Via Daily Dharma: Drop the Math and Just Be

To be in a real relationship, a loving relationship, is simply to be willing to respond and be there for the other person without always calculating what we are going to get out of it.

—Barry Magid, “No Gain”

Via Daily Dharma: A Brighter World

When we share our light with others, we do not diminish our own light. Rather, we increase the amount of light available to all... When out of gratitude we use our candle to light other people’s candles, the whole room gets brighter.

—Master Sheng Yen, “Rich Generosity”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 29, 2018

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.

 - Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Defining Compassion

Letting things be, without obsessing to change or improve them, could be seen as a highly developed form of compassion, one of the most central of all Buddhist virtues.

—Rita M. Gross, “Buddhist History for Buddhist Practitioners”

Via Buddhist Studies at Stanford / Ani Choying Drolma: "Buddhist Chants and Songs"

Inner Peace by Ani Choying Drolma

Ani Choying Drolma - Great Compassion Mantra.mp4

4 0:35 / 3:39 Shakuhachi Honkyoku -Yamagoe

Via Daily Dharma: Everyday Awakening

Every situation we face in life presents an opportunity to put the principles of Buddhist thought into action in a way that benefits ourselves, our families, and our communities.

—Interview with Daniel Aitken, “You Are What You Read”

Via Daily Dharma: Integrity’s Lasting Benefits

Living a life of integrity is hard work. Following the path of spiritual growth is hard work. Awakening and staying mindful in each moment requires constant honesty. It’s exhausting (though sometimes also exhilarating), but it expands through all your relations and creates a lasting legacy. The benefits of integrity and wisdom compound over time.

—Franz Metcalf and BJ Gallagher, “Mindful Work”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 26, 2018

There is great delight in tuning through a variety of different methods, and really looking to each method to move you in its own unique way, but also keep opening you. So be very generous in your opening to methods, because if you bring to them a pure heart and a yearning to be free, they will serve you in that way.
The way you get your karmuppance with method, you use them for power, you get power. Then you are stuck with the power. If you use them to reinforce your separateness, you get left in your separateness.
I do my spiritual practices because I do my spiritual practices. What will happen will happen. Whether I will be free and enlightened now or in ten thousand births is of no concern to me. What difference does it make? What else do I have to do? I cannot stop anyway, so it does not make any difference to me. But one concern is to watch that you do not get trapped in your expectations of a practice.

- Ram Dass -

Via Lion´s Roar / Buddha’s Bicycle

Siddhartha taught that moral responsibility was an important tool for the prevention of dukkha or suffering. But, says Zachary Bremmer, clinging to the five precepts as law can cause more suffering than it prevents. Instead, we should approach the five precepts as training wheels to guide our practice.

The brilliance of the precepts is that they also work on a much more subtle level. The not so obvious benefit is that through our practice we are not only transforming externally by avoiding unskillful ways of acting but simultaneously transforming the internal structure of how we think about and react to certain situations. If I habitually give in to my cravings I will certainly suffer as a result because, as Mick Jagger pointed out, I can’t always get what I want. If I do not allow myself to be pulled around by these insatiable desires, though, I will become awakened to a new way of dealing with these feelings. I will begin to realize that I do not need to act on my lust for food or drink or objects. I will no longer be ruled by an endless cycle of grasping but rather simply take notice that I have certain desires and let them be. The precepts help to accomplish this.

Via Lion’s Roar / The Guidelines of Buddhism

I’m not sure I remember anymore what I was looking for when I first came to Buddhism — some kind of meditative lens, I suppose. But, what did I think that would really be? Whatever it was, I didn’t get it. I do remember, though, that I was not looking for some new set of moral guidelines. I was a fairly uptight kid already, and I think I saw in Buddhism a path toward loosening up a little, trying on a different me. So when I got handed the precepts, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. I’m sure I didn’t always interpret them according to their original spirit; honestly, I’ve always held them clumsily, with far more questions than answers. But I’ve never put them down since. The basic five go like this: Do not kill (refrain from destroying living creatures). Do not steal (refrain from taking what is not given). Do not misuse sex (refrain from sexual misconduct). Do not lie (refrain from incorrect speech). Do not indulge in intoxicants (refrain from substances that lead to carelessness). On the surface, these seem impossible to really uphold: the internet keeps telling me that I’m eating pounds of bugs in my sleep, as one example. And in today’s economy, how can we always know what is given or not given? If I click “Like” just to be supportive, is that a lie? At the same time, the precepts are ambiguous enough that we can, if we’re so inclined, weave some convincing stories about how the thing we most want to do is actually the exception to the rule. Eventually, they can become mere background noise. But they can also — if we remain open to what they mean in each new circumstance — provide a framework of questioning that turns the lens of this practice away from ourselves and toward how we can serve others. They can give us, at least in this moment, a place to stand.

—Koun Franz, deputy editor, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly

Via Daily Dharma: An Understanding That Will Change Your Life

Just understand your mind: how it works, how attachment and desire arise, how ignorance arises, where emotions come from... Just that gives so much happiness and peace.

—Lama Thubten Yeshe, “Chocolate Cake”

Pretty Privilege

Via Daily Dharma: A Culinary Delight

With cooking, you can use your awareness to inhabit physical movements that may be new... until, with practice, there is an invigorating flow of energy in those physical experiences, a delight. Such energy, focus, and wholehearted attention nourishes yourself and those you feed.

—Laura Fraser, “The Joy of Mindful Cooking”

Via Daily Dharma: Happiness is Here and Now

Happiness means feeling you are on the right path every moment. You don’t need to arrive at the end of the path in order to be happy.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Heart of the Matter”

Via Daily Dharma: Seeing through the Filter of Perception

Once perception occurs unfiltered, stripped of the habitual veil of automatic preconception, it is inherently fulfilling.

—Henry Shukman, “The Unfamiliar Familiar”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 22, 2018

For every teacher, every life experience, everything we notice in the universe is but a reflection of our attachments. That is just the way it works.

- Ram Dass -