Via Daily Dharma: How to Work with People Who Cause Harm

Instead of giving up on those who cause harm, we need to realize that they are seeking happiness but don’t know how to find it.

—Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, “Putting Down the Arrow”

Buda da Medicina - O buda da cura

“E as pessoas ficaram em casa.
E leram livros, ouviram, descansaram, se exercitaram, fizeram arte, jogaram jogos, aprenderam novas maneiras de existirem e ficaram paradas.
E então ouviram mais profundamente.
Alguns meditavam, outros rezavam, já outros dançavam.
Alguns encontraram as suas próprias sombras.
E o povo começou a pensar de maneira diferente.

O povo foi curado.
E, na ausência de pessoas vivendo na ignorância, perigosas, com a mente e o coração fechados, a Terra começou a se curar.

E, quando o perigo passou, as pessoas se uniram novamente, sofreram com as suas perdas, fizeram novas escolhas, sonharam novas imagens e criaram novas maneiras de se viver e curar a terra completamente, como haviam sido curadas”.

~ Kitty O Meara

*Foto do Buda da Medicina - O buda da cura

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 18, 2020 💌

"What does the voice of fear whisper to you? Fear speaks to you in logic and reason. It assumes the language of love itself. Fear says 'I want to make you safe.' Love says, 'You are safe.' Fear says, 'Give me symbols. Give me frozen images. Give me something I can rely on.'

Loving truth says, 'Only give me this moment.' Fear would walk with you on a narrow path promising to take you where you want to go. Love says, 'Open your arms and fly with me.' Every moment of your life you are offered the opportunity to choose - love or fear, to tread the earth or to soar the heavens."

- Emmanuel -

Via Daily Dharma: From Momentary Glimpse to Lasting Illumination

Although initially the clinging to self disappears only when we’re very mindful, those moments free of delusion give deeper insight a chance to arise, and eventually wisdom becomes strong enough to trigger a permanent change of outlook.

—Cynthia Thatcher, “Disconnect the Dots”

Via White Crane Institute / This Day in Gay History: BAYARD RUSTIN

March 17 Born Bayard Rustin 1912 - BAYARD RUSTIN American civil rights activist, born (d: 1987) Largely behind the scenes in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and earlier, and one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, it was Bayard Rustin who counseled Martin Luther King Jr. on the techniques of nonviolent resistance. For much of his career, Rustin lived in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, in the union-funded Penn South complex, from 1978 with his partner Walter Naegle. He became an advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes in the latter part of his career; however, his sexuality was the reason for attacks from within the civil rights movement as well as from many governmental and other interest groups. A year before his death in 1987, Rustin said: "Twenty-five, thirty years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves Gay, homosexual, or Lesbian."

Via Daily Dharma: Where Fear Should Be Felt

We should not be afraid of suffering. We should be afraid of only one thing, and that is not knowing how to deal with our suffering.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “Why We Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Suffering”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 15, 2020 💌

For many of us, the thought of death, thinking of when we or someone we love is going to die, keeps us from being here now. When will we die? How will we die? What will happen after we die? What will happen to our loved ones? What about all the things we hoped to accomplish? These deep fears and anxieties about our survival keep us from living fully in the present moment.
Most of us are convinced that we are our egos, which is who we think we are. The ego is part of our incarnation. It dies with the body, which is why we are so afraid of death. Death scares the hell out of who you think you are, especially if you think you are this body. Being around death forces you to open to a deeper part of yourself. The shadow, especially the shadow of death, is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light.
When you are fully present in the moment, there is no anticipatory fear, no anxiety, because you are living here and now, not in the future.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Seeing Worth in All Things

The sensitive, mindful heart perceives value and worth in all things. It does not rely upon drama or intensity to feel awake and alive, but draws upon receptivity, stillness, and a present moment wholeheartedness.

—Christina Feldman, “Brief Teachings”

Via Daily Dharma: Be Aware of Becoming Unaware

Every time you recognize that you have lost awareness, be happy. The fact that you have recognized that you lost awareness means that you are now aware.

—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, “The Art of Investigation”

Via Daily Dharma: Your Practice Is Always Present

We are not separate from our practice, and so no matter what, our practice is present.

—Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, “Like a Dragon in Water”

Geopolitical and Personal Nonkilling Choices in Times of Collapse by Manuel Casal Lodeiro

Presentation by Manuel Casal Lodeiro (Instituto Resiliencia and Centro de Saberes para a Sustentabilidade) at Åbo Akademi University in Vasa during the Fifth international “Explorations in Peace & Conflict Research” conference on March 13, 2020 focusing on the topic “Nonkilling Responses to Climate Crisis”. Co-organized by the Center for Global Nonkilling and the Programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research at Åbo Akademi University.

Via Daily Dharma: How Mindfulness Leads to Autonomy

Mindfulness is not only about paying attention and being aware but also about deciding where we want to put our attention.

—Interview with Gina Biegel by Wendy Joan Biddlecombe Agsar, “How to Support Your Teen’s Meditation Practice”

Via Daily Dharma: How to Cultivate Relationships with Obstacles

When challenges or obstacles arise for us, we don’t have to get so intimidated; we can say, “Yes, it’s an obstacle, but it is not intrinsically bad; it’s not going to destroy me.” To create a relationship with the obstacle, learn about it, and finally overcome it … gives us a chance to cultivate wisdom and skillful means.

—Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “Old Relationships, New Possibilities”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 11, 2020 💌

Until you can allow your own beauty, your own dignity, your own being, you cannot free another; so if I were giving one instruction, I would say: Work on yourself, have compassion for yourself, allow yourself to be beautiful and all the rest will follow.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Becoming Free from Thoughts

If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view. If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought.

—Norman Fischer, “Beyond Language”

Via Daily Dharma: Meaning Is Relative

Meaning is relative and always in flux, part of a chain of reference that never comes to an end.

—David Loy, “The Dharma of Deconstruction”

Via Daily Dharma: Working with Anger

We can try, in a spirit of simple curiosity, to get so close to our anger that we no longer know or feel it as anger. Cause and object, the self being angry, and the anger itself all drop away, and all that remains is the precious energy, freed at last.

—Roshi Nancy Mujo Baker, “Precious Energy”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 8, 2020 💌

First rule: listen to your inner voice.
Second rule: be honest with yourself.
The predicament is that you listen to your inner voice, and it leads you to a path, and then you outgrow it. And you don't want to admit that you've outgrown it because you've made a big investment in it. But you must be willing to let go, to stand as naked as a newborn child, again and again, and again.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Take Destiny into Your Own Hands

The events and circumstances of our lives do not happen by accident; rather they are the result of certain causes and conditions. When we understand the conditions necessary for something to happen, we can begin to take destiny into our own hands.

—Joseph Goldstein, “The Evolution of Happiness”

Via White Crane Institute / Gay Wisdom: GLENN GREENWALD

Glenn Greenwald

1967 -

GLENN GREENWALD is an American lawyer, journalist and author born on this date. He was a columnist for Guardian US from August 2012 to October 2013. He was a columnist for Salon.com from 2007 to 2012, and an occasional contributor to The Guardian. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator.

At Salon he contributed as a columnist and blogger, focusing on political and legal topics. He has also contributed to other newspapers and political news magazines, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The American Conservative, The National Interest and In These Times. In 2014 he became, along with Laura Poitrasand and Jeremy Scahill, one of the founding editors of The Intercept.

Greenwald was named by Foreign  Policy Magazine as one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013" and The Advocate named him as one of the "50 Most Influential LGBT Persons in 2014".

Four of the five books he has written have been on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Greenwald is a frequent speaker on college campuses, including Harvard Law, Yale Law, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, UCLA School of Law and the University of Wisconsin. He frequently appears on various radio and television programs.

In June 2013 Greenwald became widely known after The Guardian published the first of a series of reports detailing United States and British global surveillance programs, based on classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden. The series on which Greenwald worked, along with others, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

His reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA) won numerous other awards around the world, including top investigative journalism prizes from the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting, the 2013 Online Journalism Awards, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting in Brazil for his articles in O Globo on NSA mass surveillance of Brazilians (becoming the first foreigner to win the award), the 2013 Libertad de Expresion Internacional award from Argentinian magazine  Perfil, and the 2013 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Greenwald lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the hometown of his partner, David Michael Miranda. Greenwald has said his residence in Brazil was the result of an American law, the Defense of Marriage Act, barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages, which prevented his partner from receiving a visa to reside in the United States with him.

Via Daily Dharma: Paying Attention Changes the World

Attention changes what kind of a thing comes into being for us: in that way it changes the world.

—Iain McGilchrist, “Examining Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: Paying Attention Changes the World

Attention changes what kind of a thing comes into being for us: in that way it changes the world.

—Iain McGilchrist, “Examining Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: What Makes an Enlightened Life?

If I had to summarize the entirety of an enlightened
person’s life in a few words,
it would be complete acceptance of what is.
As we accept what is, our minds are relaxed
and composed
while the world changes rapidly around us.

—Haemin Sunim, “The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down”

Via Daily Dharma: Interconnection All Around Us

When we just say, “I am,” and open our eyes around us, we intuitively see that others are also included in “I am.”

—Ruben L. F. Habito, “Be Still & Know”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 4, 2020 💌

There is a being on another plane that guides, protects, and helps you. That loves you so incredibly. Does your sense of unworthiness prevent you from being loved as much as this being loves you? Unworthiness has to go. You have to be able to say, "Christ, God, Baba, let me feel your love. Let me fill up with your love, let me be absorbed into your love."

Breathe in and out of your heart; with each in-breath, you take in that love a little more. With each out-breath, you get rid of that which keeps you from acknowledging that you are love.

- Ram Dass -

ANY DEM WILL DO! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Via LionsRoar / Steadfast in the Midst of Samsara

Self-Immolation,” 2012 by Tashi Norbu. www.tashinorbu.com

Shinshu Roberts examines the suffering inherent in the bodhisattva path, what Dogen referred to as being “the blue lotus in the flame.” From the Spring 2020 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly.

In 1243, Eihei Dogen, the thirteenth-century founder of Soto Zen in Japan, wrote in his evocative Kuge (“Flowers of Emptiness”) that “the time and place that the blue lotus flowers open and spread are in the midst of fire and in the time of fire” (Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross, Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo). Dogen lived in a time of political uncertainty, violent weather, and cultural change. Perhaps these difficulties inspired Dogen to take up the poetic image of a blue lotus—associated with practice–realization—blooming within the fire of samsara.

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Via Daily Dharma: Making Space to Respond with Intention

If we cultivate awareness enough to step back a bit from simply reacting, we can insert a gap or a pause before being carried away. In that little gap there is the freedom to respond in a fresh way, less predetermined.

—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Don’t Be So Predictable”

Via Daily Dharma: Focus on Kindness

When our minds become convinced that we’ve been the recipients of a a tremendous amount of kindness in our lives, the wish to speak ill of others vanishes.

—Ven. Thubten Chodron, “The Truth About Gossip”

BR 9+ 0:02 / 4:22 Sergio Mendes feat. Black Eyed Peas - Mas Que Nada

Via Daily Dharma: How to Gain Wisdom

We attain wisdom not by creating ideals but by learning to see things clearly, as they are.

—Jack Kornfield, “Theravada Vipassana Practice”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 1, 2020 💌

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

- Ram Dass -

Via Be Here Now Network / Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 330 – Cultivating ‘We’ Consciousness with Deborah Eden Tull

 

Make the jump here

 

Zen meditation teacher Deborah Eden Tull drops by Mindrolling for a conversation around turning towards pain and suffering, processing fear, and cultivating ‘we’ consciousness.

Deborah Eden Tull, founder of Mindful Living Revolution, teaches the integration of compassionate awareness into every aspect of our lives. She is a Zen meditation and mindfulness teacher, public speaker, author, activist, and sustainability educator. Her latest book is called Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connections with Ourselves, Each Other, and the Planet. Learn more about her at deborahedentull.com. 

Psychic Numbing

Raghu welcomes Eden to the show and asks about her path to Zen Buddhism. They talk about how sensitivity can be a great strength, and how we can turn towards our pain and suffering rather than numb it out. In a world filled with psychic numbing, we all have a choice to stay present.

“It’s very true – how we treat ourselves and how we treat our world is the same. One’s personal practice has an impact that is transpersonal, interpersonal, societal, and global.” – Deborah Eden Tull

Addicted to Drama (25:33)

Raghu asks Eden about her experiences with Zen meditation, which he considers the most uncompromising form of meditation. Eden leads a short practice on processing fear, turning towards it with a gentle curiosity. Raghu talks about the boredom that can arise with practice, while for Eden it was an addiction to drama that kept coming up.

“The teaching really is to meet everything in our human experience with gentle curiosity and kindness.” – Deborah Eden Tull

Cultivating ‘We’ Consciousness (38:20)

Raghu reads from Eden’s book about making the shift from I to we. Eden discusses cultivating ‘we’ consciousness, especially in these difficult times. Raghu talks about moving away from self cherishing behaviors, and the practice of deep listening. After all, attention is the most subtle form of love.

“Being present is powerful in itself, but shared presence is wildly powerful. Shared presence is even bigger – dropping into spaciousness with another human being. Intimacy arises from spaciousness.” – Deborah Eden Tull

Ram Dass, Trudy Goodman, Jack Kornfield, and Duncan Trussell talk about the ‘movie of me’ on Mindrolling Ep. 269

Via White Crane Insitute / This Day in Gay History

Today's Gay Wisdom It’s February 29th, which means, it’s Leap Year, the odd day of the quadrennial year, and by that very token, this is a Gay day, a “queer” day, an “in between” place. In between places and times are traditionally connected to same-sex/Gay people who, in numerous cultures are considered to be “not-male, not female” i.e. a third (and possibly fourth) gender; in between the sexes. The crossroads is a widely understood example of this “sacred space” traditionally held by same-sex people. The middle ground. The bridge. All are traditionally Gay archetypes. Although the modern calendar counts a year as 365 days, a complete revolution around the sun takes approximately 365 days and 6 hours. Every four years, an extra twenty-four hours have accumulated, so one extra day is added to that calendar to keep the count coordinated with the sun's apparent position. There was a tradition that women may make a proposal of marriage to men only in leap years, further restricted in some cases to only February 29. There is a tradition that in 1288 the Scottish Parliament under Queen Margaret legislated that any woman could propose in Leap Year; few parliament records of that time exist, and none concern February 29. Another component of this tradition was that if the man rejects the proposal, he should soften the blow by providing a kiss, one pound currency, and a pair of gloves (some later sources say a silk gown). There were similar notions in France and Switzerland. A similar modern American tradition, Sadie Hawkins Day, honors "the homeliest gal in the hills" created by Al Capp in the cartoon strip Li'l Abner. In the famous story line, Sadie and every other woman in town were allowed on that day to pursue and catch the most eligible bachelors in Dogpatch. Although the comic strip placed Sadie Hawkins Day in November, today it has become almost synonymous with February 29. A person who was born on February 29 may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they may celebrate their birthday on February 28 or March 1.

Via Daily Dharma: Train Yourself Toward Compassion

With mindfulness, we see that the heart is the ground from which our speech grows. We learn to restrain our speech in moments of anger, hostility, or confusion, and over time, to train the heart to more frequently incline towards wholesome states such as love, kindness, and empathy.

—Beth Roth, “Right Speech Reconsidered”

Via Daily Dharma: Benefits of a Spacious Mind

The spacious mind has room for everything. It is like the space in a room, which is never harmed by what goes in and out of it.

—Ajahn Sumedho, “Noticing Space”

Via Daily Dharma: Your Calm Mind Helps Others

Your body reflects your mind. When you feel love for all beings, it shows on your face. Seeing your honest, relaxed face, others will gravitate toward you and enjoy being around you.

—Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “11 Benefits of Loving-Friendliness Meditation”

Via LGBTQ Nation: “Frozen” songwriters creating a movie musical based on a kid’s book about a genderqueer prince

Set in Paris at the dawn of the modern age, the book tells the story of 16-year-old Prince Sebastian, whose parents are hoping to find him a suitable bride. 

 

Make the jump here to read the full story

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - February 26, 2020 💌

If there is anything at all that can bring us down, if our house is built on sand and there is fear, we aren’t free. For where there is fear, you are not free. Thus you become motivated to confront the places in yourself that bring you down; not only to confront them but to create situations in which to bring them forth, into light. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Opening Our Hearts Amidst Difficulty

Meditation and dharma practice give us straightforward and powerful trainings to balance our mind and open our hearts amidst all difficulties, using mindfulness, loving-kindness, equanimity, and compassion.

—Jack Kornfield, “Truth and Reconciliation Begins with Us”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - February 23, 2020 💌

We often fail to recognize that we too are a part of the lawful unfolding of nature. From a higher perspective, we can sometimes see that it’s all perfect, but that attitude is difficult to maintain in the presence of real suffering. If we attempt to live in either of these extremes, then we’re standing, ‘somewhere’, and there’s nowhere to stand. Our incarnation isn’t an error, and where we are is exactly where we are supposed to be, in this moment. We can’t push away our humanity, as freedom comes through form, not in spite of it.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: There Is Nothing You Need to Fix

Take the attitude that there is nothing in your experience that you need to control or fix, and you’ll be available to experience the perfection that is always there, the truth that everything you need to awaken is with you right now.

—Kate Johnson, “Calming the Not Now Mind”

Via Daily Dharma: What about Attachment to Family?

Too often Buddhist “nonattachment” is misconstrued as “non-loving.” The purpose of Buddhist practice is not to “renounce” our families or community, but to shed habits of self-protective clinging that prevent us from loving them more unconditionally, powerfully, enjoyably.

—Lama John Makransky, “Family Practice”

Via Daily Dharma: The Awareness Already Within Us

To be fully awake is the normal human condition. It expresses the deepest truth of our nature, our oneness with the energy of the universe. We meditate and study and practice to penetrate into, or relax into, this awareness.

—Sandy Boucher, “We Are in Training to Be Nobody Special”

Via Daily Dharma: What Does a Mindful Life Look Like?

To be mindful means to remember to let go of compulsive reactivity and realize a nonreactive way of life.

—Stephen Batchelor, “The Art of Solitude”

The Platonic Blow by W.H.Auden

Via Daily Dharma: Accomplish More by Doing Less

Too often we mistakenly believe that doing less makes us lazy and results in a lack of productivity. Instead, doing less helps us savor what we do accomplish.

—Marc Lesser, “Do Less, Accomplish More”

Via Daily Dharma: An Underlying Wholeness

One forgets the self, Zen teachers say, by becoming one with the task at hand. At such moments, released from the burdens of selfhood, one glimpses, however briefly, a state of spiritual wholeness that underlies and supports one’s everyday consciousness.

—Andrew Cooper, “The Transcendent Imperative”

Dissolving the Fear, Finding Your Own Beauty - Ram Dass

Via Lion’s Roar // Thich Nhat Hanh - How to Practice Hugging Meditation

 Nothing warms the heart like a loving hug. To make the experience even deeper and more healing, Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us this practice of hugging meditation he created. 

Nothing warms the heart like a loving hug. To make the experience even deeper and more healing, Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us this practice of hugging meditation he created.

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