Via Daily Dharma: Accepting Moments as They Are

Every moment of mindfulness renounces the reflexive, self-protecting response of the mind in favor of clear and balanced understanding. In the light of the wisdom that comes from balanced understanding, attachment to having things be other than what they are falls away.

—Sylvia Boorstein, “The First Teachings”

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Via Words of Wisdom - September 25, 2019 💌

"You and I are in training to be conscious and compassionate in the truest, deepest sense—not romantically compassionate, but deeply compassionate. To be able to be an instrument of equanimity, an instrument of joy, an instrument of presence, an instrument of love, an instrument of availability, and at the same moment, absolutely quiet."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Open to the Sacred

Despite our loyalty to our Western materialistic and scientific view, we may come to suspect that reality is actually multidimensional, that vestiges of other worlds sometimes accompany us, that a sacred embodied presence may be available to us if only we are open to it.

—Sandy Boucher, “Meeting the Friend She Always Knew”

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Via Daily Dharma: How to Appreciate Every Season

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

—Wumen Huikai, “The Best Season”

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Via Daily Dharma: The Gift of Every Breath

There was just no telling which breath would be my last. And so I breathed. And breathed again. And each breath was better than the one before because it was a gift, an unexpected bonus.

—Leath Tonino, “The Ground Under Our Feet”

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Via Words of Wisdom - September 22, 2019 💌

"I always have the same response - I will work on myself since the work on myself is going to be the highest thing I can do for it all. I understand that as man up-levels his own consciousness, he sees more creative solutions to the problems that he’s confronting."

- Ram Dass -

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Via Daily Dharma: How Can You Forget the Self?

One forgets the self by becoming one with the task at hand. Zazen, or seated meditation, is the quintessential form for this focused awareness, but it can be practiced anywhere and anytime.

—Andrew Cooper, “Spirit in Sport”

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Via Be Here Now Network...

In this special episode of the Heart Wisdom Podcast, Jack Kornfield honors the life and wisdom of his early Vipassana teacher, S.N. Goenka.

S.N. Goenka was a pioneer in making Vipassana meditation widely available to a secular audience. Over 170 meditation centers have been established around the globe in his honor. Goenka was an inspiration and teacher to thousands of students from around the world, including Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Ram Dass, Daniel Goleman, and many other western spiritual leaders. Discover the legacy of S.N. Goenka: vridhamma.org

make the jump here to listen

Via Gayety: Marriage Could Be Good for Your Health – Unless You’re Bisexual

Is marriage good for you?

A large number of studies show that married people enjoy better health than unmarried people, such as lower rates of depression and cardiovascular conditions, as well as longer lives.

However, these findings have been developed primarily based on data of heterosexual populations and different-sex marriages. Only more recently have a few studies looked into gay and lesbian populations and same-sex marriages to test if marriage is related to better health in these populations — and the evidence is mixed.

Our study, published online on Sept. 19, evaluates the advantages of marriage across heterosexual, bisexual, and gay or lesbian adults. We discovered that bisexual adults do not experience better health when married.

Make the jump here to read the rest of the article and more

Via Daily Dharma: Continuous Renewal

Buddhist psychology urges that we recognize that dying is a continuous process, going on all the time—a “perpetual succession of extremely short-lived events.” To recognize this authentically is to experience some form of enlightenment.

—Dean Rolston, “Memento Mori”

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Via Daily Dharma: The Purpose of Mindfulness

The purpose of nirvanic moments of mindfulness is to create an ethical space from which to see, think, speak, act, and work in ways that are not conditioned by reactivity.

—Stephen Batchelor, “A Buddhist Brexit”

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Via Ram Dass // Words of Wisdom - September 18, 2019 💌

There is great delight in tuning through a variety of different methods, and really looking to each method to move you in its own unique way, but also keep opening you. So be very generous in your opening to methods, because if you bring to them a pure heart and a yearning to be free, they will serve you in that way.
The way you get your karmuppance with method: You use them for power, you get power. Then you are stuck with the power. If you use them to reinforce your separateness, you get left in your separateness.

I do my spiritual practices because I do my spiritual practices. What will happen will happen. Whether I will be free and enlightened now or in ten thousand births is of no concern to me. What difference does it make? What else do I have to do? I cannot stop anyway, so it does not make any difference to me. But one concern is to watch that you do not get trapped in your expectations of a practice.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: How to Combat Burnout

Well-being, self-care, and self-love bring me joy, inner peace, hope, and happiness daily. This, I think, is the core of sustainability for activists and activism and is a foundation for transforming difficulties in work and in personal life and especially our own ego.

—Interview with Ouyporn Khuankaew by Caitlin Dwyer, “Toward a Thai Feminist Movement”

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Via Daily Dharma: The Outcomes of Wisdom

Wisdom does not alter the world; it lets the sage transcend the world.

—Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano, “The Phone Rings”

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Via Daily Dharma: Acknowledging Our Blindspots Inbox x

The capacity to recognize and accept where we are and to investigate what must be changed to minimize the harm that our own views and blindspots cause others is essential to the work of racial justice. And the capacity to do all of this with as little attachment and identification to the outcome is essential to true liberation.

—Rhonda Magee, “Making the Invisible Visible”

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Via Words of Wisdom - September 15, 2019 💌 Inbox x

"...For every teacher, every life experience, everything we notice in the universe is but a reflection of our attachments. That is just the way it works."

- Ram Dass  -

Via Daily Dharma: Dissolve Insecurity by Releasing Your Ego

We often think that insecurity comes from a weak ego, but in my experience it is the result of an inflexible ego that has mistaken itself as the center of the universe, which keeps contradicting it on this key point.

—Shozan Jack Haubner, “Middle Way Manager”

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Via Daily Dharma: Practicing to Benefit All Beings

As we cultivate the ability to see clearly, to understand one another, all beings benefit in ways we comprehend and ways that are still beyond our grasp.

—Nina Wise, “The Psychedelic Journey to the Zafu”

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