Bewilderment - Rumi

Via Daily Dharma: Discovering the Best Way to Live

To think in a more contemplative way means to slow down and recover our rootedness on Earth, which allows us to ponder and question what kind of beings we are and how best to live in this world.

—Stephen Batchelor, “Embracing Extinction”

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Via White Crane Institute // LAMMAS DAY

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Lammas crafts

2017 -

LAMMAS DAY ‒ In English-speaking countries, August 1 is Lammas Day ("loaf-mass day"), the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. In Wiccan traditions, the name Lammas is used for one of the sabbats, The festival is also known as Lughnasadh, a feast to commemorate the funeral games (Tailtean Games) of Tailtiu, foster-mother of the Irish sun-god Lugh. Lammas is a cross-quarter occurring ¼ of a year after Beltane. Lughnasadh was one of the four main festivals of the medieval Irish calendar: Imbolc at the beginning of February, Beltane on the first of May, Lughnasadh in August and Samhain in November.

The early Celtic calendar was based on the lunar, solar, and vegetative cycles, so the actual calendar date in ancient times may have varied. Lughnasadh marked the beginning of the harvest season, the ripening of first fruits, and was traditionally a time of community gatherings, market festivals, horse races and reunions with distant family and friends. Among the Irish it was a favored time for handfastings ‒ trial marriages that would generally last a year and a day, with the option of ending the contract before the new year, or later formalizing it as a more permanent marriage.

In Christian tradition on this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop. In many parts of England, tenants were bound to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on or before the first day of August. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is referred to regularly, it is called "the feast of first fruits".

Now is a great time of year to work on honing your own talents. Learn a new craft, or get better at an old one. Put on a play, write a story or poem, take up a musical instrument, start getting crafty, or sing a song. Whatever you choose to do, this is the right season for rebirth and renewal, so set August 1 as the day to share your new skill with your friends and family.

Via White Crane Institute // Noteworthy --- And Now for soemthing completely different...

Noteworthy

The Icelandic Phallological Museum

1997 -

The ICELANDIC PHALLOLOGICAL MUSEUM opened in Iceland; Located in Reykjavik, Iceland, the Phallological Museum houses the world's largest display of penises and penile parts. The collection of 280 specimens from 93 species of animals includes 55 penises taken from whales, 36 from seals and 118 from land mammals, allegedly including Huldufolk (Icelandic elves) and trolls. In July 2011, the museum obtained its first human penis, one of four promised by would-be donors. Its detachment from the donor's body did not go according to plan and it was reduced to a greyish-brown shrivelled mass pickled in a jar of formalin. The museum continues to search for "a younger and a bigger and better one."

Founded in 1997 by retired teacher Sigurour Hjartarson and now run by his son Hjörtur Gísli Sigurosson, the museum grew out of an interest in penises that began during Sigurður's childhood when he was given a cattle whip made from a bull’s penis. He obtained the organs of Icelandic animals from sources around the country, with acquisitions ranging from the 170 cm (67”) front tip of a blue whale’s penis to the 2 mm (0.08”) penis bone of a hamster, which can only be seen with a magnifying glass. The museum claims that its collection includes the penises of elves and trolls, though, as Icelandic folklore portrays such creatures as being invisible, they cannot be seen. The collection also features phallic art and crafts such as lampshades made from the scrotums of bulls.

The museum has become a popular tourist attraction with thousands of visitors a year — 60% of them women — and has received international media attention, including a Canadian documentary film called The Final Member, which covers the museum's quest to obtain a human penis. According to its mission statement, the museum aims to enable "individuals to undertake serious study into the field of phallology in an organized, scientific fashion." The museum's guest book includes comments such as, "I've never seen so many penises–and I went to boarding school!" (from a New Zealand visitor), "They're bigger in the USA," (from someone from Wisconsin) and "Is there a vagina museum?"(On this point, Sigurður has said, "I'm only collecting the male organ. Somebody else has to do the other job. I'd be interested in how they would preserve it. I think vaginas are better alive.")

Via Daily Dharma: Make Space for Others’ Growth

Rather than assuming you will know how people will act, take a deep breath and open yourself to the possibility that today is a new day.

—Yael Shy, “Five Practices for Your Daily Commute”

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Wake Up

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Via Daily Dharma: What We Can Control

What happens when we sit is none of our business. The practice is to accept whatever arises instead of trying to control our experience. What we can control is our wise effort to be present with what is.

—Narayan Helen Liebenson, “The Refuge of Sitting”

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Via Lion´s Roar // Koans for Troubled Times

Koans for Troubled Times

How do we as Buddhists meet the challenges of our time? Joan Sutherland shares the history of koans, which were created to deal with a difficult period in Chinese history.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 29, 2020 💌

I’ve learned to slow down and not move as fast through things as my mind would like me to, but to feel at home in the process. See, the process and product are so interwoven that getting there is half the fun. How you get there is as much of a part of the game as getting there is.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Open to Your World

We may come to our meditation with the hope of reducing our stress or perfecting our technique or maybe even attaining enlightenment. But we very soon discover that the practice requires that we drop such ambition and sit still on the cushion, letting go of our internal dialogue, opening to our world—very simply, very directly.

—Michael Carroll, “Bringing Spiritual Confidence in the Workplace”

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Via Daily Dharma: Helping Yourself to Help Others

It’s important to remember that until we straighten up our own lives, we probably won’t be that much help to anyone else.

—Clancy Martin, “It’s All for the Better”

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Floating Along the Milky Way (in 4k60p)

Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of our Universe

Via Daily Dharma: The Action of Prayer

[Through] prayer, you go to the edge of the world as you know it and reach out...  you step into the unknown, and you meet the hesitation, unwillingness, and raw fear that you encounter when you go beyond the confines of your conditioning. That’s where practice becomes real.

—Ken McLeod, “Say a Little Prayer”

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David Richo: Love

Via Daily Dharma: Awakening an Enlightened Mind

Awakening the enlightened mind may not be a question of self-improvement, which is never-ending; it may be a question of faith, which is always available right now.

—Hannah Tennant-Moore, “Buddhism’s Higher Power”

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Via White Crane Institute // CARL JUNG

This Day in Gay History

July 26

Born

Carl Jung

1875 -

CARL JUNG, Swiss psychiatrist born (d. 1961) Jung's unique and broadly influential approach to psychology has emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician for most of his life, much of his life's work was spent exploring other realms, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts.

His most notable contributions include his concept of the psychological archetype, the collective unconscious, and his theory of synchronicity. Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern humans rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of the unconscious realm. It is for this reason that Jungian ideas are not typically included in curriculum of most major universities' psychology departments, but are occasionally explored in humanities departments.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 26, 2020 💌

The art of growth has to do with how quickly you admit error. What we do is constantly make decisions from where we’re sitting; then that decision leads to a new moment, and then in the new moment you listen again, and often you realize that the new moment suggests that that previous decision just led you into a new moment in which there is another decision that isn’t gonna be consistent with the last one.
To the extent that you define yourself as somebody, it is very hard to be inconsistent, to the extent that you keep coming back into the the existential situation with the trust that if I keep listening to the moment, and keep being true to what I’m hearing, while people may be upset with me, because I am not consistent, I will stay as close to the truth as I hear it, and that’s what I can offer myself and the universe.

- Ram Dass -

Via BBC Heart and Soul // Could you be silent for ten hours - for ten days?

Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was taught by the Buddha more than 2,500 years ago as a universal remedy for universal ills. The practice died out in India, but survived in Burma, and is now a growing movement around the world.

Hear Jide and Rosie, two participants in the UK, talk about their experience of it here.