Via Daily Dharma: A Gift Beyond Value

When we stop being busy and productive and switch to just being still and aware, we ourselves will also feel support, intimacy, and happiness, even if no one else is around. These positive feelings are a product that is much desired but that cannot be bought.

—Jan Chozen Bays, “The Gift of Waiting”

Via Words of Wisdom - December 23, 2018 🌟 Inbox x

The minute you project a future, you've just trapped yourself in your mind. You say, "Well, I'm gonna get enlightened next December," then that changes everything you do until then, and then in December you're going to have to give up that model anyway. It's like those guys who said the end of the world would come. When the end of the world didn't come, they were confronted with the fact that they had been caught in their own minds.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Taking the First Step

This wish for perfect enlightenment for the sake of others is what we call bodhicitta, and it is the starting point on the path. By becoming aware of what enlightenment is, one understands not only that there is a goal to accomplish but also that it is possible to do so.

—H.H. the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, “The Bodhisattva Vow: Eight Views”

Via Daily Dharma: Renewal

From the macro to the micro, life seems to suggest that renewal is not only possible but also the great way of all things.

—Taylor Plimpton, “Starting Over, Again”

Via Daily Dharma: Keeping Our Balance

Equanimity acts like the ballast of a ship. Although the ship is blown one way or the other by the winds of life, it neither sinks nor goes too far off-course.

—Christopher Willard, “How Parents and Children Can Learn Balance and Equanimity from the Eight Worldly Winds”

Via Lion's Roar: Nichiren Shonin: A Teacher of Equality

I see all living beings equally.
I have no partiality for them.
There is not “this one” or “that one” to me.
I transcend love and hatred.

I am attached to nothing.
I am hindered by nothing.
I always expound the dharma
To all living beings equally.
I expound the dharma to many
In the same way as to one.

I always expound the dharma.
I do nothing else.
I am not tired of expounding the dharma
While I go or come or sit or stand.
I expound the dharma to all living beings
Just as the rain waters all the earth.

—Lotus Sutra, Murano version 

Make the jump here to read the full article

Via Daily Dharma: Greet Fear with Curiosity

When fear arises, practice can be a very powerful aid to the whole spirit. Don’t be afraid of the fear. Be curious.

—Interview with Rick Fields, “In Light of Death”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 19, 2018 🌟

Everybody you know, you see, you remember, you will meet, is another face of God, is another doorway through. Is another way that God has come to you to awaken your attachments, to bring them to the forefront, to allow you to see through them.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Finding Meaning in the Moment

Abandoning any hope of fruition does not mean abandoning our projects and ambitions. Instead it points to a way of going about things that is present focused rather than fixated on results.

—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Abandon Any Hope of Fruition”

Via Daily Dharma: Illuminating the Mind

When addressed skillfully, darker energies can be resolved and transmuted—to become powerful guardians of the dharma, supporting us as we find our way through the often turbulent waters of the psyche.

—Lawson Sachter and Sunya Kjolhede, “The Mind’s Dragons”

Via Daily Dharma: Find Joy in Being Here

Renunciation, though often understood to mean “giving up,” is, more accurately, the willingness to experience things as they are, not as we want them to be. Here you discover true freedom, the deep, quiet joy that has always been present in you.

—Ken McLeod, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 16, 2018 🌟

For a relationship to remain as Living Spirit, one of the best ingredients to put into the stew is truth. Gandhi spent his life in what he called experiments in truth. Learning how to just be straight.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Letting Go and Reaching Out

If we’re able to catch an angry thought as it’s budding, we can let it go. The same is true of despair or hopelessness. And when letting go is too difficult, a good medicine for dealing with these emotions is to reach out and help others, healing them and ourselves.

—John Daido Loori Roshi, “Between Two Mountains”

Via Daily Dharma: A Recipe for Compassion

It is not sufficient merely to see that sentient beings are suffering. You must also develop a sense of closeness with them, a sense that they are dear. With that combination—seeing that people suffer and thinking of them as dear—you can develop compassion.

—Jeffrey Hopkins, “Everyone as a Friend”

Via Daily Dharma: Cultivating Insightful Curiosity

We need to be able to utilize the positive energy of wondering, of wanting to know the truth for ourselves and working to do that, and not get lost in cynicism or endless speculation.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Sitting on the Fence”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 12, 2018 🌟

The Living Spirit, the Beloved, is always right here. It is merely your mind that prevents you from acknowledging its existence. The minute you either quiet your mind or take your heart and open it out so that it draws your mind along with it, only then do you rend the veil and do you see that the Beloved is right there.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Right Time for Meditation

You should not limit your meditation to only in the morning or only in the evening: you should do it any time, all the time. Practice time is always now—it’s never in the future.

—Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, “Do Nothing”

Via Daily Dharma: Seeing Things Clearly

What’s the world? [It’s] any preoccupation that gets you stirred up, that disturbs you right now… If it arises in the mind, make yourself understand: The world is nothing but a preoccupation. Preoccupations obscure the mind so that it can’t see itself.

—Ajahn Chah, “The Last Gift”

Via Tmblr: Map of Homosexual Rights Worldwide

Via Daily Dharma: Effortless Ease

Perhaps the greatest irony of healing is that it occurs when we accept our felt experience, rather than rely on willpower or focused effort to get rid of the unwanted.

—Josh Korda, “A Safe Container for Fear”

Via Daily Dharma: Inside-Out Happiness

The Buddha taught that true happiness, or fulfillment, is independent of outer causes and conditions. So for Buddhists, the pursuit of happiness involves training in looking inward.

—Pamela Gayle White, “The Pursuit of Happiness”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 9, 2018 🌟

For a long time I thought truth had to mean only words, but it doesn't. There are truths that are only communicated in silence. And you have to figure out when to use words and when to use silence, because the absolute truth is silent.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: An Invitation to Kindness

Imagine for a moment that everything you are experiencing is your very, very best friend saying hello… Such a hello is much more than just a passing handshake or kiss on the cheek… The sights and sounds around us when fully acknowledged are quite an invitation indeed.

—Michael Carroll, “Gently Bowing”

Via Daily Dharma: Looking Deeply Into Life

Concentration will bring stability, stillness, and spaciousness; inquiry will bring alertness, vividness, brightness, and clarity. Combined, they will help you to develop creative awareness, an ability to bring a meditative mind to all aspects of your daily life.

—Martine Batchelor, “A Refuge Into Being”

Via Daily Dharma: The True Value of Waking Up

Every moment of heightened consciousness is precious beyond price, for awareness is the primary currency of the human condition.

—Lama Surya Das, “Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now”

The Bahá'í Faith is Homophobic

A few months ago I wrote this letter to the National Spiritual Assembly of Brasil:

A Assembléia Espiritual Nacional dos Bahá'ís do Brasil

Sede Nacional

SHIS QL 08 Conjunto 2
casa 15 - Lago Sul
CEP 71625-220 Brasília/DF

Dear Bahá’í Friends,

My name is Daniel Orey. I live in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais. Both my husband and I have been professors here at the Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto since 2011.

In 2009, when we were still living in Sacramento, California my voting rights were removed because of my marriage (08.08.08) to Milton, my non-Bahá’í Brazilian husband.  I later resigned from the Faith because I was hurt by feeling treated as a 2^nd class citizen by the Bahá´ís, and our deep disappointment with the Bahá’í Administration in regard to its inability to welcome and protect all people from prejudice.

 

I am still happily married and living with my husband here in Ouro Preto, in fact, this year we are celebrating our 20^th anniversary together, and our 10^th as a legally married couple. The Brazilian government has allowed me a permanent visa because of our marriage and I have applied for dual citizenship. The Consulate General of Brazil in San Francisco and the Federal Police have always been encouraging, inclusive and welcoming to us, I spoke about this in 2013 in a TEDx talk, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZNPNEgmUs

My husband and I are both tenured professors. Together we have spoken at numerous international congresses, and participate in research groups in Costa Rica, Peru, Chile, Nepal, Ohio and California. No one, but the Bahá’ís, seem to have a problem with our status as a legally married couple.

Recently, when discussing this dilemma with a gay Bahá’í, he informed me that now, there is more tolerance within the Bahá’í community for gays and lesbians. He said he was discussing this with other LGBTq Brazilian Bahá’ís and that there is no problem anymore with LGBTq Bahá’ís and that we would be welcome and will not face any prejudice.

I am somewhat surprised by this.

My point in writing is this, I am curious if the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Brasil is able to respect my marriage to my non-Bahá’í husband and therefore accept me and other LGBTq people in similar circumstances, that is as full members of the community. In so doing, would I be required to divorce my husband?

Thank you so very much for your time.

THEIR RESPONSE IS BELOW

 
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Via Daily Dharma: Reaping the Rewards

Whoever you are, if you have a true and sincere mind, if you are not careless in the least, if you do not go along with what worldly people do, but do the contrary, then you will be able to attain the benefit of Buddhism.

—Master Hsuan Hua, “After the Monastery”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 5, 2018 🍁

 

I would say that most of us stay locked in our separateness and we are very frightened of coming out of it, we feel very vulnerable. In truth you’re not vulnerable at all. Who you think you are is vulnerable. Who you are is not vulnerable. This is the truth of it.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Complete in Connectedness

Pervading all is a groundless awareness, delicate and strong at the same time. Everything becomes we, a beating heart with a transparent, radiant smile. And we are awake.

—Judith Simmer-Brown, “Insomnia”

Via Daily Dharma: The Subtlety of Effort

There’s no switch that turns on enlightenment. You move toward it with your effort. It’s an effort that might be unrecognizable to those who think “effort” means trying hard. You have to try soft—to be curious and open to whatever it is that results.

—Nancy Thompson, “Being Held by the Dharma”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - December 2, 2018 🍁

Part of your curriculum with aging is to shift your game in order to honor the systems of which you're a part so that you finish your work on earth. In other words, you get free. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Middle Path

Anyone who enjoys inner peace is no more broken by failure than he is inflated by success. He is able to fully live his experiences in the context of a vast and profound serenity, since he understands that experiences are ephemeral and that it is useless to cling to them.

—Matthieu Ricard, “A Way of Being”

Via Daily Dharma: Find the Middle Way

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”

Via Daily Dharma: Why Genuine Transformation Is Possible

No matter how high the mountains of the great dharma are, no matter how deep the sea of ignorance is, they will be as nothing before a boundless spirit of determination.

—Koun Yamada, “Great Faith, Great Doubt, Great Determination”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 28, 2018 🍁

Reflection will give you a chance to stand back in your soul, witness consciousness, look at your life, and see how much of the systems of which you're a part you are still attractive or aversive. Because ultimately the art form is to be, as Christ said, 'In the world, but not of the world.'

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Turning Dreams into Reality

Daydreaming is very seductive; when the thoughts “If I were… If I had… ” come up, they pull you in… When we ask the question “What is this?” it will bring us back to the moment. What is happening now? What is right here to enjoy and to appreciate?

—Martine Batchelor, “What Is This?”

Via Daily Dharma: A Step on the Path

The entire process of sitting down to eat, reflecting on food and its preparation, and then the eating of it should be a method—one among many—to take us further on the path to enlightenment.

—Venerable Yifa, “Thought for Food”

Via Daily Dharma: The Root of Forgiveness

The practice of forgiveness happens when we are able to realize the underlying cause of our anger and impatience, and this allows us to distinguish between someone’s unskillful behavior and essential goodness. Serenity and calm develop as we learn to accept imperfection in others and ourselves.

—Michele McDonald, “Finding Patience”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 25, 2018 🍁

The romantic quality of love which is between separate entities is a doorway into the deeper love ... a lot of people experience a quality they call love but they’re doing it with their mind, they’re not really opening their hearts fully, they are loving, meaning I am attracted to … or I am attached to… when we talk about love versus fear for example, we are talking about ‘being’ versus ‘fear’, or ‘unity’ versus ‘separateness’, would be the other way of saying it.

So I would say that when the fear dissipates you are feeling at home in the universe. Meaning your identity with your separateness isn’t overriding your feeling of connection with everything to the point that you’re feeling cut off and vulnerable - which is where the root of the fear is. So as you cultivate that unitive quality the fear dissipates, so the relation is one between love and fear, but it’s not the love in the sense of ‘I love you’, its the sense that we are together in the space of love.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Don’t Miss a Moment

In dharma practice, we both prepare for the long haul and remain open to immediate insight and change… The perspectives of both gradual and sudden transformation may remind us that, as the Buddha taught, every moment of mindfulness matters!

—Donald Rothberg, “Present Moment, Urgent Moment”

Via Daily Dharma: The Greatest Gift

Let’s find a way to share our gifts of spontaneous love and compassion moment by sacred moment, seeing all the while the Great Gift of interconnectedness and heart… Let us be reminded of that and rejoice in the light of the season and the many opportunities to heal the gap between us and others.

—Lama Surya Das, “Resacralizing the Holidays: Holy Day Mindfulness”

Via Daily Dharma: The Best Things Are Free

Life, it turns out, is unsatisfactory, as long as we allow our hopes and fears to be the authors of our expectations… Thankfully there’s a practice that helps us recognize the source of this disappointment and opens us to this richness. And it’s free.

—Alex Tzelnic, “Coming to Terms with the First Noble Truth (and My Shopping Addiction)”

Via Daily Dharma: The Free Flowing Mind

If the mind congeals in one place and remains with one thing, it is like frozen water and is unable to be used freely: ice that can wash neither hands nor feet. When the mind is melted and is used like water, extending throughout the body, it can be sent wherever one wants to send it.

—Takuan Soho, “The Right Mind and the Confused Mind”

Via Daily Dharma: Life, Face-forward

When we turn away from our distress, we inevitably abandon our loved ones as well as ourselves. But when we mindfully and compassionately incline toward whatever is arising within us, we can be truly present and alive for ourselves and others.

—Christopher K. Germer, “Getting Along”

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Makes Perfect

By engaging with exertion over and over again, the practice of mindfulness and loving-kindness becomes familiar territory for you, and is no longer a big deal. It is a part of you and not a project, but a way of life.

—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Practice the Five Strengths”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 18, 2018 🍁

In this culture, we are rewarded for knowing we know. It’s only when we come to the despair of seeing that the rational mind just isn’t going to be enough – it’s only when you see the assumptions you’ve been working with are not valid that there is the possibility of change. Albert Einstein said, “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move towards higher levels.” And again, “Man must be able to develop a higher form of thought if he’s ever going to be able to use his energy with wisdom.”

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Finding Real Peace

Real peace is not simply the absence of violent conflict but a state of harmony: harmony between people; harmony between humanity and nature; and harmony within ourselves.

—Bhikkhu Bodhi, “Fostering Peace, Inside and Out”

Via Daily Dharma: Radical Acceptance

Something happens when we don’t resist, when we don’t hate ourselves for what we’re experiencing. Our hearts open, and we realize we’re not alone in our suffering. Even the suffering, we begin to see, is a vehicle for a larger sense of connection to all of life. Once we have that, we have faith.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Reclaiming Faith”

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Patience

Patience is the only thing that defeats anger. Don’t be disappointed if you can’t do it right away. Even after years of practice you may find that you’re still losing your temper. It’s all right. But you will also notice that the power of anger has weakened, that it doesn’t last as long, and does not as easily turn into hatred.

—Nawang Gehlek Rimpoche, “Anger and Patience”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - November 14, 2018 🍁

 

When we're identified with awareness, we're no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time. 

 

-   Ram Dass  -