Via Daily Dharma: The Subtlety of Effort

There’s no switch that turns on enlightenment. You move toward it with your effort. It’s an effort that might be unrecognizable to those who think “effort” means trying hard. You have to try soft—to be curious and open to whatever it is that results.

—Nancy Thompson, “Being Held by the Dharma”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 2, 2018 🍁

Part of your curriculum with aging is to shift your game in order to honor the systems of which you're a part so that you finish your work on earth. In other words, you get free. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Middle Path

Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure than he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them.

—Matthieu Ricard, “A Way of Being”

Via Daily Dharma: Find the Middle Way

Without spiritual discipline we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.

—Joan Gattuso, “The Balancing Buddha”

Via Daily Dharma: Why Genuine Transformation Is Possible

No matter how high the mountains of the great dharma are, no matter how deep the sea of ignorance is, they will be as nothing before a boundless spirit of determination.

—Koun Yamada, “Great Faith, Great Doubt, Great Determination”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 28, 2018 🍁

Reflection will give you a chance to stand back in your soul, witness consciousness, look at your life, and see how much of the systems of which you're a part you are still attractive or aversive. Because ultimately the art form is to be, as Christ said, 'In the world, but not of the world.'

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Turning Dreams into Reality

Daydreaming is very seductive; when the thoughts “If I were… If I had… ” come up, they pull you in… When we ask the question “What is this?” it will bring us back to the moment. What is happening now? What is right here to enjoy and to appreciate?

—Martine Batchelor, “What Is This?”

Via Daily Dharma: A Step on the Path

The entire process of sitting down to eat, reflecting on food and its preparation, and then the eating of it should be a method—one among many—to take us further on the path to enlightenment.

—Venerable Yifa, “Thought for Food”

Via Daily Dharma: The Root of Forgiveness

The practice of forgiveness happens when we are able to realize the underlying cause of our anger and impatience, and this allows us to distinguish between someone’s unskillful behavior and essential goodness. Serenity and calm develop as we learn to accept imperfection in others and ourselves.

—Michele McDonald, “Finding Patience”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 25, 2018 🍁

The romantic quality of love which is between separate entities is a doorway into the deeper love ... a lot of people experience a quality they call love but they’re doing it with their mind, they’re not really opening their hearts fully, they are loving, meaning I am attracted to … or I am attached to… when we talk about love versus fear for example, we are talking about ‘being’ versus ‘fear’, or ‘unity’ versus ‘separateness’, would be the other way of saying it.

So I would say that when the fear dissipates you are feeling at home in the universe. Meaning your identity with your separateness isn’t overriding your feeling of connection with everything to the point that you’re feeling cut off and vulnerable - which is where the root of the fear is. So as you cultivate that unitive quality the fear dissipates, so the relation is one between love and fear, but it’s not the love in the sense of ‘I love you’, its the sense that we are together in the space of love.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Don’t Miss a Moment

In dharma practice, we both prepare for the long haul and remain open to immediate insight and change… The perspectives of both gradual and sudden transformation may remind us that, as the Buddha taught, every moment of mindfulness matters!

—Donald Rothberg, “Present Moment, Urgent Moment”

Via Daily Dharma: The Greatest Gift

Let’s find a way to share our gifts of spontaneous love and compassion moment by sacred moment, seeing all the while the Great Gift of interconnectedness and heart… Let us be reminded of that and rejoice in the light of the season and the many opportunities to heal the gap between us and others.

—Lama Surya Das, “Resacralizing the Holidays: Holy Day Mindfulness”

Via Daily Dharma: The Best Things Are Free

Life, it turns out, is unsatisfactory, as long as we allow our hopes and fears to be the authors of our expectations… Thankfully there’s a practice that helps us recognize the source of this disappointment and opens us to this richness. And it’s free.

—Alex Tzelnic, “Coming to Terms with the First Noble Truth (and My Shopping Addiction)”

Via Daily Dharma: The Free Flowing Mind

If the mind congeals in one place and remains with one thing, it is like frozen water and is unable to be used freely: ice that can wash neither hands nor feet. When the mind is melted and is used like water, extending throughout the body, it can be sent wherever one wants to send it.

—Takuan Soho, “The Right Mind and the Confused Mind”

Via Daily Dharma: Life, Face-forward

When we turn away from our distress, we inevitably abandon our loved ones as well as ourselves. But when we mindfully and compassionately incline toward whatever is arising within us, we can be truly present and alive for ourselves and others.

—Christopher K. Germer, “Getting Along”

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Makes Perfect

By engaging with exertion over and over again, the practice of mindfulness and loving-kindness becomes familiar territory for you, and is no longer a big deal. It is a part of you and not a project, but a way of life.

—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Practice the Five Strengths”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 18, 2018 🍁

In this culture, we are rewarded for knowing we know. It’s only when we come to the despair of seeing that the rational mind just isn’t going to be enough – it’s only when you see the assumptions you’ve been working with are not valid that there is the possibility of change. Albert Einstein said, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move towards higher levels.” And again, “Man must be able to develop a higher form of thought if he’s ever going to be able to use his energy with wisdom.”

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Finding Real Peace

Real peace is not simply the absence of violent conflict but a state of harmony: harmony between people; harmony between humanity and nature; and harmony within ourselves.

—Bhikkhu Bodhi, “Fostering Peace, Inside and Out”

Via Daily Dharma: Radical Acceptance

Something happens when we don’t resist, when we don’t hate ourselves for what we’re experiencing. Our hearts open, and we realize we’re not alone in our suffering. Even the suffering, we begin to see, is a vehicle for a larger sense of connection to all of life. Once we have that, we have faith.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Reclaiming Faith”