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 Real transformation always begins from the inside.

Not through pressure from others,

not through external circumstances,

not through force or fear—

but through inner awakening.

When life crushes you from the outside, you feel destroyed.

But when you break open from within, you are reborn.

Greatness doesn’t come from outside approval.

Healing doesn’t come from waiting for someone else.

Growth doesn’t come from changing your surroundings.

It comes from changing yourself.

Your mindset, your habits, your choices, your awareness.

Everything you want—

peace, strength, confidence, clarity, wisdom—

begins inside your own heart and mind.

Buddha’s Teaching on Inner Development

The Buddha taught that all suffering and all happiness arise from the mind.

External conditions shape circumstances,

but your inner state determines your life experience.

He said:

“As the mind is, so the world becomes.”

“Train your mind, and everything will change.”

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

Inner development is the foundation of a better life because:

A calm mind sees clearly.

A disciplined mind makes wise choices.

A compassionate mind builds healthy relationships.

A mindful mind breaks unhealthy patterns.

No amount of external change matters if the internal world remains chaotic.

Great things don’t begin outside you.

They begin inside you —

in your thoughts, your awareness, and your willingness to grow.

Via GBF: Letting Go Into Wholeness – Jokai | Gay Buddhist Fellowship

The latest dharma talk has been added to the GBF website, podcast and YouTube channel:

Letting Go Into Wholeness – Jokai | Gay Buddhist Fellowship

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In this quietly powerful talk, Jokai Blackwell reflects on how Zen practice invites us into a deeper intimacy with life — not by escaping discomfort, but by softening our resistance to it. He shares personal stories and teachings from Zen and early Buddhism that reveal how clinging to control or certainty only increases suffering.

Instead, Jokai encourages listeners to cultivate a practice of surrender: of returning, again and again, to the grounded experience of the body, breath, and present moment. This embodied awareness becomes a gateway to wholeness — not a fixed state, but a dynamic unfolding that includes everything, even the messy and uncertain.

He outlines several key teachings to support this shift toward presence:

• Wholeness is not perfection: It's the capacity to include and be with whatever arises.

• Grasping and aversion fragment our experience: They reinforce the illusion of separation.

• The body is a reliable refuge: Returning to bodily sensations helps us drop into direct experience.

• Letting go is active, not passive: It's a courageous practice of turning toward, not away.

• Practice is relational: Awakening unfolds in connection — with self, others, and life itself.

Jokai’s words are both spacious and grounded, inviting listeners into a felt sense of trust — not in outcomes, but in the wisdom of showing up fully to the life that’s already here.

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Enjoy 850+ free recorded dharma talks at https://gaybuddhist.org/podcast/

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation //

 

“Once the seed is planted, you don’t have any choice – its karma. Once you have seen what it all is like you can’t just go back to playing bridge, it just doesn’t cut it. When you sense that possibility, once you feel that other thing inside of you, you begin this unconscious searching and looking for the next message. The interesting thing is that there is always a next message, and it is always available to you.”   Source: Ram Dass – Here and Now – Ep. 10 – Through Illusions

Via Daily Dharma: Trample Your Limitations

 

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Trample Your Limitations It is by trampling on whatever our unique limitations are that we find the freedom to compassionately understand others with this all-encompassing wisdom of human conditions. Anam Thubten, “Trample on What Challenges You” CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and the First Jhāna

 

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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)   Mindful, one breathes in; mindful, one breathes out. . . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is body." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection The path factor of right mindfulness will be explored by going carefully through the meditation instructions found in the classic text Satipatthāna Sutta, or Establishment of Mindfulness Discourse. The first thing we notice about it in this introductory section is how deliberate and intentional the practice is: one goes to a quiet place, sits down, and engages deliberately in the establishment of mindfulness. Daily Practice Mindfulness of the body begins with breathing. Take some time to sit quietly and just breathe in and out. Breathing mindfully simply means bringing full awareness to the various micro-sensations that accompany every in-breath and out-breath. As the refrain prompts us, see if you can attend to these sensations directly, without thinking about them and without clinging in any way by favoring or opposing any sensation.  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 Since there are seven days in the week and eight path factors, we dedicate Sundays to practicing both kinds of meditation: 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 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 they temporarily cease to arise.  Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of 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 Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Daily Dharma: Seeing Clearly

 

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Seeing Clearly Everything we encounter—fear, resentment, jealousy, embarrassment—is actually an invitation to see clearly where we are shutting down and holding back. Aura Glaser, “Into the Demon’s Mouth” CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States

 

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RIGHT EFFORT Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders unhealthy states, one has abandoned healthy states to cultivate unhealthy states, and then one’s mind inclines toward unhealthy states. (MN 19) Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to restrain the arising of unarisen unhealthy mental states. One restrains the arising of the unarisen hindrance of sense desire. (MN 141)

Reflection One of the most fundamental ideas of early Buddhism is the distinction between healthy and unhealthy states. These terms are not meant to suggest that these states are good and bad or right and wrong: sometimes they are translated as wholesome and unwholesome or skillful and unskillful. The issue is whether or not the state leads away from suffering, and whether or not it leads toward wisdom. Seeing this distinction clearly is important. Daily Practice A simple list of unhealthy states includes the five hindrances, which we will walk through one at a time. These are mental and emotional states that are unhelpful to the process of seeing things clearly; they may be either "arisen"—in present experience—or "unarisen," meaning latent. Here the practice is to prevent the conditions for the arising of the unhealthy state of sense desire by taking care not to indulge in sensual objects. Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna One week from today: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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