Ram Dass - Why Do We Practice?

Ram Dass discusses the intricate internal balance we have to constantly work on in terms of our aversion and attraction towards spiritual practices. Our life becomes a gentle process of constantly reinvesting ourselves into the spirit, and sometimes it does feel forced, sometimes it's frustrating, and sometimes it feels like we're going nowhere. But as Krishna Das says, every time we practice we are planting seeds, and it's not up to us to force them to grow, they sprout in their own time...

Today's Gay Wisdom / The Passionate Shepherd

1618 -

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

Christopher Marlowe 1599

Raleigh’s Reply

If all the world and love were young,

And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move

To live with thee and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,

When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;

And Philomel becometh dumb;

The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

To wayward winter reckoning yields:

A honey tongue, a heart of gall,

Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies

Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,—

In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,

Thy coral clasps and amber studs,

All these in me no means can move

To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last and love still breed,

Had joys no date nor age no need,

Then these delights my mind might move

To live with thee and be thy love.

Sir Walter Raleigh, 1599

Via Daily Dharma: The Moment You Create Your Karma

With your reaction to each experience, you create the karma that will color your future. It is up to you whether this new karma is positive or negative. You simply have to pay attention at the right moment.

—Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche, “The Power of the Third Moment”

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Via LATimes

Ram Dass on Being Love

Excerpt from an 8/2 webcast on Meditation and Mindfulness. Please click the following link for additional teachings on Love:

Via Ram Dass / Om Namah Shivaya

“One of Shiva’s consorts is Kali. She is that aspect of the mother that dances over death, and she consumes impurities into herself. Tonight, we are going to consecrate a fire to Kali and offer her our impurities. And we’re going to chant to Shiva. The whole process is one of incredible purification. It deepens, quiets, straightens all of our beings. It takes the emotional qualities of the devotion that we have touched here and turns it into the strength of steel. So that our love, which is Shiva’s love, is quiet, clear, and strong. So that we go into the marketplace with the strength of Shiva, and the tenderness of Krishna. That is what the balance is about.” 

– Ram Dass –

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 27, 2019 💌

"When you say, 'I am,' followed by any other words, you are already trying to stand somewhere. There’s nowhere to stand in this whole dance. You can’t stand somewhere when you say, 'I am good.' There is stuff in you that isn’t so good. You say, 'I am young,' yet get old. 'I am alive,' you will be dead. Every definition of yourself is a prison you put yourself in, seemingly to protect yourself. But it ends up creating anxiety and fear. Most of the behavior that our society performs is motivated by fear. And it is the fear of what is. "

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Trust Your Compassionate Intentions

When a compassionate intention arises, don’t evaluate it. Trust it. Just do it.

—Colin Beavan, “Intuitive Action”

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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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