’t stop being a scientist, nor anybody stop being anything. You find how to do the things to yourself which allow you to find truth where you are at the moment. I’d say we never find out anything new; we just remember it. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: A Rude Awakening

The pain of remorse can motivate a profound desire within us to live more awake and more genuinely. From the pain of deep humiliation—from seeing how we go against our true nature—real humility can awaken.

—Ezra Bayda, “The Sweet Pain of Remorse”

Via 20 of 50 Daily Dharma: Wake Up in This Moment

Every mindful moment in which generosity displaces greed, compassion takes the place of hatred, and insight dislodges delusion, is a moment in which we are awake. If we can manage one moment of wisdom, why not another?

—Andrew Olendzki, “A Tough But Not Impossible Act to Follow”

Via Daily Dharma: Unquenchable Effort

The most important thing is to keep working for the world we long for, even when the odds seem overwhelming. After all, isn’t this the essence of the bodhisattva’s vow that many of us have recited again and again? All beings are numberless, I vow to save them.

—Noelle Oxenhandler, “With Eyes in All Directions”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 4, 2018 🍁

You would not have taken birth on this particular plane of existence unless you had work to do in the areas of life and death, or rather security of your separateness, anxiety about it, lust, greed, power. Those are the prerequisites for your taking birth on this plane.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Letting Go to Gain it All

Whenever you see yourself identifying with anything stressful and inconstant, you remind yourself that it’s not-self: not worth clinging to, not worth calling yourself. This helps you let go of it. When you do this thoroughly enough, it can lead to awakening.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “There is no self.”

Via Daily Dharma: Pain’s Hidden Virtue

The gateway to compassion and lovingkindness is to be able to feel our own pain, and the pain of others. If we are able to open in this way, our hearts can melt, and the healing salve of compassion can anoint all our wounds.

—Lama Palden, “The Gateway to Compassion”

Via Daily Dharma: Divine Messengers

People who are awake see the manifestation of the dharma in everything. A pebble, a bamboo tree, the cry of a baby, anything can be the voice of the dharma calling. We should be able to practice like that.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Three Gems”

Via Daily Dharma: Natural Perfection

Not being aware of your own faults is the greatest fault. But if you are aware and make adjustments immediately, you can then be faultless at all times and everywhere.

—Master Sheng-Yen, “How to Be Faultless”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 31, 2018 🍁

In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Bring Everything onto the Path

Everything is an occasion for the dharma to unfold. It is a virtual truism that no circumstance is not apt, to the attentive mind, for spiritual growth, from abject poverty and tragedy to joy and surfeit.

—Neil Gordon, “Children and Dharma: An Introduction”