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Via Words of Wisdom - September 1, 2019 💌 Inbox x

"Though we get love, it goes through us and then we need love all over again. It’s so deep in all of us that we’ve built a whole reality around it. We think that’s the way it is—that everybody needs love and that if you don’t get it you are deprived - the more of it the better.

In that sense it’s like an achievement. You see people who are achievers. The minute they achieve something it becomes irrelevant and their awareness turns to the next achievement. It’s because they are addicted to the practice, not to the goal."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Resolving Conflict with Mindfulness

When we resolve something with mindfulness, we can let it go and free ourselves from its power. The resolution of such a conflict leads us to contemplate what life is about.

—Ajahn Sumedho, “The Gift of Gratitude”

Via Lion's Roar / The Beauty of Imperfection

Wabi-Sabi For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers

An excerpt from Leonard Koren’s gem, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers, considered a class statement on this Japanese aesthetic.

Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The beauty of wabi-sabi is, in one respect, the condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace. make the jump here to read the full article and more

Via Daily Dharma: Discovering Silence in Sound

As we progress, we realize how constricted we are by our discriminating mind: our minds, not our hearing organs, make the distinction between sound and silence. But if you practice listening until you no longer make distinctions, you develop a power that is liberating.

—Dharma Master Hsin Tao, “Listening to Silence”

Via Daily Dharma: What’s at the Center of Pain?

We twist in the turbulence on the edges of pain; in the eye of the pain is the stillness.

—Joan E. Chapman, “Fields of Awareness”

Via Daily Dharma: What Does Mindfulness Achieve?

Be in harmony with each breath, each moment, and know that in giving yourself this time to develop awareness and a steadiness of attention you are nourishing spirit, head and heart.

—Elana Rosenbaum, “Guided Meditation: Awareness of Breathing”

Some thoughts on universal healthcare...

For those of you who do not have, or perhaps even know what universal healthcare looks like, let me share my experience. Just for the record, I am fine.

Monday as I was walking up the hill to Tai Chi class, a couple of heavy trucks came by spewing diesel smoke. Being the absent-minded professor, I realized that I had forgotten to do my inhaler (A voice said it’ll be fine, you can do it when you get back from the gym). 1/2 way thru Tai Chi, I said to myself,

“Self, we are NOT fine nor are we going to the gym after class, we are going to the University Health Clinic”

I ambled, back up Rua Alvarenga then down to HQ, with a big knot in my chest – asthma does that, but this time… hmmm.  I did my inhaler took a shower and had Milton make damn sure I didn’t fall into a lump on the road as we walked very slowly up the hill (again!) to the bus stop and then he made sure I went into the clinic on campus.

If you tell the nurse, you are having trouble breathing, they take you in quickly. (mental note) She did, and as luck would have it, my Dr, was there and took me in, listened to my breathing, my heart. As he was talking to me, and writing a perscription, the knot really got knotty, as it were. I told him, and immediately he decided to send me to UPA (Unidade de Pronto Atendimento) to get an EKG. I was so flummoxed, that I forgot to tell them I had UNIMED… but no problem. 
They called a university car, and a nurse went with me to UPA (by HQ), and got me settled in. The EKG got done, and then the Dr. decided I was probably fine, but a blood test was in order… so they checked me in. As the test they needed to do was a 3 blood test series, 6 hours apart… I was sentenced to 20 hrs.… of hard resting (the beds are like plywood).

Thank the gawd/ess I had my trusty iPad w/Kindle app and no wifi… so there I was… a tech cleasning, as I waited. I hunkered down and began reading. In a room (frozen… as the night went on, it became colder and colder, and by the time I was discharged at 2am, it was 6c). As I settled in, I realized there were just two of us, the other was a severely disturbed and confused schizophrenic and his elderly mother. Not ever having witnessed such, I decided to try and read and observe.

The poor guy had been having an episode for more than a day, his mother was exhausted, and he kept getting confused with the noises that occur in hospital, clinic, emergency places. He had a number of incidents, some loud, mostly confused, when he came over to a newly admitted guy in pain on another bed and began going thru his pockets, that was it. A nurse came and went, and a guard told him he had to settle down, then they realized he was a handful, so opened a separate room for him. As his mother was picking up, I asked if I could hug her, she came over and I hugged her, and she burst into tears and I gave her my love and blessings. Intense.

By then an other young guy came in and settled in on the other side of the guy who was in pain. Now there were three of us… I was ¼ of the way through my book. The guy next to me, soon was visited by family who let him have it, as I think he was weaseling for pain killers. The UPA folks checked him out and the family gave him an ultimatum to come with them… he wanted to stay… finally he left. The guy in far bed kept asking for morphine, finally about 10pm a nurse gave him a shot with a short lecture. The guy kept sneaking into the bathroom for a smoke, I finally had to ask him to keep the door closed… as I was there for asthma.

“Oh, sorry”. The universal reaction when smokers who seem to think its ok to share their cancerous inclinations with all of us, even in a hospital.

The poor schizophrenic left me alone the whole time, I was doing heavy METTA work by that time, but he kept making a scene, soon they discharged or sent him somewhere else. Containing a serverly disturbed guy with white light seemed to work... but I digress.

Somewhere in there, I begin musing about films I had seen – things like, oh... One Flies over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and various war and prison films, etc.… as time seemed to fly by me…

By this time it was past 11pm, and I'd had dinner and lunch (simple and on the house), and the morphine kid was taken to the hospital.  I turned out the lights and almost dosed off when on came the lights, and another really nice guy was shown a bed and given oxygen as his asthma was far worse than mine. Soon I turned off the lights, and finally dosed, and then it was time for my last bloodletting… dosed some more and then about 2am, the doctor came in and let me know that my test results were negative, my heart was fine, and I could either stay (oh hell no) or go.

Somewhere during this, a handsome nurse came by to say he was leaving for the night, and to ask if everything was OK. “I am fine, obrigado”, and then he asked me what I thought about UPA, how it compares to the USA. He knew a lot about USA health care, that it’s not free or universal. We had a nice chat… he apologized for the craziness, as that day was busy, with a number of cases brought in by the police.

Healthcare is universal and free here in Brasil and for everyone… UPA’s are everywhere, some very simple, and send you to the next more sophisticed one (like this one in my neighborhood), and if they can’t fix you up, if not, off you are sent to the Santa Casa (local hospital), like the poor bloke with the morphine need for his back pain. 

So what do I think?

1.     In contrast to the universal healthcare I had seen or experienced in Denmark or Greece, it seems at first glance a bit shoddy and threadbare, but in reality, the tech and treatment is every bit as good as in Europe or for pay at Kaiser in Sacramento. The building (and beds) could use some love, and will get it asap, as a new improved UPA is almost complete in between UFOP and the Santa Casa.

2.     The doctors and nurses are as great as great could be – I have so much respect for folks who work in these places, and then can just go home every night. How they dealt with any and all of us, was nothing but top notch.

3.     There are few things Brazilians are proud of, but the nurse, colleagues here at UFOP, and others I know ARE proud of UPA’s. They are universally spread out over Brasil, and give everyone, rich poor, confused (in my case) free quality care… viva!

I can’t complain, I am glad that the worst-case scenario, if something radically bad did occur for either of us, that we would get good care and be sent on our way.

So yes, its universal, and yes, we pay for it through our taxes, but its good, and everyone gets the care they need. You can in our case get private care to supplement it (if you remember to in my case). 
So USA, get with the program… no one I know here goes into bankruptcy when they get cancer. You might get bumped up (think triage) to the next place, or a doctor you want, may not be there for you the next day. Or as the guy I left to sleep, who was in for a far worse asthma attack than mine, and got oxygen, you might just need to get away from home, get some care and rest – Brazilians are used to a far higher noise ration than I am to sleep. But there you are – it works, and it works for everyone.

If the corruption and graft and political confusion hadn’t distracted this great country.... both public education and healthcare could be all that much better, no one is asking for anything special here, just respect and care. But alas, or as folks here say “pois é”.

Life is good, damn good! (and can be somewhat breath taking at times)

VIA FB: BODHIDHARMA

O Bodhidharma foi um monge budista que viveu durante o quinto ou sexto século e é creditado como o transmissor do Zen para a China. Bodhidharma era um Homem Preto de Tamil Nadu, um estado no sudeste da Índia, e nasceu como um Príncipe na dinastia Pallava. Bodhidharma deixou seu Reino depois de se tornar um monge budista e viajou pelo sudeste da Ásia até o sul da China, e posteriormente mudou-se para o norte. Os registros diferem na data de sua chegada. Bodhidharma é creditado por levar as artes marciais para a China. A Antologia do Salão Patriarcal identifica Bodhidharma como o vigésimo oitavo Patriarca do Budismo em uma linha ininterrupta que se estende até o próprio Buda.

Esta é uma estátua de porcelana da dinastia Ming no "Victoria and Albert Museum", em Londres.

Texto e fotos de Runoko Rashidi.
#PovoPreto #Espiritualidade #Spirituality #CienciaEspiritual #SpiritualScience #Buda #Budismo #Zen #Bodhidharma

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Via Daily Dharma: Making the Journey to Refuge

A spiritual practice can be an island, a place where opening to uncertainty and doubt can lead us to a refuge of truth.

—Joan Halifax, “The Lucky Dark”

Via Ram Dass: Words of Wisdom - August 28, 2019 💌

The first step of karma yoga is to get free of the attachments to your own life, to develop a witness. We have thousands of me’s and there is one me that watches all the other me’s, right? That’s the only game.
It’s not trying to change any of the me’s. It’s not the evaluator, and it’s not the judge, it’s not the super ego. It doesn’t care about anything. It just notes, ‘hmmm, there he is doing that.’ That witness, that place inside you, is your centering device. And that begins to be the work one does on oneself.
Once one understands that this place exists, the cultivation of non-attachment can begin.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Learning to Look at Our Anger

Anger limits us. But if we have the courage to look at our anger and its causes and to learn from it, we can develop an open heart—a heart of genuine compassion.

—Jules Shuzen Harris, “Uprooting the Seeds of Anger”

Via Compassion for Those Who Harm Us

The law of karma implies that we must assume our share of responsibility in what happens to us. This is easier in the case of happiness and when positive developments occur in our life. But in adversity, I find a source of deep wisdom. It has allowed me to become friends with what I would otherwise deem bad and therefore reject.

—Phakyab Rinpoche and Sofia Stril-Rever, “Gratitude for My Torturers”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 25, 2019 💌

Most means of gaining livelihood do not, in and of themselves, increase the illusion of separateness. However, the beings who do the work do it, because of their own level of involvement, in such a way as to increase the illusion.
When you are involved in such vocations, then it is your work on yourself which makes the particular vocation a vehicle for bringing man out of illusion and into yoga. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Fans of John Shelby Spong / FB:

 

My Christian life is thus a journey for which there is no literal roadmap. I am convinced that if I walk this journey deeply enough and faithfully enough, I will be led beyond all religious forms – beyond scripture, creeds, doctrine and dogma and into the wordless wonder of the true meaning of worship. The Christian Church exists, I believe, to point all of us beyond the boundaries of our own humanity. It is a pity that institutional religion in all its forms does not understand its own message!

~ ~ ~Bishop John Shelby Spong

Via Daily Dharma: Finding the Sacred in Simplicity

Our lives, just as they are, plain and simple, are filled with miracles. Nothing special, nothing holy; or rather, everything special, everything holy.

—Taylor Plimpton, “Expressing the Inexpressible”

Via Daily Dharma: Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Applying attention to smaller emotions—or simply focusing on form, sound, or physical sensations—develops your capacity to look at long-term, overwhelming emotional states.

—Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, “The Aim of Attention”