Embodying the Healing Mother
By Mindy Newman
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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.
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While we may not recognize it at the time of a traumatic event, life-changing suffering has a way of being an opening to a greater understanding of life. The “mud” and mess of our most painful experiences can become the fertile ground for the blossoming of our understanding and self-compassion.
The way you work in doing SÄdhanÄ is that every act you perform becomes a
method of taking you to this other state of consciousness. You are
trying to change your perceptual vantage point and everything you do has
to be a device to take you to that place. From a Western point of view,
you are doing a complete cognitive reorganization. You are changing
your reference point, changing the core concept around which the whole
constellation is built. - Ram Dass
Today is the last day to register for the upcoming "Cookbook for a
Sacred Life" 21-Day e-course that begins tomorrow, September 13th.
Registration closes at 9pm PDT tonight. Sign up here!
Remember that whatever you observe, whether it’s in the body or the mind, whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant, it’s helpful to hold the view that “this is just nature, this is just a process.” This is the only difference between someone who is meditating and someone who is not meditating.
Died
MARK BINGHAM, passenger on United Airlines Flight 93, died (b. 1970) Bingham is believed to have been among the passengers who attempted to storm the cockpit to try to prevent the hijackers from using the plane to kill hundreds or thousands of additional victims on September 11, 2001. He made a brief cell phone call to his mother, Alice Hoagland, shortly before the plane went down. Hoagland, a former flight attendant with United Airlines, later left a voice mail message on his cell phone, instructing Bingham to reclaim the aircraft after it became apparent that Flight 93 was to be used in a suicide mission.
Bingham was survived by his former boyfriend of six years, Paul Holm, who says this was not the first time Bingham risked his life to protect the lives of others. In fact, he had twice successfully protected Holm from attempted muggings, one of which was at gunpoint. Holm describes Bingham as a brave, competitive man, saying, "He hated to lose — at anything." He was even known to proudly display a scar he received after being gored at the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
A large athlete at 6 ft 4 in and 225 pounds, he also played for the San Francisco Fog, a rugby union team. The biennial Gay Rugby tournament is named in his honor (the Bingham Cup).
Accept whatever the mind is doing, and let it settle on its own.
Whatever is happening right now is exactly what we need to be receptive to. What’s arising for you moment-by-moment, in this moment, is exactly our practice.
Mount Shasta Prophecy, the Dream of Gaia
It can be hard to tell what’s a failure and what’s just something that is shifting your life in a different direction. In other words, failure can be the portal to creativity, to learning something new, to having a fresh perspective.
Forget about things done or left to do. Forget about deadlines and milestones, profits and quotas. Those will be taken care of—they always are. So don’t worry. Whenever a being appears in front of you, just love them. That is your focus. That’s where the real work lies.