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.
Revisit our Free Ram Dass Mantra and Meditation Library
With over 35 audio mantras, meditations and resources from Ram Dass (with transcripts), the Guided Meditation Library
on RamDass.org is a wonderful all-in-one resource to rekindle your
practice, or add some Loving Awareness into your day-to-day life.
A Few of Our Favorites:
+ Soma Meditation - Toggling between the form and the formless, the One and the many.
+ The Heart Cave - Ram Dass guides you straight into your heart cave – it is a place beyond all forms and limits, a place for letting go
+ Aditya Hridayam Mantra - Loosely translated, it means, ‘As for the being who keeps the sun in the heart, all evil vanishes for life.’
"Meditation provides a deeper appreciation of the interrelatedness
of all things and the part each person plays. The simple rules of this
game are honesty with yourself about where you are in your life and
learning to listen to hear how it is. Meditation is a way of listening
more deeply, so you hear from a deeper space, exactly how it is.
Meditation will help you quiet your mind, enhance your ability to be
insightful and understanding and give you a sense of inner peace.
If you meditate regularly, even when you don’t feel like it, you will
make great gains, for it will allow you to see how your thoughts impose
limits on you. Your resistances to meditation are your mental prisons in
miniature."
- Ram Dass
When you support the Love Serve Remember
Foundation, you help ensure that the teachings of Ram Dass & Neem
Karoli Baba and our family of wisdom teachers will be available to
generations to come.
This
week, rediscover our free Ram Dass virtual mantra and meditation
library, Ram Dass explores 'embracing it all',hear from a satsang member
about her retreat experience, and listen to this week's newest podcasts
from Be Here Now Network.
...It's interesting that as long as you identify with your personality, the things that get you uptight are your enemies. The minute you identify with your awareness,
the things that get you uptight show you where your awareness still has
sticky fingers. Most of us with a mind, because the mind deals with
polarities, feel that if you're happy, you're not sad, and you want to
be happy. So you push away that which makes you sad.
But if you are going to be free, there's nothing you can turn away from
or turn off. Like if you live fully in this moment, does this moment
include that baby that's taking its last breath from starvation? Yeah.
So are you sad? Yes. Does it include the baby taking its first breath as
it comes out of its mother’s womb, and the joy of the beginning? Yes.
So you're happy. If you are the fullness of the moment, all of it, these
are all your voices. If you and I are to be free, there is nothing we
can push away...
Community Spotlight
Our Community Member Lindsay Bond Shares a Story of Her First Ram Dass Retreat Experience
In the Fall of 2019, two weeks before the
start of my yoga teacher training, I was contacted by Love Serve
Remember Foundation, asking if I would like to attend a retreat in Maui
in December of that year. It had slipped my mind that in April, I had
emailed the Director of LSRF, Raghu Markus, expressing that I would be
interested in a retreat scholarship. There was a wonderful synchronicity
to the contact the foundation made; I had attended the Los Angeles
screening of the film Becoming Nobody the previous evening.
What unfolded in December was one of the most meaningful experiences of
my life so far – it had been a heart’s desire to meet Ram Dass in the
body while I still could. I took part in the five-day retreat, taking in
lectures from many wonderful wisdom teachers and meeting many
like-hearted souls and my teacher two weeks before his passing. (I am
still delighted that my meeting of Ram Dass took place the first night
at dinner by the buffet table! As RD would say, “Yum, Yum, Yum…”)
While at the retreat, I asked Krishna Das in session about ways I could
continue to hold space for my brother, Kyle, who suffers from
schizophrenia and struggles continually with homelessness. “As a
sibling, there’s a very deep connection between you,” KD related. “So
whatever you do do, with him in mind, is very powerful… Hold him in your
heart, pray for him, talk to him…There’s a knot between beings, a
karmic knot. So if from inside of that, if you can help unravel that
knot, that’s a good thing for you both.” The truth in these words was a
salve for my heart. Chanting has continued to be an anchor practice,
creating space for the grace and courage to hold Kyle in loving
presence.
Following the retreat, I continue to learn that through personal yoga
practice, not just “on the mat” but through devotional music,
meditation, and other modalities, our dedications for others can
traverse energetic borders. The power of simple, sincere kindness has
shifted my perspective and deepened my understanding of relationships,
not just with my partner or friends, but with strangers and even the
most challenging relationships. I’ve experienced that kindness extended
to one, benefits us all as the One.
Life has become richer and more beautiful as a result of my connection
to Ram Dass and satsang. The time I spent at 2019’s Open Your Heart in
Paradise retreat was a period of deepening I will continue to treasure,
learn from, and appreciate...
RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Body
A person goes to the forest
or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having
crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence
of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: "Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I
am content." (SN 47.10)
Breathing in and out, tranquilizing bodily activities … one is just
aware, just mindful: "There is a body." And one abides not clinging to
anything in the world. (MN 10)
Reflection
Sunday is a
good day to get in the habit of spending some time in mindful
meditation. When the quality of mind called mindfulness is nurtured and
developed, the mind inclines toward contentment, as this passage points
out. This might even be a good definition of mindfulness: feeling
content with whatever is happening by not wanting it to be anything
other than it is.
Daily Practice
The text that
teaches meditation begins with learning to breathe in and out, long and
short, mindfully, but here it shifts with a more intentional directive.
The instruction is to "tranquilize"—calm or relax—the breathing and all
bodily activity. In other words, we are now not simply being aware of
what is happening but also trying to direct our experience toward deeper
and deeper states of calm. With each breath, relax.
RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the First Phase of Absorption (1st Jhāna)
Having abandoned the five
hindrances, imperfections of the mind that weaken wisdom, quite secluded
from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, one enters
and abides in the first phase of absorption, which is accompanied by
applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of
seclusion. (MN 4)
Reflection
We dedicate
Sundays to practicing mindfulness and concentration. Concentration
practice involves focusing the mind on a single object, such as the
breath, and returning attention to this focal point whenever it wanders
off (which it will surely do often). All forms of meditation involve
some level of concentration, so it is a good thing to practice.
Daily Practice
Formal
concentration practice, involving absorption (Pali: jhāna) in four
defined stages, requires more time and sustained effort than occasional
practice generally allows and would benefit from careful instruction by a
qualified teacher. You may begin on your own, however, simply by
practicing to abandon the five hindrances, since jhāna practice only
really begins when these temporarily cease to arise.
Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel
Every
day when we wake up, we have a choice. Will we choose fear or will we
choose compassion and love? These are very strong, but I’ve learned in
my short 28 years that anger and fear exhaust me, whereas if I do work
out of love and compassion and kindness, I’m actually nourished. It’s a
sustainable energy.
Ocean Vuong, “What Scares Writer and Zen Buddhist Ocean Vuong”
A
Theravada monk offers education and opportunity to the girls of Lumbini,
the Buddha’s birthplace and one of the four most important pilgrimage
sites in Buddhism.
When you have seen the perfection of form, including the suffering, then
that balances the feeling of the human heart, and you see that that
perfection includes your human heart’s pain. And then you start to
expand to embrace the paradox, and it is a paradox for the mind. The
paradox that it’s all perfect, and yet, there is so much suffering and
it stinks. And it hurts.
OLA HOFTUN LILLELIEN, born on this date, is a professional handball player who proudly came out as a gay man in April 2022.
Lillelien, 22,
plays for the nation of Denmark. Handball is a very popular sport in
Europe, wherein teams play keep away with a ball as they try to toss it
in the opposing team’s goal. Think of it as a combination of basketball
and soccer.
Lillelien took to
Instagram on April 21 to share the emotional revelation with his fans.
In coming out, he becomes one of the few openly LGBTQ players in the
league.
“I have been
thinking for a long time about whether I should publish this post, but I
now understand that it is something I want,” he wrote. “Not for my own
part, but to be a role model. Not just for young people, but for
everyone. About half a year ago, I told my family, friends and teammates
that I most likely do not end up with a sweet girl, but a handsome
boy. The response was exclusively positive!”
“I say it like
the king: Norway is boys who love boys, girls who love girls, and girls
and boys who love each other,” Lillelien said, quoting from a speech of
acceptance by King Harald V in 2016.
The athlete
deliberately published the post on a specific date: "On April 21, 2022,
it will be 50 years since loving who you want was decriminalized in
Norway," he continued. "This post was not made by me to seek validation
or attention, but to proudly thank those who fought before me for my
right to love who I want."
"I hope today's
society has come to the point where boys and girls don't have to worry
about not being accepted for who they are. Being in love with someone
isn't sensational, so I hope we've managed that it doesn't turn out to
be a big deal."
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|
Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
"With the
increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful
corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community
is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave
standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming
mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson
Since you participated in Buddhafest, we believe you’ll find great value in this ten-day festival offering five feature-length films and five short films exploring the rich tapestry of Buddhist thought.
Tickets are $30 for Tricycle subscribers and $40 for general admission.
Your ticket includes access to the following ten films:
The Departure directed by Lana Wilson
The Sweet Requiem directed by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam
Tukdam: Between Worlds directed by Donagh Coleman
Return to Gandhi Road directed by Yeshe Hegan
Geshe Wangyal. With Blessing of the Three Jewels directed by Ella Manzheeva
Dust to Light directed by Erika Houle
Drapchi Elegy directed by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam
Windhorse directed by Sunil Gurung
The Altar directed by Moe Myat May Zarchi
Waking Up 2050 directed by Ray Choo
You'll be able to watch nine of the films at any point during the festival, PLUS enjoy a live screening of The Departure on Saturday, March 16 at 12:00 P.M. ET followed by a Q&A with director Lana Wilson moderated by Koshin Paley Ellison.
Virtual Event on 2/26: 
Virtual Event on 2/27: 
Supporting Your Practice 
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