Via Daily Dharma: Are You Awake?

We lose something very vital in our life when it’s more important to us to be one who knows than it is to be awake to what’s happening.

—Zenkei Blanche Hartman, “The Zen of Not Knowing”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 5, 2017

We can't be afraid of making errors. We may choose the wrong teacher; we may get into a method that's no good. Many things can happen. We make errors; we correct them if we can, without hurting another being's spiritual opportunities.

There is another rule for this game: we may never use one soul for another. If our journey to God is keeping another being from going to God, forget it. We're never going to get there. It's as simple as that.

-  Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Human Intelligence Is a Gift; Use It Wisely

So long as we remember that we have this marvelous gift of human intelligence and a capacity to develop determination and use it in positive ways, we will preserve our underlying mental health.

—The Dalai Lama, “Countering Stress and Depression”

Via Tricycle / Why Trees Are The Ultimate Meditation Teachers

In Buddhism, trees have long been recognized as living things worthy of recognition and protection.

"A meditation teacher once advised me to look to the example trees set as steady, observant beings. “They are excellent meditators,” she said. “They sit in one spot for decades, watching all that goes by.” In his book The Island Within, anthropologist Richard Nelson described trees in a similar manner. “The dark boughs reach out above me and encircle me like arms. I feel the assurance of being recognized, as if something powerful and protective is aware of my presence . . .  I am never alone in this forest of elders, this forest of eyes.”

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Via Daily Dharma: You Are Not Alone

The absence of self—this emptiness—is not a thing that we can feel. It is, rather, more of a vehicle to help us understand our intrinsic connectedness with all things. This teaching can remind us that even though we may feel alone or isolated at times, we are not.

—Lauren Krauze, “Why Trees Are the Ultimate Meditation Teachers”

The Hope Speech | Figures of Speech

Via Daily Dharma: Perfect Your Love, Not Yourself

It is important during such dispiriting times to recall the infinity of small actions that support what is good in life.

—James Shaheen, “Unhistoric Acts”

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Via Daily Dharma: Lovingkindness Starts Close to Home

Although we are aiming at an all-inclusive lovingkindness unrestricted by the partiality that divides the world into “mine” and “yours,” it needs to start with simple, uncontrived loving feelings toward those closest to us.

—Lama Jampa Thaye, “Bringing It All Back Home”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 1, 2017

We can take our lives exactly as they are in this moment; it is a fallacy to think that we're necessarily going to get closer to God by changing the form of our lives, by leaving so-and-so, or changing our jobs, or moving, or whatever...by giving up our stereos, or cutting off our hair, or growing our hair, or shaving our beards, or...

It isn't the form of the game; it's the nature of the being that fulfills the form. If I'm a lawyer, I can continue being a lawyer. I merely use being a lawyer as a way of coming to God. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: What Is Boundless Compassion?

Boundless compassion, which is distinct from being overwhelmed by emotion, is the wish that everyone everywhere be free of pain and its causes.

—Anne C. Klein, “The Four Immeasurables”

Via Daily Dharma: Don't Feed Your Demons

When many demons are struggling inside you, the one that you feed is the one that will become the strongest. You alone are responsible for what you feed.

—Wendy Egyoku Nakao Roshi, “Hold to the Center!”

Via Daily Dharma: Engaged, but Not Busy

Though we usually associate busyness with activity and speed, and lack of busyness with stopping or slowing down, this is not always the case. It is possible to be actively engaged and not be busy.

—Marc Lesser, “Do Less, Accomplish More”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 29, 2017

People ask me if I believe there is continuity after death. I say that I don't believe it - it just is. This offends my scientific friends to no end. But belief is something you hold with your intellect, and for me this goes way beyond my intellect.

The Bhagavad Gita also tells us, "As the Spirit of our mortal body wanders on in childhood and youth and old age, the Spirit wanders on to a new body: of this the sage has no doubts." As Krishna says, "Because we all have been for all time... And we all shall be for all time, we all for ever and ever." 

-  Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Tradition's Symbolic Truths

My own teacher . . . said that learning that many of her traditional beliefs were not historically accurate only made her think more deeply about their spiritual meaning. This is really the point. When we cease to confuse history and stories, when we look at traditional stories outside the context of literal truth and sectarian debate, we are freer to appreciate the imaginative truths they convey.

—Rita Gross, “The Matter of Truth”

Via Daily Dharma: Treating Fear with Wisdom

In spiritual life, the problem with fear lies in whether we have the wisdom to respond well to it.

—Dharmavidya David Brazier, “The Gift of Fear”

Via Daily Dharma: Happiness Requires a Foundation in Compassion

Trying to build happiness on a foundation of ego is like trying to build a tower on quicksand.

—Pamela Gayle White, “A Slow, True Path”

Via Daily Dharma: What We Want: Love and Respect

Everyone wants love and care, but, more than these, human beings want respect for who they are.

—Dzigar Kongtrul, “Old Relationships, New Possibilities”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 25, 2017

Who you think you are will always be frightened of change. But it doesn't make any difference to who you truly are. 

-  Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Dharma Is an Exhaustible Well

Some people think by giving everything away, you end up with nothing. But the dharma is an inexhaustible well. However much you give of it, you can always go back for more.

—Master Sheng-Yen, “Rich Generosity”

Via Daily Dharma: The Three Most Basic Fears

Every negative emotion, every drama, comes down to one or more of the three most basic fears: the fear of losing safety and control, the fear of aloneness and disconnection, and the fear of unworthiness.

—Ezra Bayda, “The Three Things We Fear Most"

Harvey Fierstein with Barbara Walters on 20/20 (1983)

Via Scientific American: Homophobes Might Be Hidden Homosexuals

A new analysis of implicit bias and explicit sexual orientation statements may help to explain the underpinnings of anti-gay bullying and hate crimes

Credit: Wikimedia Commons/thaths

Homophobes should consider a little self-reflection, suggests a new study finding those individuals who are most hostile toward gays and hold strong anti-gay views may themselves have same-sex desires, albeit undercover ones.

The prejudice of homophobia may also stem from authoritarian parents, particularly those with homophobic views as well, the researchers added.

"This study shows that if you are feeling that kind of visceral reaction to an out-group, ask yourself, 'Why?'" co-author Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, said in a statement. "Those intense emotions should serve as a call to self-reflection."

The research, published in the April 2012 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, reveals the nuances of prejudices like homophobia, which can ultimately have dire consequences. [The 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors]

"Sometimes people are threatened by gays and lesbians because they are fearing their own impulses, in a sense they 'doth protest too much,'" Ryan told LiveScience. "In addition, it appears that sometimes those who would oppress others have been oppressed themselves, and we can have some compassion for them too, they may be unaccepting of others because they cannot be accepting of themselves."

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Via Daily Dharma: Create a Sacred Space

Most of us cannot afford a separate room for zazen [Zen meditation], but all of us can make a corner sacred.

—Robert Aitken, “Setting Up Your Home Altar”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 22, 2017

One doesn’t have to beat down one’s ego for God. That isn’t the way it works. The ego isn’t in the way. It’s how we are holding the ego. It is much better to just do the spiritual practices and open to God and love God and trust your intuitive heart. As the transformation happens, the ego then becomes this beautiful instrument that’s available to you to deal with the world. It’s not in the way anymore.  

-Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Buddhism in a Shell

Buddhism is nothing other than a set of practices to open up the mysteries of the human heart.

—Reggie Ray, “Looking Inward, Seeing Outward”

Via Daily Dharma: Don't Confuse Awakening with Bliss

There may be bliss with awakening, because it is actually a by-product of awakening, but it is not awakening itself. As long as we are chasing the byproducts of awakening, we will miss the real thing.

—Adyashanti, “Bliss Is a By-Product”

Via Sri Preem Baba

Via Daily Dharma: Do You Know Where to Look for Spiritual Awareness?

There is always a need for experience and knowledge rooted in traditions, but it is not a spiritual given that these are the places where peace, union, and spiritual awareness are found.

—bell hooks, “Waking Up to Racism”

Via Lionsroar / Buddhist author George Saunders wins Man Booker Prize for “Lincoln in the Bardo”

George Saunders has won the Man Booker Prize — awarded for the best original novel published in the UK — for his novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Saunders is a Buddhist, and his novel is based on the idea of bardo, the Tibetan Buddhist concept of a state between death and life.

The book tells the story of Abraham Lincoln visiting the crypt of his son, William, who died at age 11. In an interview, Saunders told Lion’s Roar editor-in-chief Melvin McLeod:

“I’d been reading some Buddhist texts and was aware of the bardo as a sort of transitional state between the moment when you die and the moment you’re reincarnated. That struck me as an interesting way to destabilize the usual ghost story.”

On announcing the award, Baroness Lola Young, chair of the Man Booker Prize, said, “The form and style of this utterly original novel reveals a witty, intelligent, and deeply moving narrative.”
Young said that Lincoln in the Bardo stood out from the other books shortlisted for the prize, “because of its innovation – its very different styling and the way in which it paradoxically brought to life these not-quite-dead souls in this other world.”


In 2014, Saunders gave a convocation speech at Syracuse University that went viral and was adapted into a book. Shortly afterward, he spoke with McLeod, and explained how Buddhism comes into his writing:

“In my writing work, I’ve noticed that if you do anything with real intensity, and with a real interest in the truth of the matter, then it ends up being dharmic somehow. If you’re really, really interested in the truth, then you’ll end up with something that looks and feels very much like dharma.”

The Man Booker is widely regarded as one of the top prizes in fiction, assuring success and renown for its winners.


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Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 18, 2017

When you look back at the suffering in your own life, each time you would have avoided it if you possibly could. And yet, when you look at the depth of your character now, isn’t part of that a product of those experiences? Weren’t those experiences part of what created the depth of your inner being?

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Don't Mix Rigidity with Meditation

Global rules, where you have to do the same thing in all instances, are not as helpful as rules that have specific contexts in which they are used.

—Jason Siff, “The Problem with Meditation Instructions”

Via Daily Dharma: Mind the Gap (between Object and Mind)

Nonself only begins to be clear when the illusion of seamlessness disappears and we experience the gaps in the continuity, when we actually see the mind and its object arising and dying together from instant to instant.

—Cynthia Thatcher, “Disconnected the Dots”

Via Daily Dharma: Struggle Can Lead to Future Courage

For anyone working to become more courageous, suffering can become an ideal source of growth. An indolent life without hardship of any kind is just like an empty ship, easily overturned by a storm.

—Khenpo Sodargye, “Working through Suffering”

Via LA Times

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=ce876b05-e3b0-4bb1-af97-6da6ef599f0e

Via Daily Dharma: Learn When to Quit

Strange as it may seem, stopping is as much an important aspect of practice as starting.

—Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, “The Aim of Attention”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 15, 2017

To see through the veil of what our senses and thinking minds make real, to the true self, feels often like the highest aspiration of humanity. When we do this, it’s as if we find our rightful place in the order of things. We begin to recognize a harmony that’s been waiting for us to feel and once we do this, it’s not only for the life hereafter or some abstract thing for later, it’s for now, and for the way in which we live our lives day by day.

-  Ram Dass -

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 11, 2017

Being peacefully in relationship to everything made me realize that my happiness isn’t based on the situation being 'this way' or 'that way' – my happiness is one which embraces my sadness, and my love is one which embraces my own hate…

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Meditation Off the Cushion

When I put so much stock in formal meditation, I forget that it’s only one way of helping me see the magic that surrounds me and that is me.

—Barry Evans, “I Like It ...but Is It Meditation?”

Via Daily Dharma: Attention Reveals Connection

Paying attention provides the gift of noticing and the gift of connecting. It provides the gift of seeing a little bit of ourselves in others, and of realizing that we’re not so awfully alone.

—Sharon Salzberg, “A More Complete Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: Everyone Has a Purpose

Each of us has something to do in this lifetime; we have to find out what it is and do it.

—Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, “No Excuses”

Via Daily Dharma: Forgiving Yourself Be Done

One of the most difficult people to forgive can be yourself. Yet with patience and gentle determination, it can be done.

—Allan Lokos, “Lighten Your Load”

Via Daily Dharma: Resist the Mental Clock

Meditation teaches us to be wary of allowing ideas of time to interfere with our activity. Through experience, we discover how not to lose our self, but instead to be fully engaged in the “doing” of whatever it is we decided that we must do.

—Les Kaye, “The Time Is Now”

Via Daily Dharma: Let Go Strategically

The key is not to grasp, or swim against the tide, but to go along and allow the elements to balance. By skillfully and strategically letting go, I can safely reach the shore.

—Kim Larrabee, “Drowning on My Cushion”

Via Daily Dharma: Inner Simplicity

Our lives may be complicated on the outside, but we remain simple, easy, and open on the inside.

—Tsoknyi Rinpoche, “Allow for Space”

Via 3 of 7 Daily Dharma: Maintain Clarity by Being Present

Confusion proliferates when we can’t stay present with whatever we encounter.

—Elizabeth Mattis, “Open Stillness”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - October 4, 2017

If you want to be in a peaceful world, you damn well better be peaceful, because if you are full of anger you are not going to bring about much peace.

The qualities in yourself determine what qualities are in the world.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Uncover Your Limiting Beliefs

The moment you leave the circumstances you’ve grown accustomed to, you are in foreign territory, and it’s easier to realize how much narrow-mindedness you are carrying around, including all your opinions, judgments, habits, and so on.

—Dawa Tarchin Phillips, “What to Do When You Don't Know What's Next”

Leonard Cohen - Leaving the Table

For more about Cohen’s life and his relationship to Zen Buddhism, read Pico Iyer’s “Leonard Cohen Burns, and We Burn With Him.”

Via Daily Dharma: Discipline Is Wedded to Joy

Without spiritual discipline we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.

—Joan Gattuso, “The Balancing Buddha”