A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Monday, December 21, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Let the Ordinary Take Your Breath Away
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”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Via Insight Meditation Society
—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”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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.
|
|