Via Daily Dharma: Compassion Starts Close to Home

Thinking of yourself first, when your goal is to help others, might seem counterintuitive, but in fact it is the only way it can work.

—Cyndi Lee, “May I Be Happy”

Via Daily Dharma: Stick with It

This is why we practice meditation—so that we can treat ourselves more compassionately; improve our relationships with friends, family, and community; live lives of greater connection; and, even in the face of challenges, stay in touch with what we really care about so we can act in ways that are consistent with our values.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Sticking with It”

Via Daily Dharma: Know Your Mind, Live Your Life

If you want to be happy, you have to check the way you lead your life. Your mind is your religion.

—Lama Thupten Yeshe, “Your Mind Is Your Religion”

Via Ram Dass

The final awakening is the embracing of the darkness into the light. That means embracing our humanity as well as our divinity. What we go from is being born into our humanity, sleepwalking for a long time, until we awaken and start to taste our divinity and then want to finally get free.

We see as long as we grab at our divinity and push away our humanity we aren’t free. If you want to be free, you can’t push away anything. You have to embrace it all. It’s all God.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: What’s at the Root of Happiness?

It takes some training to equate complete letting go with comfort. But in fact, “nothing to hold on to” is the root of happiness. There’s a sense of freedom when we accept that we’re not in control.

—Pema Chödrön, “The In-between State”

Via Daily Dharma: A Practitioner’s Basic Question

The basic problem is one of self-knowledge: do we really understand what motivates us?

—David Loy, “The Nonduality of Good and Evil”

Via Daily Dharma: We All Need External Support

Before meditating, we pay homage to what’s traditionally known as the three jewels [the Buddha, dharma, and sangha], which buttress our practice . . . We aren’t meant to go at it alone.

—Elizabeth Zach, “Health Care for All Beings”

Via Daily Dharma: Allow Space for Serenity

Many of us try to do so many things at once that there is no space for serenity. We wonder why we are unhappy, why we feel alienated. We just need to remember to practice relaxing into our life, in all its joys and sorrows, and to relinquish the need to know what’s going to happen next.

—Michele McDonald, “Finding Patience”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - March 18, 2018

  If I am in my soul, when I look at others, I see their souls. I still see the individual differences – men and women, rich and poor, attractive and unattractive, and all that stuff. But when we recognize each other as souls, we are seeing each other as aspects of the One. Love is the emotion of merging, of becoming One. Love is a way of pushing through into the One.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: You Are Not Your Thoughts

Simply see the natural phenomena of physical and mental events as they arise and pass away. They’re not you. They’re not really yours. You don’t have any real control over them.

—Upasika Kee Nanayon, “Tough Teachings to Ease the Mind”

Via Daily Dharma: Breathing Is an Anchor to Awareness

The breath changes and you change. Nothing stays the same, yet there is constancy. The breath reminds us that we are here and alive: let it be your anchor to the present moment.

—Elana Rosenbaum, “Guided Meditation: Awareness of Breathing”

Via Daily Dharma: Embodied Enlightenment

In its most ancient Buddhist form, meditation is a technique for letting go of the objectifying tendency of thought and of entering deeply and fully into communion with our embodied experience. And hence it leads to “touching enlightenment with the body.”

—Reggie Ray, “Touching Enlightenment”

tUnE-yArDs - Bizness (Official Video)

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - March 14, 2018

After one progresses in his or her sadhana, after meditation gets deeper, he or she lets go of the model of themselves more and more, and begins to touch and enter deeper into that space of love. One begins to experience love toward more and more people.

Sooner or later you are going to be in love with just the universe. You’ll be sitting in that place that is love where all is One. Then when you look at another being, you are looking at love. You are love, you are with love. You are then in the state of love with all beings. At this point you’ve given up all the stuff that’s going to pull you out of this place. At this point, all of the fear in a love relationship is dissipated.

- Ram Dass -

Tune-Yards - Heart Attack (Official Video)

Via Daily Dharma: Listen Closely

A useful technique for developing inner silence is recognizing the space between thoughts. Attend closely with sharp mindfulness when one thought ends and before another begins—there! That is silent awareness!

—Ajahn Brahm, “Stepping towards Enlightenment”

Via Daily Dharma: The Paradox of Practice

The weird thing is that the only way one really gets any of the most important benefits of meditation practice is by giving up on the notion that there are any benefits to meditation practice.

—Brad Warner, “Goalless Practice”

Via Daily Dharma: Wise Mindfulness

In the Buddhist path to nibbana, mindfulness is not about becoming a happier, better person. It’s not about “happiness” at all—at least not if “happiness” is understood as the fulfillment of desire. Mindfulness is, rather, about wisdom rooted in insight, renunciation, and unqualified self-surrender.

—C.W. Huntington, Jr., “Are You Looking to Buddhism When You Should Be Looking to Therapy?”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - March 11, 2018

Our human forms are composed of and surrounded by an infinite myriad of forms, all in constant motion, from the subatomic to the cosmic in scale. This is the lila, the enchanted dance of existence, the divine interplay of consciousness and energy. Amid this divine play we seek fulfillment, perfection, flow, freedom, enlightenment, Oneness.

The dominant quality of form is change, because all forms are in time. That’s another way of saying we don’t know what will happen from one instant to the next. Or, as one of my guru brothers are fond of saying, “Don’t be surprised to be surprised!” For instance, I didn’t anticipate I’d be living in a wheelchair today. The way to live with change is to be completely present in the moment (remember, Be Here Now).

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Find Your Refuge

A spiritual practice can be an island, a place where opening to uncertainty and doubt can lead us to a refuge of truth.

—Joan Halifax, “The Lucky Dark”

Via Daily Dharma: Relax and Let Be

When the thinking mind takes a break for even a few seconds, a kind of relaxed awareness replaces the usual stream of thoughts. We need to encourage this and not fill this space with anything else; just let it be.

—Tsultrim Allione, “Feeding Your Demons”

Via Daily Dharma: Embrace Impermanence with Mindfulness

When the winds of change reach hurricane force, our inner refuge of mindfulness, concentration, and discernment is the only thing that will keep us from getting blown away.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “What We’ve Been Practicing For”

Via Daily Dharma: Creating Your Karma

With your reaction to each experience, you create the karma that will color your future. It is up to you whether this new karma is positive or negative. You simply have to pay attention at the right moment.

—Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche, “The Power of the Third Moment”

Olympic Ice Skater Adam Rippon on Being a Hero for LGBTQ Youth

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - March 7, 2018

Over the years we develop strong habits of perceiving the universe, and we come to be very secure within these habits. We selectively perceive our environment in ways that reinforce them. This collection of habits is what we call ego. But meditation breaks the ego down. As we begin to see through it we can become confused as to what reality is. What once seemed absolute now begins to seem relative.

When this happens, some people get confused; others fear they may be going insane. The best strategy for dealing with this disorientation is to note it and let it be. The path to freedom is through detachment from your old habits of ego.

Slowly you will arrive at a new and more profound integration of your experience in a more evolved structure of the universe. That is, you will flow beyond the boundaries of your ego until ultimately you merge into the universe. Until then you must break through old structures, develop broader structures, break through those, and develop still broader structures.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Independence Is No Longer an Option

In an increasingly interconnected and transparent world, no form of Buddhism can afford to be an island.

—Stephen Batchelor, “Lessons of History”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - March 4, 2018

People often say to me, “I would really like to do sadhana, but…I’m a teacher now. If I could only finish being a teacher, I could do sadhana.”

BALONEY! You’re either doing sadhana or you’re not. Sadhana is a full time thing that you do because there is nothing else to do. You do it whether you’re teaching, or sitting in a monastery…whether you’re lying in bed, going to the toilet, making love, eating…EVERYTHING is part of waking up. Everything is done without attachment. Another way of saying it is: It’s all done as consecrated action….it’s all dedicated…it’s all sacred.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Mind Can, Should, and Must Be Fixed

From a Buddhist perspective, even if all material problems could be solved, suffering would remain. The world is unfixable, said Buddha. Happiness depends, ultimately, only on the mind; it is the mind that can, should, and must be fixed.

—Linda Heuman, “Who’s Got Good News?”

Via 12 of 22 Daily Dharma: Right Concentration

Concentration is “right” when it demonstrates the feasibility of training the mind, when it supports the investigation of impermanence, when it erodes selfish preoccupation, and when it reveals the benefits of surrender. It is not “right” when it is seen as an end in itself and when it is used to avoid painful truths.

—Mark Epstein, “Meditation’s Secret Ingredient”

Via Daily Dharma: Diligence Begets Discovery

All the qualities that the great masters found, we can attain as well. It all depends on our own efforts, our diligence, our deeper knowing, and our correct motivation.

—Ogyen Trinley Dorje, “Calm Abiding”

Via Daily Dharma: Anything but Static

The more I sit, the more I simply see things. I see that life, my life, is an ongoing process.

—Connie Hillard, “Making Time”

Via Daily Dharma: Accepting Groundlessness

Our lives are gradual paths of groundlessness. When we can accept that people and things are always shifting and changing, our hearts can open.

—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “The Hunger for Home”

Via Daily Dharma: Live Life in Full

Death is all around us, everywhere. For the most part—following the lead of our culture—we avoid it. But if we do open our hearts to this fact of our lives, it can be a great help to us. It can teach us how to live.

—Larry Rosenberg, “Only the Practice of Dharma Can Help Us at the Time of Death”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 28, 2018

Individual differences are not better or worse, merely different. If we forgo judging, we come to understand that each of us has a unique predicament that requires a unique journey. While we share the overall journey, everyone's particular experiences are his or her own. No set of experiences is a prerequisite for enlightenment. People have become enlightened in all ways. Just be what you are.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Ultimate Inclusiveness

Compassion is the ultimate inclusiveness, arising whenever we overcome the illusion of our separateness from others.

—Henry Shukman, “Is the Dharma Democratic?”

Via Tricycle: An Interview with Zen Priest Greg Snyder on Brooklyn Zen Center’s Undoing Patriarchy Sangha

Brooklyn Zen Center’s Undoing Patriarchy and Unveiling the Sacred Masculine group is a response to the unacknowledged forms of patriarchy that exist within Buddhist communities as well as society at large. Co-facilitated by Greg Snyder, co-founder and president of BZC and senior director of Buddhist Studies at Union Theological Seminary, and Lama Rod Owens, guiding teacher for Radical Dharma Boston Collective, the group meets monthly and had its second annual weekend retreat in January.

Here, Snyder speaks about how Buddhists can use their practice to confront patriarchy rather than conform to it.

Zen priest Greg Snyder

Why did you start this group? 

Our first retreat, which Lama Rod Owens and I co-led in January 2017, was an attempt to address the fact that patriarchy is still thriving in the Buddhist tradition despite the tools for self-examination that Buddhism presents us with. During that retreat, we tried to examine internalized patriarchal masculinity the same way we’d examine greed, hate, and delusion. The participants came out with a desire to meet regularly, so we started the monthly group. 

The purpose is similar to that of BZC’s monthly Undoing Whiteness and Oppression group. Undoing Patriarchy is just a group of men who are trying to take responsibility for how they represent their gender identity.

Has the group changed over time?

It became evident right away that we should understand masculinity as an energy rather than something tied to a particular body. From there we’ve been trying to find a nonviolent, loving expression of that energy. 

As the group continued, it became more obvious that supporting one another is extremely important. These are cisgender and transgender men with many different racial identities, but there is a feeling of love in the room despite all the violence expressed historically between the various groups. This loving connection is one of the most critical pieces of undoing the typical male relationship, which usually involves hierarchy, competition, and apathy toward each other.

Make the jump here to read the full article and more on Tricycle

Via Daily Dharma: Do the Right Thing—with Ease

A noble person does not do good because of willpower. She does it through a combination of, on the one hand, modesty about self, and, on the other hand, faith in a higher purpose, a higher meaning, in powers more potent than self-will.

—David Brazier, “Other-Power”

I Quit!

Via Daily Dharma: To Be Home Is To Be Known

Home cannot be an experience of shame, terror, or rejection, but rather one of safety, freedom, and respect, an experience of love and being embrace, of being known and knowing who you are.

—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “The Hunger for Home”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 25, 2018

Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Spiritual Practice and the Bigger Picture

Through spiritual practice we can go beyond our egoistic point of view. We can touch the core of time, see the whole world in a moment, and understand time in deep relationship with all beings.

—Dainin Katagiri Roshi, “Time Revisited”

Via Daily Dharma: Being Truly Human

Freedom from identity is what allows and enables us to be truly human—to be an ongoing response to the challenges, demands, and needs of life.

—Ken McLeod, “Forget About Being A Buddhist. Be A Human.”

Via Daily Dharma: How Do You Relate to the World?

Stretching our capacity for loving-friendliness sometimes requires that we make a great sacrifice—but what we sacrifice are our comfort, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. In other words, we sacrifice our old way of relating to the world.

—Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Overcoming Ill Will”

Via Daily Dharma: The Antidote to Hatred

Lovingkindness is the antidote to hatred. That is why cultivating it is so beneficial. The practice is about your being able to access and cultivate the healthiest parts of yourself, without allowing anyone to obstruct that.

—Andrew Olendzki, “No Exceptions”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 21, 2018

  Did you ever have a bad day? Everything seems to go wrong and you are completely lost in anger, frustration and self-pity. It gets worse and worse, until the final moment when, say, you have just missed the last bus. There is some critical point where it gets so bad that the absurdity of it all overwhelms you and you can do nothing but laugh. At that moment you uplevel your predicament, you see the cosmic joke in your own suffering.

Humor puts things in perspective. There are many levels of humor - there is a humor of survival, a humor of sex and gratification, a humor connected with power. Beyond all these there is a humor that is filled with compassion. It is reflected in the tiny upturn in the mouth of the Buddha, for he sees the humor in the universal predicament: All beings are lost in illusion, yet he knows that they will awaken from that illusion for they are, at heart, already enlightened. He knows that what seems so hard for them is, from another perspective, their own path to liberation.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Don’t Go It Alone

The sangha speaks to the idea that self-reliance can manifest only when we ourselves are in good health—we aren’t meant to go at it alone.

—Elizabeth Zach, “Health Care for All Beings”

Via Daily Dharma: A Living Tradition

We now have a choice, even if we want to insist on cleaving to Buddhist tradition. Do we emphasize the more authoritarian parts of the tradition, or the more democratic ones?

—James Kierstead, “Democratic from the Start”

Via Daily Dharma: Buddhist Politics

A Buddhist would not hesitate to vote for legislation and political candidates devoted to peace, to undoing injustice, reducing duhkha in its myriad manifestations, healing society’s wounds, and preserving individual freedoms and the environment.

—Charles Johnson, “Accepting the Invitation”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 18, 2018

Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Everyday Presence

Presence need not be confined to the time spent sitting on our meditation cushion. Every single moment provides an opportunity to relax the tension in the body and unconscious thought patterns in the mind.

—Will Johnson, “Full Body, Empty Mind”