Via Daily Dharma: Compassion Reverberates

 Whether we know it or not, every act of compassion, real or simulated, may have a positive significance far beyond our powers of imagination.

—Taitetsu Unno, “Three Grapefruits”

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Via Love Serve Remember Foundation // Join Jack Kornfield for a New Masterclass on Interactive Guided Meditation

Greetings and Happy Wednesday, Many of you know Jack Kornfield as one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West, but he's also been a dear friend of Ram Dass for many decades, and one of our beloved retreat teachers for many years. Jack brings a lifetime of practice and rich experience into his offerings, so we're thrilled to announce that Jack's new “Masterclass in Interactive Guided Meditation” is now available for therapists, healers, meditation teachers, and dedicated students. This self-guided 10-hour, 8-part masterclass includes powerful, transformative practices to facilitate healing, deep opening and new understanding. Work at your own pace; revisit the course as many times as you like. This training is not about ordinary guided meditations, but a compelling hands-on, interactive course with ample theory, lively demonstrations, rich case studies and clear practices. When taking Masterclass in Interactive Guided Meditation*, you will learn: How to use breath to create a powerful connection between yourself and others; Immediate tools for bringing transformative healing to body, heart and mind; Practices for resolving and releasing difficulties and conflicts in family, work and beyond; Guidance and practice to open to wisdom and love beyond the limited sense of self. *Closed Captioning for Deaf practitioners is available.   EXPLORE & REGISTER FOR JACK'S COURSE We'd also like to invite you to a free Mystics Summit hosted by the Shift Network, taking place Feb. 1-5th, featuring many teachers from the LSRF community, board and beyond: Mystics across time have written some of the world’s greatest poetry and scripture during episodes of war, plague, and social upheaval… and they call to us now to reclaim our soul’s longing and commune with the sacred heart of existence — even in the midst of turmoil. Some of the most influential cultural firebrands throughout history have undergone terrific “dark nights of the soul” and come out the other side brimming with renewed vision and impassioned wisdom. Throughout the Mystics Summit, you’ll receive not only gems of wisdom from the ancient mystics, but also poetry, music, and practices that can put you in touch with the unmistakable passion… born of a direct revelation of “the Beloved.” You’ll come away knowing that mysticism isn’t reserved just for those on the pedestals of religious history. It’s everyone's birthright! Explore with more than 40 scholars, teachers, contemporary mystics — including Krishna Das, Mirabai Starr, Matthew Fox, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Imam Jamal Rahman, Richard Rohr, Rameshwar Das, Mirabai Bush, Trevor Hall, and many others — as they lead you through the lives and times of ancient mystics, their “ordinary heroism,” and lessons you can apply in these tumultuous times.   REGISTER FOR THE MYSTIC'S SUMMIT

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Via Sean Rayshel // #HolocaustRemembranceDay

 

 

Today we honor all those who we lost in the Holocaust for #HolocaustRemembranceDay. 

All the millions of Jews, Disabled, Gays, Roma, Jehovah Witnesses, Freemasons, Artists, Socialists, Clergy, and freethinkers. Time and time again we repeat the mistakes of our past, ripping children out of their parents arms and writing a number on their arms in a Sharpie marker, and putting them in “holding pins” to me is no different from what happened to ancestors, and to the gay communities throughout Germany and Nazi occupied Europe.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - January 27, 2021 💌

 

 

"Faith is not a belief. Faith is what is left when your beliefs have all been blown to hell. Faith is in the heart, while beliefs are in the head. Experiences, even spiritual experiences, come and go. As long as you base your faith on experience, your faith is going to be constantly flickering, because your experiences keep changing."

- Ram Dass -


Excerpt from Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart

Via Daily Dharma: Arranging a Life You Want

Make the things you want to do easy, and the things you don’t want to do difficult. 

—Gregg Krech, “Meditating Every Day and What to Do When You Don’t”

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A Gentle Reminder via FB

 

Meditation and Going Beyond Mindfulness - A Secular Perspective

Tricycle Talks: Buddhist Magic and Why We Shouldn’t Cast It Aside

 

Tricycle Talks: Buddhist Magic and Why We Shouldn’t Cast It Aside
With Sam van Schaik 

Divination, enchantment, and healing rituals have a long history in Buddhism—one that’s been largely dismissed and ignored. On the latest episode of Tricycle Talks, historian Sam van Schaik considers what we might learn by reexamining Buddhism’s supernatural heritage.

Listen now »

Via Daily Dharma: Learn Who You Are

Learning to really notice what goes on in us and sensing who we are at a deeper level brings more space and possibility into our lives.

—David Rome, “Focusing” 

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Via Daily Dharma: The Importance of Joy

Joy creates a spaciousness in the mind that allows us to hold the suffering we experience inside us and around us without becoming overwhelmed, without collapsing into helplessness or despair.

—James Baraz, “Lighten Up!” 

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The Buddha. HD (English Subtitle)

Via Daily Dharma: Understand Your Mind

 Just understand your mind: how it works, how attachment and desire arise, how ignorance arises, where emotions come from. It is sufficient to know the nature of all that; just that gives so much happiness and peace.

—Lama Thubten Yeshe, “Chocolate Cake”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - January 24, 2021 💌

 

 

I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn't create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.

- Ram Dass -

Is There Life After Death? moderated by John Cleese - 2018 Tom Tom Festival

Via Daily Dharma: Take Refuge in Flexibility

 The Buddhist Way invites us to take refuge in openness and in accepting that to do this we must transcend all rigid identities.

—Fabrice Midal, “Brief Teachings”

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Contrastes

Last night after a shocking series of bizarre and mean emails from my mother,  I was in a funk and upset and sad all day. ((How a 65+ year old man can be nonplussed by a mother is stuff for future postings... But I digress)). Then some rotten stuff from work, all of which set me off in a seriously non-Buddhist way. Ugh... Tests and dhukka!

 

So… when I zoomed into a meeting with folks in Guatemala, I was, to be quite honest, somewhat reticent... The last encuentros with Bahá’ís for me didn’t end well… 

 

I was so surprised last night. 

 

I felt a sense of refuge and well  a bit of “saudades” for the first time in years.

The remembrance service for Bob Porter sponsored by the Bahá'ís de Guatemala was simple, sweet, and lovely. People saying hello for maybe 15 minutes before… and Marcy was a joy! At one point there were over 100 folks from maybe 5 countries!

 

It was the first Bahá’í gathering I went to in over 2 decades. And it felt nice, it felt like home, people were sweet, and it was good to see some old friends. It bought back some good memories and adventures. The Porter family was great, KC even played a song, Kristy and Curt & Sonia shared sweet memories. All of us that are not there in Guatemala expressed our sense of, what we say in Portuguese “Saudades”. 

 

Me, in the early 1980's sporting a badass moustache with Amatu'l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum in Guatemala City

 

What was magic for me, it was the first time in years that I could go to my prayer book and read without a block, a sense of loss, rancor…

So during the service, I dug out my Bahá'í books and found the above picture, which made me smile. Doña Marcy had me drive Khánum around Guate in their teeny tiny suzuki pickup!  

 

To say I miss Bahá’í sangha, the kind like last night, when folks were just pure love and light goes without saying. When I came back to the States, it was rough, I missed community and probably the adrenaline from serving there, my relationship with my son’s mother was upside down, grad school, coming to terms with my sexuality, my son, my work… and I had no community to stand on, to support me. In fact, the Bahá’ís sort of cast me adrift until they eventually threw me out for activism and well love. It took me years to trust anything spiritual, indeed even the thoughts of God and community. To that I am eternally grateful to the Sacramento Buddhist Meditation Group, who pulled me out of my anger hole and set me right.

 

So em fim, I will always be a BaBu = Bahá’í Buddhist, or the Bahá'ís might say, "a friend of the Faith". And will continue to wait on the sidelines for the day they will come to their senses re: inclusion and homophobia. 

 

Visualize a guy, at the Metta bus bus stop, patiently checking his dharma watch, over and over, and over: 

Breathe in. May all the Bahá’ís be happy. Breathe out.

Breathe in. May all the Bahá’ís be healthy. Breathe out.

Breathe in. May all the Bahá’ís be safe. Breathe out.

Breathe in. May all the Bahá’ís be at ease in all the Worlds! 

 

¡Gracias  Don Roberto y Muchas Gracias Team Porter! y un grande gracias a los Guatemaltecos, - may your sweetness, energy and love keep shining!

 

Life is good!

Via Daily Dharma: Go Outside

 Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy.

—Mark Coleman, “A Breath of Fresh Air”

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Via Tumblr // Immoral and moral actions

 

Immoral and moral actions ~ Tai Situ Rinpoche  

https://justdharma.com/s/7st2u  

We have to overcome our defilements, and they are fueled by immorality. An action is defined as either "immoral" or "moral" depending on whether it feeds the defilements or not. If it does it is immoral and if it purifies and transforms them it is moral. Things do not become moral or immoral because rules have been made up for convenience. They become one or the other for this simple reason.  

– Tai Situ Rinpoche  from the book "Ground, Path and Fruition" ISBN: 978-1877294358  -  https://amzn.to/16Njb20  

Tai Situ Rinpoche on the web: https://www.palpung.org/  Tai Situ Rinpoche biography: https://www.palpung.org/english/taisitupa/biography.asp

Goodbye Donald Trump