Via NYT: How Gay Are You? A new film explores the many shades of human sexuality.

On a scale of one to 10, with one being “completely straight” and 10 being “completely gay,” what number are you?

Make the jump here to read the full article

Via Daily Dharma: Joyful Optimism

Buddhism is optimistic, joyful with the possibility of our liberation. We can find harmful tendencies in ourselves, begin to free ourselves from our conditioned responses, guilt, and grief. Individuals do this; communities do this; religions and nations can do this.

—Sallie Tisdale, “Lost Stories”

God loves all the people - April 2019

Via Daily Dharma: Knowing Our Mind

Don’t feel disturbed by the thinking mind. You are not practicing to prevent thinking, but rather to recognize and acknowledge thinking whenever it arises.

—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, “Observing Minds Want to Know”

Via Daily Dharma: Freshness in Every Moment

One of the hardest things to remember about practice is that we’ve truly never experienced this moment before.

—Alex Tzelnic, “How to Resist the Comfort of Repetition”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - April 28, 2019 💌

Don’t get caught in righteousness, don’t get caught in helping somebody. It doesn’t mean don’t help them, just don’t get caught in it… If you really want to help somebody, instead of just ripping off the experience of helping them for yourself, give up helping anybody. And then just be with them and see what happens.

- Ram Dass -

Via JustaBahai: R.I.P. My Friend

Sonja wrote:

April 26, 2019

My friend Lucas Lucas (17 years) started communicating with me in 2014 because of our common interest in Esperanto. He was living and studying in Brazil and had declared as a Bahai 3 months earlier through one of his professors who is a

Bahai. Upon learning that my main concern in the Bahai community was for the wellbeing of gay and lesbian Bahais, his response was: 

“Really?? This is new to me.”

 

To read the full article and more, make the jump here

Via Daily Dharma: Wise Emotion

We find the antidotes to our most painful states of mind by leaning directly into the emotion itself. Our emotions are full of wisdom. They are the keys for deepening our practice and our relationships with our world.

—Judith Simmer-Brown, “Transforming the Green-Ey’d Monster”

Via Daily Dharma: Justifying Ends and Means

In the Buddha’s teachings, the end and the means must share a similar voice; there has to be constructive engagement from the beginning. Finding ways to engage in direct communication and bring people together is both the process and the resolution.

—Christopher Titmuss, “Rising to the Challenge: A Step Toward Peace”

Via Betty Bowers / FB:

Via Daily Dharma: Return Again

Train to return to attention whenever you become aware that you are lost. And then just do it. Place attention and rest. Return and rest. Again and again.

—Ken McLeod, “Forget About Consistency”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - April 24, 2019 💌

The Chinese philosopher, Chung Tsu, said, “Know the clear, but remain in the tarnished.” Stay in the marketplace, but keep God there too. Remember—serve, love, remember. You’ve got to be in the marketplace and remember.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: A Joyful Mind

When our mind is undisturbed by any concept that might arise, the natural joy and clarity of the mind will dawn.

—Ogyen Trinley Dorje, “Calm Abiding”

Via FB:

Via Daily Dharma: You Are Worthy of Love

To see ourselves as just another person deserving love is a valuable exercise. Here we start to disidentify with ourselves, see ourselves in more objective terms. When we can see ourselves as just another imperfect human, equally deserving of love as anyone else, it becomes easier to offer love to ourselves.

—Kevin Griffin, “May All Beings Be Happy”

Via Daily Dharma: Giving Our All

There may be no greater sense of fulfillment in life than the simultaneous feelings of human interconnection and pure freedom that arise from an authentic act of selfless generosity.

—Dale S. Wright, “The Bodhisattva’s Gift”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - April 21, 2019 💌

It’s important to respect the intellect, not to demean it by any means, but to realize that it has taken control, when it should be a resource that’s available for you to use when you want to.
What has happened to me over the past several decades, I’m sure partly through psychedelics, partly through meditation, and through grace, and through evolution, is that when I don’t need to think about something my mind is empty. I’m not thinking. I’m just empty. I’m just here.
So that when you ask me a question, I stop for a moment. I go empty. I’m not thinking about the answer. I’m going empty because in the emptiness is the answer—a better answer than I can come up with when I use my analytic mind to figure out what I should say to you.

-Ram Dass -

CHOIR sings OM SO HUM Mantra (Must Listen)

Very, very beautiful! 'Soham' means I am That'. 'That' means the very source of creation. If you bring some awareness into to your breath, become conscious of it, every inhalation makes the sound 'SO' and exhalation has the sound 'HAM'. Try it and see. Our breath itself reminds us that we are part of something much bigger, we are THAT. We aren't individuals but life, there's just life all around. And fundamentally we are all ONE. But we are too caught up in our psychological drama. If only we look beyond that and see, the very way we live life will change. It'll be all inclusive. Which is the most beautiful way to be. :)

Via Daily Dharma: Taking the First Step

Even very basic beginning practice, like mindfulness of the breath or sound, begins to relieve suffering, reduce our stress levels, and motivate us to practice more.

—Interview with Mirabai Bush by Alex Caring-Lobel and Emma Varvaloucas, “Working with Mindfulness”