Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 8, 2020 💌

First rule: listen to your inner voice.
Second rule: be honest with yourself.
The predicament is that you listen to your inner voice, and it leads you to a path, and then you outgrow it. And you don't want to admit that you've outgrown it because you've made a big investment in it. But you must be willing to let go, to stand as naked as a newborn child, again and again, and again.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Take Destiny into Your Own Hands

The events and circumstances of our lives do not happen by accident; rather they are the result of certain causes and conditions. When we understand the conditions necessary for something to happen, we can begin to take destiny into our own hands.

—Joseph Goldstein, “The Evolution of Happiness”

Via White Crane Institute / Gay Wisdom: GLENN GREENWALD

Glenn Greenwald

1967 -

GLENN GREENWALD is an American lawyer, journalist and author born on this date. He was a columnist for Guardian US from August 2012 to October 2013. He was a columnist for Salon.com from 2007 to 2012, and an occasional contributor to The Guardian. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator.

At Salon he contributed as a columnist and blogger, focusing on political and legal topics. He has also contributed to other newspapers and political news magazines, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The American Conservative, The National Interest and In These Times. In 2014 he became, along with Laura Poitrasand and Jeremy Scahill, one of the founding editors of The Intercept.

Greenwald was named by Foreign  Policy Magazine as one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013" and The Advocate named him as one of the "50 Most Influential LGBT Persons in 2014".

Four of the five books he has written have been on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Greenwald is a frequent speaker on college campuses, including Harvard Law, Yale Law, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, UCLA School of Law and the University of Wisconsin. He frequently appears on various radio and television programs.

In June 2013 Greenwald became widely known after The Guardian published the first of a series of reports detailing United States and British global surveillance programs, based on classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden. The series on which Greenwald worked, along with others, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

His reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA) won numerous other awards around the world, including top investigative journalism prizes from the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting, the 2013 Online Journalism Awards, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting in Brazil for his articles in O Globo on NSA mass surveillance of Brazilians (becoming the first foreigner to win the award), the 2013 Libertad de Expresion Internacional award from Argentinian magazine  Perfil, and the 2013 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Greenwald lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the hometown of his partner, David Michael Miranda. Greenwald has said his residence in Brazil was the result of an American law, the Defense of Marriage Act, barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages, which prevented his partner from receiving a visa to reside in the United States with him.

Via Daily Dharma: Paying Attention Changes the World

Attention changes what kind of a thing comes into being for us: in that way it changes the world.

—Iain McGilchrist, “Examining Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: Paying Attention Changes the World

Attention changes what kind of a thing comes into being for us: in that way it changes the world.

—Iain McGilchrist, “Examining Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: What Makes an Enlightened Life?

If I had to summarize the entirety of an enlightened
person’s life in a few words,
it would be complete acceptance of what is.
As we accept what is, our minds are relaxed
and composed
while the world changes rapidly around us.

—Haemin Sunim, “The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down”

Via Daily Dharma: Interconnection All Around Us

When we just say, “I am,” and open our eyes around us, we intuitively see that others are also included in “I am.”

—Ruben L. F. Habito, “Be Still & Know”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 4, 2020 💌

There is a being on another plane that guides, protects, and helps you. That loves you so incredibly. Does your sense of unworthiness prevent you from being loved as much as this being loves you? Unworthiness has to go. You have to be able to say, "Christ, God, Baba, let me feel your love. Let me fill up with your love, let me be absorbed into your love."

Breathe in and out of your heart; with each in-breath, you take in that love a little more. With each out-breath, you get rid of that which keeps you from acknowledging that you are love.

- Ram Dass -

ANY DEM WILL DO! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Via LionsRoar / Steadfast in the Midst of Samsara

Self-Immolation,” 2012 by Tashi Norbu. www.tashinorbu.com

Shinshu Roberts examines the suffering inherent in the bodhisattva path, what Dogen referred to as being “the blue lotus in the flame.” From the Spring 2020 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly.

In 1243, Eihei Dogen, the thirteenth-century founder of Soto Zen in Japan, wrote in his evocative Kuge (“Flowers of Emptiness”) that “the time and place that the blue lotus flowers open and spread are in the midst of fire and in the time of fire” (Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross, Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo). Dogen lived in a time of political uncertainty, violent weather, and cultural change. Perhaps these difficulties inspired Dogen to take up the poetic image of a blue lotus—associated with practice–realization—blooming within the fire of samsara.

Make the jump here to read the full article and more

 

Via Daily Dharma: Making Space to Respond with Intention

If we cultivate awareness enough to step back a bit from simply reacting, we can insert a gap or a pause before being carried away. In that little gap there is the freedom to respond in a fresh way, less predetermined.

—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Don’t Be So Predictable”

Via Daily Dharma: Focus on Kindness

When our minds become convinced that we’ve been the recipients of a a tremendous amount of kindness in our lives, the wish to speak ill of others vanishes.

—Ven. Thubten Chodron, “The Truth About Gossip”

BR 9+ 0:02 / 4:22 Sergio Mendes feat. Black Eyed Peas - Mas Que Nada

Via Daily Dharma: How to Gain Wisdom

We attain wisdom not by creating ideals but by learning to see things clearly, as they are.

—Jack Kornfield, “Theravada Vipassana Practice”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 1, 2020 💌

The Living Spirit, the Beloved, is always right here. It is merely your mind that prevents you from acknowledging its existence. The minute you quiet your mind or open your heart so that it draws your mind along with it, only then do you rend the veil and see that the Beloved is right there.

- Ram Dass -

Via Be Here Now Network / Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 330 – Cultivating ‘We’ Consciousness with Deborah Eden Tull

 

Make the jump here

 

Zen meditation teacher Deborah Eden Tull drops by Mindrolling for a conversation around turning towards pain and suffering, processing fear, and cultivating ‘we’ consciousness.

Deborah Eden Tull, founder of Mindful Living Revolution, teaches the integration of compassionate awareness into every aspect of our lives. She is a Zen meditation and mindfulness teacher, public speaker, author, activist, and sustainability educator. Her latest book is called Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connections with Ourselves, Each Other, and the Planet. Learn more about her at deborahedentull.com. 

Psychic Numbing

Raghu welcomes Eden to the show and asks about her path to Zen Buddhism. They talk about how sensitivity can be a great strength, and how we can turn towards our pain and suffering rather than numb it out. In a world filled with psychic numbing, we all have a choice to stay present.

“It’s very true – how we treat ourselves and how we treat our world is the same. One’s personal practice has an impact that is transpersonal, interpersonal, societal, and global.” – Deborah Eden Tull

Addicted to Drama (25:33)

Raghu asks Eden about her experiences with Zen meditation, which he considers the most uncompromising form of meditation. Eden leads a short practice on processing fear, turning towards it with a gentle curiosity. Raghu talks about the boredom that can arise with practice, while for Eden it was an addiction to drama that kept coming up.

“The teaching really is to meet everything in our human experience with gentle curiosity and kindness.” – Deborah Eden Tull

Cultivating ‘We’ Consciousness (38:20)

Raghu reads from Eden’s book about making the shift from I to we. Eden discusses cultivating ‘we’ consciousness, especially in these difficult times. Raghu talks about moving away from self cherishing behaviors, and the practice of deep listening. After all, attention is the most subtle form of love.

“Being present is powerful in itself, but shared presence is wildly powerful. Shared presence is even bigger – dropping into spaciousness with another human being. Intimacy arises from spaciousness.” – Deborah Eden Tull

Ram Dass, Trudy Goodman, Jack Kornfield, and Duncan Trussell talk about the ‘movie of me’ on Mindrolling Ep. 269

Via White Crane Insitute / This Day in Gay History

Today's Gay Wisdom It’s February 29th, which means, it’s Leap Year, the odd day of the quadrennial year, and by that very token, this is a Gay day, a “queer” day, an “in between” place. In between places and times are traditionally connected to same-sex/Gay people who, in numerous cultures are considered to be “not-male, not female” i.e. a third (and possibly fourth) gender; in between the sexes. The crossroads is a widely understood example of this “sacred space” traditionally held by same-sex people. The middle ground. The bridge. All are traditionally Gay archetypes. Although the modern calendar counts a year as 365 days, a complete revolution around the sun takes approximately 365 days and 6 hours. Every four years, an extra twenty-four hours have accumulated, so one extra day is added to that calendar to keep the count coordinated with the sun's apparent position. There was a tradition that women may make a proposal of marriage to men only in leap years, further restricted in some cases to only February 29. There is a tradition that in 1288 the Scottish Parliament under Queen Margaret legislated that any woman could propose in Leap Year; few parliament records of that time exist, and none concern February 29. Another component of this tradition was that if the man rejects the proposal, he should soften the blow by providing a kiss, one pound currency, and a pair of gloves (some later sources say a silk gown). There were similar notions in France and Switzerland. A similar modern American tradition, Sadie Hawkins Day, honors "the homeliest gal in the hills" created by Al Capp in the cartoon strip Li'l Abner. In the famous story line, Sadie and every other woman in town were allowed on that day to pursue and catch the most eligible bachelors in Dogpatch. Although the comic strip placed Sadie Hawkins Day in November, today it has become almost synonymous with February 29. A person who was born on February 29 may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they may celebrate their birthday on February 28 or March 1.

Via Daily Dharma: Train Yourself Toward Compassion

With mindfulness, we see that the heart is the ground from which our speech grows. We learn to restrain our speech in moments of anger, hostility, or confusion, and over time, to train the heart to more frequently incline towards wholesome states such as love, kindness, and empathy.

—Beth Roth, “Right Speech Reconsidered”

Via Daily Dharma: Benefits of a Spacious Mind

The spacious mind has room for everything. It is like the space in a room, which is never harmed by what goes in and out of it.

—Ajahn Sumedho, “Noticing Space”