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.
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
By Ken McLeod
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Via Daily Dharma: Let Go of Pride
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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Compassion
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Monday, November 6, 2023
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering
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Via Daily Dharma: How to Tell the Future
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Sunday, November 5, 2023
Poem: Please Call Me By My True Names By Thich Nhat Hanh
Poem: Please Call Me By My True Names
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am also the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - November 5, 2023 💌
“We can harness the awareness of death to appreciate the fact that we
are alive, to encourage self-exploration, to clarify our values, to find
meaning, and to generate positive action. It is the impermanence of
life that gives us perspective. As we come in contact with life’s
precarious nature, we also come to appreciate its preciousness. Then we
don’t want to waste a minute. We want to enter our lives fully and use
them in a responsible way. Death is a good companion on the road to
living well and dying without regret.”
- Frank Ostaseski, from his book The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
>> Join Frank TOMORROW, Monday, 11/6 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET for a special livestream on Inviting the Wisdom of Death into Life
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and the First Jhāna
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