—Martine Batchelor, “The Ten Oxherding Pictures”
Listening is an art that comes from a quiet mind and an open heart. Listening uses all of your senses, and it is a very subtle skill, not only with the ears but with your being. Your being becomes the instrument of listening. Your sensing mechanism in life is not just your ears, eyes, skin sensitivity, and analytic mind. It's something deeper in you. It's an intuitive quality of knowing. With all of your being, you become an antenna to the nature of another person. Then, for the relationship to remain a part of the Living Spirit, one of the best ingredients to put into the stew is truth.
- Ram Dass -
The
mind is very powerful. Therefore, it requires firm guidance. A powerful
jet plane needs a good pilot; the pilot of your mind should be the
wisdom that understands its nature.
—Lama Thubten Yeshe, “Your Mind Is Your Religion”
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President Trump greets talk show host Sean Hannity at a 2018 rally in Cape Girardeau, Mo.
If
proper attention is not given to sensations, then we are not going to
the deepest levels of the mind. The deepest level of the mind, according
to Buddha, is constantly in contact with body sensations.
—Interview with S. N. Goenka by Helen Tworkov, “Superscience”
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August 24Born  Stephen Fry
1957 -
STEPHEN JOHN FRY is an English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist born on this date. With Hugh Laurie, he is half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, who starred in Jeeves and Wooster. Fry's acting roles include a Golden Globe–nominated lead performance in the film Wilde, portraying Oscar Wilde, Melchett in the BBC series Blackadder, the title character in the television series Kingdom, a recurring guest role as Dr Gordon Wyatt on the crime series Bones, and as Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V for Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award–winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which saw him explore his bipolar disorder, and the travel series Stephen Fry in America. He was also the long-time host of the BBC television quiz show OI, with his tenure lasting from 2003 to 2016. Besides working in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines and written four novels and three volumes of autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles and More Fool Me. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just A Minute, and acting as chairman during one series of I'm Sorry I haven't A Clue, where he was one of a trio of possible hosts who were tried out to succeed the late Humphrey Lyttelton, Jack Dee getting the post permanently. Fry is also known for his voice-overs, reading all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the UK audiobook recordings, narrating the LittleBigPlanet and Birds of Steel series of video games, as well as an animated series of explanations of the laws of cricket, of which he is a particular fan, and a series of animations about Humanism for Humanists UK. Fry married comedian Elliott Spencer in January 2015. Fry is on cordial terms with Prince Charles, through his work with the Prince's Trust. He attended the Prince's wedding to Camilla Parker-Bowles in 2005. Fry is a friend of comedian and actor (and Blackadder co-star) Rowan Atkinson and was best man at Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City. Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and by his own account did not engage in sexual activity for 16 years from 1979 until 1995. When asked when he first acknowledged his sexuality, Fry quipped: "I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother and thought to myself, 'That's the last time I'm going up one of those'." Fry was in a 15-year relationship with Daniel Cohen, which ended in 2010. Fry was listed #2 in 2016 and #12 in 2017 on the World Pride Power list. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3ZBeX9uC8s
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True
faith in one’s religious practice means accepting the
possibility—perhaps even the inevitability—of being wrong. It means to
accept our limits in a radical way. That is what true faith is.
—Clark Strand, “Nothing to Regret”
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| Jules Shuzen Harris teaches the meditation practice at the heart of Zen Buddhism. | ||
There
has been a lot of attention recently on the many practical benefits of
meditation. It reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, and is effective
in working with depression, anxiety, and anger. These are all good
reasons to meditate, but ultimately Buddhists practice zazen and other
meditations to realize what Buddhism calls our true nature, which is
beyond self-identity with its self-imposed limitations. From a Buddhist
perspective, our main problem is attachment to our deluded idea of who
we are, and what we need to do to maintain this delusion.
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| Shamatha meditation — mindfulness or concentration — is the foundation of Buddhist practice. Lama Rod Owens teaches us a version from the Vajrayana tradition. | ||
Shamatha
meditation allows us to experience our mind as it is. When we practice
shamatha, we are able to see that our mind is full of thoughts, some
conducive to our happiness and further realization, and others not. It
is not extraordinary that our minds are full of thoughts, and it is
important to understand that it is natural to have so much happening in
the mind.
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| Step-by-step — pun-intended — instruction from Leslie Booker. | ||
Walking meditation is often described as a meditation in motion.
In this practice, you place your full attention on the process of walking — from the shifting of the weight in your body to the mechanics of placing your foot. Walking meditation is an integral part of retreat life in many traditions and is used to offset and shift the energy of sitting practice. It is a bridge to integrate practice into daily life and can be more accessible than a sitting practice for many people. |
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Patience
is the only thing that defeats anger. Don’t be disappointed if you
can’t do it right away. Even after years of practice you may find that
you’re still losing your temper. It’s all right. But you will also
notice that the power of anger has weakened.
—Nawang Gehlek Rimpoche, “Anger and Patience”
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We
can bring empathy to ourselves by meeting pain with embodied awareness,
curious about the sensations. It’s not that we long for the pain to
continue. We can aspire for a release from pain, but we bring kindness
and compassion to whatever is happening.
— Sebene Selassie, “Belonging in the Body”
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