Via Daily Dharma: How to Stop Suffering

Buddhism presents rigorous means of investigating the causes of suffering and happiness. It is intent not only on counteracting suffering once it has arisen, but also on identifying and counteracting the causes of suffering before it arises.

—B. Alan Wallace, “Overlapping Worlds”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 21, 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: Becoming Honest about Who We Are

Meditation is a patient process of knowing that gradually over time, habits are dissolving. We don’t actually get rid of anything. We are just steadfast with ourselves, developing clearer awareness and becoming honest about who we are and what we do.

—Pema Chödrön, “Making Friends with Oneself”

Via Daily Dharma: The Fleeting Nature of Sensation

Whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, gross or subtle, every sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away, arises and passes away.

—S. N. Goenka, “Finding Sense in Sensation”

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Via Daily Dharma: Take a Second for Gratitude

Every morning, I say, “I vow to be grateful for the precious opportunity of human birth.” And I don’t let myself use the excuse that I don’t have time. It doesn’t take much time to be grateful.

—Susan Moon, “Stop Shopping”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 18, 2019

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 allows 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: How Nature Grounds Us

When you are lost or caught up in an emotional storm or contracted in self-centeredness or plagued by obsessive thoughts, notice what happens when you step outside or go for a walk and pay attention to the sky, the air, the light, the movement of wind, the feel of grass under your feet.

—Mark Coleman, “A Breath of Fresh Air”

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Via FB: New Gay Agenda

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Various Buddha pics

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Via Daily Dharma: The Magic of Opening Up

When we can open to all parts of ourselves and to others in the world, something quite extraordinary happens. We begin to connect with one another.

—Joseph Goldstein, “Heart Touching Heart”

Via Daily Dharma: How Can the Buddha Inspire Us?

The Buddha vowed to discover the end of suffering, and by his own efforts achieved enlightenment. He then spent the rest of his life sharing his realizations with others. We can draw inspiration from this person, a human being like ourselves.

—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: Taking Refuge (On the Wings of Angels)”

Via Daily Dharma: Dusting off the Glass

This is what our Zen practice is about—being honest about our prejudices, taking note of our internal stickiness, confronting our conditioning, and uncovering an original and basic goodness that, when dusted off, enables us to actually see ourselves in another.

—Cassandra Moore, “Dinner at Pete’s”

Via LionsRoar / The Life-Changing Words of Mary Oliver

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
this grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

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