Via Daily Dharma: How to Benefit from Unavoidable Suffering

Suffering can be our greatest source of transformation. The dharma teachings show us how to use all the stuff of life—particularly those unavoidable experiences of pain, loss, and suffering—as fodder for awakening.

—Carolyn Gregoire, “Buddhist Thank-You Cards”

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Via Daily Dharma: The Dharma of Our Hearts

There’s a level where this dharma is just human dharma—it doesn’t have any special language. It’s just about our hearts—whether they’re suffering or not, and how they can bind or how they can open.

—Interview with Ayya Tathaaloka and Thubten Chodron, “The Whole of the Spiritual Life”

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Via Daily Dharma: Choosing the Present Moment

The present moment is not defined solely by letting go of past and future, nor by accepting and appreciating what arises right now, but by choosing in this very moment how we make sense of the world.

—Jack Petranker, “The Present Moment”

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Via Daily Dharma: Expressing Your Needs without Clinging

Expressing my needs, without making them into demands, can be as much a path to growth as letting them go. Needs aren’t the problem; it is rigidly clinging to a particular strategy to meet them that produces suffering.

—Katy Butler, “Say It Right”

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Aditya Hridayam Punyam Sarva Shatru Vinashanam

“Loosely translated, it means, ‘As for the being who keeps the sun in the heart, all evil vanishes for life.’ That is, when you remember the Atman, the Buddha, the place in your heart, the being, the inner guru, the light that comes from your own heart, then you no longer live with that which takes people from God, because all you see is God and that which brings you to it. When you do this mantra sometimes, you sit in front of the sun, and you let the sun come into your heart until the warmth in your heart becomes like a thousand suns and the light pours out from you.” 

– Ram Dass 

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Via Daily Dharma: Learning Buddhism

When we become fundamentally aware of the mind’s incessant need to reify experience into fixed categories that are convenient to the self, then we are learning Buddhism.

—Victor Hori, “Sweet and Sour Buddhism”

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Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 23, 2019 💌

"Open and stay centered. If you remain centered, your calm presence helps to free all those around you. Go inside yourself to that quiet place where you are wisdom. Wisdom has in it compassion. Compassion understands about life and death. The answer to dying is to be present in the moment."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Resting Comfortably with Emotions

Instead of either controlling or sequestering our feelings, we can learn to both contain and feel them fully. That containment allows us to feel vulnerable or hurt without immediately erupting into anger; it allows us to feel neediness without clinging to the other person. We acknowledge our dependency.

—Barry Magid, “No Gain”

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'Compassion, Truth and Adversity' with Ram Dass and Sharon Salzberg

There’s no doubt that we all have adversity, and these days it’s even more obvious in our very difficult world. In this new film, Compassion, Truth and Adversity, Ram Dass and Sharon Salzberg pinpoint the ways in which we can transform our adversity, by being honest with ourselves, and compassionate and truthful with others. This film and all other offerings on RamDass.org are only possible with the support of friends like you. Please consider a donation of any amount before, during or after the event, which will allow Ram Dass' Love Serve Foundation to continue to present more projects like this and to help him share these transformational teachings with current and future generations. 

Donate Here: http://goo.gl/d3a8JT

Via Ram Dass / Metta Meditation... from the Heart

First thing is to acknowledge what you’re feeling: “My heart is closed.”

I’ll tell you there are numerous practices for this, and you have to find one that’s comfortable for you. For example, I work a lot with my breath, and I breathe in and out of my heart, and when I’m breathing out in my heart, I allowed whatever love I can muster for anything to be offered to people, to beings around me, and when I’m breathing in, I’m taking the existence of the universe into myself, and I keep feeling this breath going back and forth, and the breathing out is, “May all beings be free of suffering, may all beings be peaceful, may all beings be happy,” and I say:

“Hard-hearted though I am, and closed hearted though I am, I am going to use my energies to the extent that my mind and my heart can do it for the benefit of others. I’m gonna wish them well.

 - Ram Dass

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Via Daily Dharma: An Interconnected Experience

Our experience is not primarily that of a separate consciousness trapped in its head; rather, when we look out at a sunset, we experience ourselves out-there, at the sunset.

—Matthew Abrahams, “A More Human Nature”

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Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 20, 2019 💌

"Wherever you are, be it at the beginning of the journey, well on your way, or resting comfortably at some height, you must acknowledge where you are. That is the key to further growth. You should keep some perspective about the entire journey, so that you will not sink into complacency – feeling you have finished the journey when you have not even begun to approach liberation."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Every Moment Is Significant

Life is mostly about mundane experiences. When you start thinking that only your most thrilling experiences are significant, you have already lost the most precious thing in life, the ability to fully immerse yourself in every experience.

—Brad Warner, “It’s the Journey, Not the Trip”

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Via This Day in Gay History : Divine

1945 -

DIVINE, American actor born (ne Glenn Milstead) (d. 1988); best known for his drag persona, Divine. In the 1970s, Milstead starred as Divine in a number of New York City theater pieces, including Tom Eyen’s classic camp women's prison drama, Women Behind Bars, which was a major off-Broadway hit in 1976, playing the lead role of the evil matron, Pauline. Divine returned to the stage in another Tom Eyen off-Broadway play, The Neon Woman, where he played the role of Flash Storm, the owner of a sleazy strip club plagued by a series of murders.

Eyen's play was loosely based on famed burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee's book, "The G-String Murders". He appeared with the Cockettes in San Francisco. After their New York bomb, the Cockettes came back to San Francisco and performed their final show in the summer of 1972, "Journey to the Center of Uranus." Divine, joined the group, in her San Francisco debut, performing her song "The Crab at the Center of Uranus" dressed as a lobster.

Milstead starred in a number of films and was part of the regular cast known as the Dreamlanders. The Dreamlanders appeared in many of John Waters' earlier works such as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Polyester, and Hairspray.

In 1985 Milstead appeared opposite Tab Hunter in their hit Lust in the Dust, repeating their successful pairing in Polyester. He is also remembered as a major character in the documentary homage Divine Trash by Steve Yeager, covering the life and work of John Waters.

In 1988, the British film The Fruit Machine, also known as Wonderland in the United States, used Milstead's songs in a nightclub disco dance sequence that showcased an early Robbie Coltrane in drag as "Annabelle", the club's owner (a cross between Divine and Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz).

Late in his career, Milstead also played in non-drag roles in his last three films: Trouble in Mind, Hairspray, and Out of the Dark. In Hairspray he played two roles, one male and one female (which he had first done in the earlier Female Trouble).

Here’s what Divine had to say about his “Edna Turnblad” (and honey...he ain’t no John Travolta!):

“For all those people who always thought I was nothing more than a drag queen, wait until they see what I agreed to look like in Hairspray! Drag queens are supposed to be hung up on glamooouur. Meanwhile, on my first day on location, I came out as Edna Turnblad--in my flip-flops and hideous housedress, with varicose veins drawn on my nubble-shaved legs and everything that is wrong with me accentuated, schlepping along in these pin curls and barely any makeup--and I walked right by the crew. Just kept going. Not one person on the set recognized me or even noticed me, because I looked like half the women in Baltimore. I had to go up to John and stand face-front for him to realize who I was. He was thrilled. I was crushed.”

Divine was the inspiration for the design of Ursula the Sea-Witch in the Disney classic The Little Mermaid.

Via Daily Dharma: Discovering Truth

Grief can lead us to a profound understanding that reaches beyond our individual loss. It opens us to the most essential truth of our lives: the truth of impermanence, the causes of suffering, and the illusion of separateness.

—Mark Matousek, “A Splinter of Love”

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Via Ram Dass

Maharajji said, “The best form in which to worship God is all forms.” Everyone you meet is Ram who has come to teach you something. Mantra is remembering that place in the heart – Ram, Ram, Ram. Say it, mouth it, think it, feel it in your heart. You are continually meeting and merging into perfection.

- Ram Dass

Via Daily Dharma: How to Hold Your Mind Open

Thoughts are endless, and they rush in to fill the yawning well of awareness. But one might learn to hold that space open, with practice. It may not stay empty—but one can choose what to let in.

—Jeff Greenwald, “The Great Indoors”

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Via Daily Dharma: What Questions about the Self Really Matter?

Puzzling over the metaphysics of the self, the Buddha said, pulls us away from what really matters, and from posing the question about ourselves that really matters: what can I do, right now, that will lead to lasting well-being and happiness?

—Mary Talbot, “Saving Vacchagotta”

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Via Utne / Entangled by the World

Photo by Getty Images/Aydinmutlu

“Wisdom seems to sprout from the most unusual places and in the most unexpected moments.” 

“If you want to find your way, you must become lost. Generously so.” I asked, “How does one become lost?” He replied, “Shall I turn you into a goat?” 

The fire hissed softly as another piece of coal collapsed into white ash, overcome by the steadying flames. Still African to my bones, and quite used to warmer climates, I was grateful for the heat the juvenile bonfire emitted. But even its heat was no match for the wintry sternness and eeriness of the ‘Wodge,’ Schumacher’s Forest School site in Northwoods, Dartington. Except for the amber glow that danced uneasily across the faces of the cohorts in the circle, the whole place was dark and silent, with only tall proud trees and the bits of sky that fell through their interconnecting branches that bore witness to this hushed ring of seekers.

Fire. Witnessing trees. A desperate chill. And a whiff of collective madness. These were the elements that ordained this mysterious circle of 17 persons.

Manish signalled to me that it was time, so I went first — not before telling the group that one of the edges we had to explore in the days ahead was disgust, and how the things we feel repulsed by hold clues about the kinds of social-material frameworks we already inhabit. I then sat on a log of wood, raised my head to meet Manish’s gaze, and held out my hands as one would do when making supplication to the gods above. For what I was about to receive in return for my prayerful gesture, the moment was thick with perverse irony. Clad in a camo winter jacket, awkward head gear, and a blanket-scarf, Manish stirred the contents of the white ceramic bowl with his fingers, scooped up a generous amount, and pressed it on my face — covering my forehead, my cheeks, my chin, and nose with the stuff. He asked the circle to make a clicking sound with their tongues as I — and others after me — received this blessing. This anointing of sorts. I closed my eyes as the cold grimy mixture kissed my skin. When he was done, he placed a huge lump of the stuff between my cupped palms.

It was cow shit. Glorious cow shit. Green, brown, wild, and overpoweringly alive. We had obtained a fresh bucketful a farm away, mixed it with neem leaves and the spirit of a bonfire. Now it was on my face, like bees on a jar of honey. I stood up and retook my place in the circle. An hour or so later, we were all covered in shit (except two students who opted out for personal reasons), our faces a mishmash of toothy grins and green grime. The jokes came easy (“This is some good shit!” “We are having a bit of a shit-uation here!”) and then we shared stories and wise sayings in the womb of the forest as the shit dried up and stiffened our faces, so that many of us could hardly talk. I looked around, taking in all the faces: given that we had advertised that session as a “cow dung ritual,” it was amazing to me that everyone showed up. I had expected the students to scoff at some of the other processes we had earmarked for the week — “Death Walk,” “Powerful Questions,” “Composting Ourselves,” “Shop of the Open Heart” — but that didn’t happen.

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