Via Daily Dharma: A Recipe for Compassion

It is not sufficient merely to see that sentient beings are suffering. You must also develop a sense of closeness with them, a sense that they are dear. With that combination—seeing that people suffer and thinking of them as dear—you can develop compassion.

—Jeffrey Hopkins, “Everyone as a Friend”

Via Daily Dharma: Cultivating Insightful Curiosity

We need to be able to utilize the positive energy of wondering, of wanting to know the truth for ourselves and working to do that, and not get lost in cynicism or endless speculation.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Sitting on the Fence”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 12, 2018 🌟

The Living Spirit, the Beloved, is always right here. It is merely your mind that prevents you from acknowledging its existence. The minute you either quiet your mind or take your heart and open it out so that it draws your mind along with it, only then do you rend the veil and do you see that the Beloved is right there.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Right Time for Meditation

You should not limit your meditation to only in the morning or only in the evening: you should do it any time, all the time. Practice time is always now—it’s never in the future.

—Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, “Do Nothing”

Via Daily Dharma: Seeing Things Clearly

What’s the world? [It’s] any preoccupation that gets you stirred up, that disturbs you right now… If it arises in the mind, make yourself understand: The world is nothing but a preoccupation. Preoccupations obscure the mind so that it can’t see itself.

—Ajahn Chah, “The Last Gift”

Via Tmblr: Map of Homosexual Rights Worldwide

Via Daily Dharma: Effortless Ease

Perhaps the greatest irony of healing is that it occurs when we accept our felt experience, rather than rely on willpower or focused effort to get rid of the unwanted.

—Josh Korda, “A Safe Container for Fear”

Via Daily Dharma: Inside-Out Happiness

The Buddha taught that true happiness, or fulfillment, is independent of outer causes and conditions. So for Buddhists, the pursuit of happiness involves training in looking inward.

—Pamela Gayle White, “The Pursuit of Happiness”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 9, 2018 🌟

For a long time I thought truth had to mean only words, but it doesn't. There are truths that are only communicated in silence. And you have to figure out when to use words and when to use silence, because the absolute truth is silent.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: An Invitation to Kindness

Imagine for a moment that everything you are experiencing is your very, very best friend saying hello… Such a hello is much more than just a passing handshake or kiss on the cheek… The sights and sounds around us when fully acknowledged are quite an invitation indeed.

—Michael Carroll, “Gently Bowing”

Via Daily Dharma: Looking Deeply Into Life

Concentration will bring stability, stillness, and spaciousness; inquiry will bring alertness, vividness, brightness, and clarity. Combined, they will help you to develop creative awareness, an ability to bring a meditative mind to all aspects of your daily life.

—Martine Batchelor, “A Refuge Into Being”

Via Daily Dharma: The True Value of Waking Up

Every moment of heightened consciousness is precious beyond price, for awareness is the primary currency of the human condition.

—Lama Surya Das, “Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now”

The Bahá'í Faith is Homophobic

A few months ago I wrote this letter to the National Spiritual Assembly of Brasil:

A Assembléia Espiritual Nacional dos Bahá'ís do Brasil

Sede Nacional

SHIS QL 08 Conjunto 2
casa 15 - Lago Sul
CEP 71625-220 Brasília/DF

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

My name is Daniel Orey. I live in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais. Both my husband and I have been professors here at the Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto since 2011.

In 2009, when we were still living in Sacramento, California my voting rights were removed because of my marriage (08.08.08) to Milton, my non-Bahá’í Brazilian husband.  I later resigned from the Faith because I was hurt by feeling treated as a 2^nd class citizen by the Bahá´ís, and our deep disappointment with the Bahá’í Administration in regard to its inability to welcome and protect all people from prejudice.

 

I am still happily married and living with my husband here in Ouro Preto, in fact, this year we are celebrating our 20^th anniversary together, and our 10^th as a legally married couple. The Brazilian government has allowed me a permanent visa because of our marriage and I have applied for dual citizenship. The Consulate General of Brazil in San Francisco and the Federal Police have always been encouraging, inclusive and welcoming to us, I spoke about this in 2013 in a TEDx talk, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZNPNEgmUs

My husband and I are both tenured professors. Together we have spoken at numerous international congresses, and participate in research groups in Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, Nepal, Ohio and California. No one, but the Bahá’ís, seem to have a problem with our status as a legally married couple.

Recently, when discussing this dilemma with a gay Bahá’í, he informed me that now, there is more tolerance within the Bahá’í community for gays and lesbians. He said he was discussing this with other LGBTq Brazilian Bahá’ís and that there is no problem anymore with LGBTq Bahá’ís and that we would be welcome and will not face any prejudice.

I am somewhat surprised by this.

My point in writing is this, I am curious if the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Brasil is able to respect my marriage to my non-Bahá’í husband and therefore accept me and other LGBTq people in similar circumstances, that is as full members of the community. In so doing, would I be required to divorce my husband?

Thank you so very much for your time.

THEIR RESPONSE IS BELOW

 
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Via Daily Dharma: Reaping the Rewards

Whoever you are, if you have a true and sincere mind, if you are not careless in the least, if you do not go along with what worldly people do, but do the contrary, then you will be able to attain the benefit of Buddhism.

—Master Hsuan Hua, “After the Monastery”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 5, 2018 🍁

 

I would say that most of us stay locked in our separateness and we are very frightened of coming out of it, we feel very vulnerable. In truth you’re not vulnerable at all. Who you think you are is vulnerable. Who you are is not vulnerable. This is the truth of it.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Complete in Connectedness

Pervading all is a groundless awareness, delicate and strong at the same time. Everything becomes we, a beating heart with a transparent, radiant smile. And we are awake.

—Judith Simmer-Brown, “Insomnia”

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”