Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - June 14, 2020 💌

Grace helps an individual see their own suffering and then use it to their advantage. It is not something that can be a rationalization for allowing another human being to suffer. And you have to listen to the level at which another person is suffering. When somebody is hungry, you give them food. As my guru said, "God comes to the hungry person in the form of food." You give them food and then when they’ve had their belly filled then they may be interested in questions about God.

Even though you know from, say, Buddhist training, or whatever spiritual training you have had, that the root cause of suffering is ignorance, to give somebody a Dharma lecture when they are hungry is just an inappropriate methodology in terms of ending suffering...

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Taking Spiritual Risks

In the spiritual life, one has always got to take risks and experiment. The way is never smooth, easy, or clear cut. One has to learn from it all.

—John Snelling,“Beware the Charismatic Guru”

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O Movimento LGBT e a Esquerda com James N. Green

Via Tmblr / THE TRUE ASPECT OF ALL PHENOMENA

— THE TRUE ASPECT OF ALL PHENOMENA — (pt.7)

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The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin

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But now you must build your reputation on the Lotus Sutra and give yourself up to it. At the Ceremony in the Air, when the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions gathered together, the two Buddhas, SHAKYAMUNI AND MANY TREASURES, NODDED IN AGREEMENT. WHAT THEY DECIDED ON WAS NOTHING OTHER THAN THE PERPETUATION OF THE LAW THROUGHOUT THE LATTER DAY.

Many Treasures Buddha had offered Shakyamuni Buddha a place beside him, and when they unfurled the banner of Myoho-renge-kyo, the two leaders of the entire multitude made their decision together. Could there have  been anything false in their decision? THEIR ULTIMATE PURPOSE IN MEETING WAS TO PROVIDE A WAY FOR ALL OF US LIVING BEINGS TO ATTAIN BUDDHAHOOD.

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Although I was not at that ceremony,  on looking at the sutra, this is crystal-clear. On the other hand, I may have been at the ceremony, but since I am a common mortal, it is beyond my power to know the past. There is no doubt, however, that in my present life I am the votary of the Lotus Sutra, and that in the future I will therefore reach the seat of enlightenment without fail. Judging the past from this point of view, I must have been at the Ceremony in the Air. There can be no discontinuity between the three existences of past, present, and future.

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Because I view things this way, I feel immeasurable delight even though I am now an exile. Joy as well as sorrow moves us to tears. Tears express our feelings for both blessings and misfortune. The one thousand arhats shed tears in memory of the Buddha, and in tears Bodhisattva Manjushri chanted Myoho-renge-kyo.

From among those one thousand arhats, the Venerable Ananda replied in tears, “This is what I heard.”

The tears of all the others fell, wetting their inkstones, and they wrote Myoho-renge-kyo, followed by “This is what I heard.” I, Nichiren, now feel exactly as they did.

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Via Tricycle // Racial Justice Is Everyone’s Work

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We can all do better. To help us get started, these six thoughtful pieces from leading Buddhist teachers and practitioners of color offer insight, clarity, and guidance on engaging with racial injustice.   make the jump here to read the full article and more

Via Daily Dharma: Calming Our Suffering

In meditation we learn to cultivate and stretch the moments of being unencumbered, those places of non-suffering. We can experience the state of non-suffering with each breath, moment by moment, breathing in and breathing out.

—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel,“The Terror Within”

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Via NYT // Your 2020 Virtual Pride Guide

Your 2020 Virtual Pride Guide

L.G.B.T.Q. Pride events will look and feel very different this year, but many are still on — online. Here are some of the most notable, with details on when and how to tune in.

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Via Tashi Choling Center for Buddhist Studies // Prayer for the People and Nations of the Earth

Via Daily Dharma: Heighten Your Sense of Connection

The word [sangha] can be extended to encompass all sentient beings—and even all inhabitants of a unified ecosystem... This inspiring vision brings with it a heightened sense of connection, a greater appreciation of mutual interdependence, and a shared responsibility for all beings to respect and care for one another.

—Andrew Olendzki,“What’s in a Word? Sangha”

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Via Ticycle // 5 Questions That Help Us Wake Up

5 Questions That Help Us Wake Up

Trying to push away our emotional distress can throw us into “cognitive shock” that turns our mind into a muddle. Ezra Bayda shares five simple questions to help us cut though confusion.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - June 10, 2020 💌

Find something that needs help, and help it, then you work on yourself to make it a conscious act. As Gandhi said, "The act that you do may seem very insignificant but it is important that you do it."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Mindfully Witnessing the Suffering of Others

Willingness to patiently accompany another in their time of suffering with care and awareness—while realizing it is not one’s own, despite feeling empathic distress—may be the necessary means for discovering how we can best help that person.

—Fleet Maull, “From Empathy to Compassion”

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Via Daily Dharma: Generate Lovingkindness

By nature [the heart] contains both love and hate. It contains ill will, rejection, resentment, and fear, and also love. But unless we diminish the hate and enlarge the love by doing something about it in our daily life, we have no chance of experiencing that peaceful feeling that lovingkindness generates.

—Ayya Khema, “Love Is a Skill”

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Adittapariyaya Sutta: The Fire Sermon

Adittapariyaya Sutta

The Fire Sermon

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying at Varanasi in Gaya, at Gaya Head, with 1,000 monks. There he addressed the monks:

'Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Visual consciousness is aflame. Visual contact is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on visual contact, experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I say, with birth, ageing death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, grief’s despairs.

'The ear is aflame. Sounds are aflame...
'The nose is aflame. Odors are aflame...
'The tongue is aflame. Flavors are aflame...
'The body is aflame. Tactile sensations are aflame...

'The intellect is aflame. Ideas are aflame. Mental consciousness is aflame. Mental contact is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on mental contact, experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I say, with birth, ageing, & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, grief's & despairs.

'Seeing thus, the instructed Noble disciple grows disenchanted with the eye, disenchanted with forms, disenchanted with visual consciousness, disenchanted with visual contact. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on visual contact, experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain: He grows disenchanted with that too.

'He grows disenchanted with the ear...
'He grows disenchanted with the nose...
'He grows disenchanted with the tongue...
'He grows disenchanted with the body...

'He grows disenchanted with the intellect, disenchanted with ideas, disenchanted with mental consciousness, disenchanted with mental contact. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on mental contact, experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain:

He grows disenchanted with that too. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is released. With the release, there is the knowledge, "Released." He discerns that, "Birth is depleted, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world."'

That is what the Blessed One said. Glad at heart, the monks delighted at his words. And while this explanation was being given, the hearts of the 1,000 monks, through no clinging (not being sustained), were released from the mental effluents.

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Via Daily Dharma: Become a Revolutionary of Your Mind

To break with the norm means to be first a revolutionary in your own mind, someone who breaks down the rigid power structures and egoic defenses within through mindfulness and awareness training, and through love and compassion. 

—Dawa Tarchin Phillips, “What to Do When You Don’t Know What’s Next”

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Via Insight LA // Mindfulness in Times of COVID-19

Media channels around the world are calling now for more mindfulness for avoiding the risk of infection with COVID-19. The great news is that this is exactly one of the things mindfulness practice teaches: 

To become aware of automatic patterns, to stop them and to choose a new response.

Here are four main areas how mindfulness helps with preventing infection:

1. Reduces automatic behavior
2. Chooses a better behavior
3. Stress reduction supports the immune system
4. Stay informed but don’t panic

Mindfulness practice also has a proven track record of lowering anxiety and worry. With the media on the coverage of the coronavirus from around the world does what the media does, it’s easy to fall into worry or even panic.

Mindfulness helps being aware of the presence of anxiety or worry in the form of thoughts and as sensations in the body and to observe them with friendliness instead of trying to push them away. Repeatedly returning to the sensations of the breath or the grounding feeling of the feet on the floor help to reorient to the present moment instead of racing towards the anticipated future. 

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Via Insight Meditation / The Forest Refuge, Empty in Spring

They go to many a refuge,
to mountains, forests, parks, trees, and shrines:
people threatened with danger.

That’s not the secure refuge,
that’s not the highest refuge,
that’s not the refuge, having gone to which, you gain release from all suffering and stress.

But when, having gone for refuge,
to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha,
you see with right discernment the four noble truths —
stress,
the cause of stress,
the transcending of stress,
and the Noble Eightfold Path, the way to the stilling of stress:

That’s the secure refuge,
that, the highest refuge,
that is the refuge, having gone to which, you gain release from all suffering and stress.

– Dhammapada 188-192