Via Daily Dharma: The One Includes All

When we know that to take care of one life we have to take care of all life—and that life includes what we say, how we act, what we do, and what we honor—that is the beginning of the sacred embodiment that leads to true civilization.

—Interview with Paul Hawken by Clark Strand, “The Movement with No Name”

Via Daily Dharma: One Moment At A Time

Zen is really just a reminder to stay alive and be awake. We tend to daydream all the time, speculating and dwelling on the past. Zen practice is about appreciating your life in this moment.

—Zenkei Blanche Hartman, “Zen Practice Each Moment”

Via Daily Dharma: Our Final Destination

The lives of each of us, the Buddha was saying on his path, are a journey toward recognizing where we’ve been all along.

—Pico Iyer, “The Long Road to Sitting Still”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 19, 2019 💌

If you’re involved with relationship with parents or children, instead of saying I can’t do spiritual practices because I have children, you say my children are my spiritual practice. If you’re traveling a lot, your traveling becomes your yoga.
You start to use your life as your curriculum for coming to God. You use the things that are on your plate, that are presented to you. So that relationships, economics, psychodynamics—all of these become grist for the mill of awakening. They all are part of your curriculum.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Appreciating Others and Ourselves

We all need to see that happiness, joy, and bliss come from having an appreciation of other people’s work and at the same time being content with what we have and what we are.

—Phakchok Rinpoche, “Dealing With Your Jealous and Competitive Mind”

Via Daily Dharma: Ordinary Awakening

Each day, every one of us will undertake ordinary tasks such as brushing our teeth, washing dishes, getting dressed, and walking the dog. Can we bring a fresh and awake mind to these activities? This is the true challenge of beginner’s mind.

—Sensei Deirdre Eisho Peterson and Alex Tzelnic, “(Meta)Physical Education: A Bucking Brontosaurus”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 15, 2019 💌

The interesting question is, "How do you put yourself in a position so that you can allow ‘what is’ to be?" The enemy turns out to be the creation of mind, because when you are just in the moment, doing what you are doing, there is no fear. The fear is when you stand back to think about it. The fear is not in the actions. The fear is in the thought about the actions.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Pure Power of Mindfulness

The Buddha’s mindfulness has one purpose—the end of suffering. It encompasses all of life in order to purify the mind and bring wisdom, love, and equanimity to the center of our lives.

—Phillip Moffitt, “The Mindfulness of the Buddha”

Center for Global Nonkilling

https://nonkilling.org/center/

Via Daily Dharma: Embracing Our Mistakes

Turning toward our mistakes with forgiveness rather than judgment or blame contributes significantly toward feeling peace in our heart. It is like bringing a soothing balm to painful parts of ourselves that we have long rejected.

—Mark Coleman, “Why Are We So Hard On Ourselves?”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 12, 2019 💌

To live consciously you must have the courage to go inside yourself to find out who you really are, to understand that behind all of the masks of individual differences you are a being of beauty, of love, of awareness.

When Christ said, “The kingdom of heaven is within” he wasn’t just putting you on. When Buddha said, “Each person is the Buddha” he was saying the same thing. Until you can allow your own beauty, your own dignity, your own being, you cannot free another. So if I were giving people one instruction, I would say work on yourself. Have compassion for yourself. Allow yourself to be beautiful and all the rest will follow.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Breaking the Distraction Habit

One of the insidious things about the distraction habit is that we often don’t even realize it’s happening. It sneaks up on us, like old age, and before we know it we’re addicted and powerless. But we’re not really. The power we have is our awareness, and you can develop it right now.

—Leo Babauta, “Dropping Distraction”

Via Daily Dharma: Embrace the Mess

This is the gift of mothering as practice—a kind of inclusiveness that embraces chaos and grit and imperfection. It’s not based on control or keeping things tidy.

—Anne Cushman, “Mothering as Meditation Practice”

Via Daily Dharma: Finding Our Place

Right livelihood involves mindfulness of our place in the whole, and thus becomes the foundation for intelligent social activism and ecological responsibility.

—Krishnan Venkatesh, “Why Right Livelihood Isn’t Just About Your Day Job”

Via Daily Dharma: Everything As Practice

Failing to see everything as an opportunity for practice is a setup for frustration and disappointment, keeping us stuck where we are and limiting our possibilities for inner growth. The more we include in our practice, the more satisfying our life can be.

—Ezra Bayda, “Breaking Through”

Via Daily Dharma: Our Life’s Purpose

Life is not about discovering some hidden raison d’être but about creating one.

—Josh Korda, “Now What?”

Via Lion's Roar: Endless Moments of Insight by Mahasi Sayadaw

In this translated teaching, the late meditation master Mahasi Sayadaw
presents his step-by-step instructions for the practice of insight meditation. 

Seated Buddha. Courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery

Mahasi Sayadaw was one of the most learned and respected Burmese Buddhist monks of the last century, and his practice, writings, and teachings have had immense influence on Western practitioners of insight meditation.

For seven months in 1945, during the daily bombardment of the neighboring town of Shwebo, Mahasi Sayadaw wrote his great work, the Manual of Insight Meditation. In Theravada Buddhism, vipassana, or insight meditation, involves the ever-deepening intuitive understanding of the three universal characteristics of all experience: impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and an impersonal, evanescent quality (anatta). In his Manual of Insight Meditation, Mahasi Sayadaw expounds in detail the doctrinal and practical aspects of the development of insight meditation.

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Via LionsRoar: “Real but Not True”: How These Four Words Can Help With Strong Emotions

Sometimes we think irrational things while the truth is right in front of us. When that happens, says Jeremy Mohler, four simple words can help bring us back to earth.

 

 Make the jump here

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 8, 2019 💌

We take birth as humans, because we have karma which is our clingings of mind. As the Tao says, ‘the truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing.’ So that we don’t hear the truth fully, we only hear the projections of our own desires. So again and again we make decisions that end up not being in the deepest harmony with the way of things. The art of growth has to do with how quickly you admit error and start making decisions that are arising out of the fullness of the wisdom of things.

- Ram Dass -