As
our awareness deepens with practice, we find our breath being taken
away more and more by the ordinary experiences all around us and within
us. Nothing special—just a tiny life expressing itself—singing!—in
Winter’s frozen world.
—Sylvia Forges Ryan, “Bare Branches, Bare Attention”
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Monday, December 21, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Let the Ordinary Take Your Breath Away
Saturday, December 19, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Learning to Live with Desire
Meditation,
if correctly wielded, is not about shoving desire to the side. It’s
about learning to live with and learn from desire.
—Mitch Abblett, “Slip Free of Craving”
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Friday, December 18, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Step Away from Fixations
Spiritual
practice is stepping out of the assumed reality of “me” by
understanding what the “me” is and withdrawing energy from its
perceptual fixations.
—Rodney Smith, “Undivided Mind”
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Thursday, December 17, 2020
Via Insight Meditation Society
Radiate boundless love towards the entire world — above, below, and across — unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.
—Metta Sutta
—Metta Sutta
Via Daily Dharma: Let Yourself Relax
Spiritual
practice is nutrition for the soul, and you can neither cook nor eat
while you are weeping. Cooking requires some happiness, and happiness
may require letting things slide from time to time, so that we can get a
little relief from the seriousness of our troubles.
—Norman Fischer, “Sailing Home”
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Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: When to Train Your Mind
The
good thing about mind training is that it can be practiced in all kinds
of situations. You do not have to wait for the right conditions to
arrive or make special arrangements in order to work with mind training.
The only rearrangement that needs to be made is to your own attitude.
—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Don’t be swayed by external circumstances”
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Via Lion's Roar // A Fan’s Guide to Modern Buddhist Music
|
| A Fan’s Guide to Modern Buddhist Music |
The
dharma speaks through music — it always has, it does today. From jazz
to metal to rap to emergent hybrid forms, Buddhism’s influence on the
musical realm can be discovered at almost every turn.
|
|
|
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - December 16, 2020 💌
You’ve lived your life with negative images of yourself, from childhood on, and you’ve built upon those images, and built upon them, and they became very heavy weights. These thoughts about you are a part of your ego, and they’re manifested through your roles as child or husband, wife, breadwinner, all of those roles. They’re built upon the thoughts of “I’m not truthful,” or “I’m not likable” or “I’m not good”—all of those negative images.
Once you identify with your soul, you start to taste the love in your true self, in your spiritual heart, and it’s different than all of the loves you’ve ever had. It’s just different; it’s unconditional love.
- Ram Dass-
Via Daily Dharma: Noticing the Power of Vows
When
you begin to look at life through the lens of vows, you are touched not
only by the dedication of human beings to form an aspiration to grow,
change, and overcome obstacles but also by their unselfish efforts to
dedicate themselves to a larger beneficial purpose.
—Jan Chozen Bays, “Brief Teachings”
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Via White Crane Institute // Today's Gay Wisdom
- Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
- Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others.
- History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.
- Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in the conclusions; their reasons are always different.
- Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.
- The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.
- Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.
Via Daily Dharma: Observe Feeling with Full Awareness
The mind has to be fully aware of itself—all around, at all times—in its focused contemplation, to see feeling as empty of self.
—Upasika Kee Nanayon, “A Glob of Tar”
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Monday, December 14, 2020
Via Morning Star Zendo // Liberation from all Obstructions
Liberation from all Obstructions
In the presence of Sangha, in the light of Dharma, in oneness with Buddha
– may my path to complete enlightenment benefit everyone!
In this passing moment karma ripens and all things come to be.
I vow to affirm what is:
If there’s cost, I choose to pay. If there’s need, I choose to give.
If there’s pain, I choose to feel. If there’s sorrow, I choose to grieve.
When burning, I choose heat. When calm, I choose peace.
When starving, I choose hunger. When happy, I choose joy.
Whom I encounter, I choose to meet. What I shoulder, I choose to bear.
When it’s my birth, I choose to live. When it’s my death, I choose to die.
Where this takes me, I choose to go. Being with what is, I respond to what is.
This life is as real as a dream; the one who knows it cannot be found;
and truth is not a thing, therefore I vow to choose THIS Dharma entrance gate!
May all Buddhas and Wise Ones help me live this vow.
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