Sunday, June 19, 2016

Via Daily Dharma / June 18, 2016: The Roots of Meditation

All it takes to evoke the relaxation response—the gateway to all forms of meditation—is to focus exclusively on a repetitive stimulus or movement to break the stream of ordinary thought.

—James Kingsland, "Siddhartha, the Scientist"

Orlando City's Emotional In-Stadium Tribute


Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 19/06/2016

“Somente quando pode amar plenamente você pode experimentar a liberdade. Mesmo que não tenha consciência disso, o que você está buscando é a experiência da liberdade, pois ela é o perfume da unidade; e a unidade é possível somente através do amor - esse tão imenso poder capaz de remover todas as barreiras de separação.”
“Solamente cuando puedes amar plenamente puedes experimentar la libertad. Incluso si no eres consciente de ello, lo que estás buscando es la experiencia de la libertad, pues es el perfume de la unidad; y la unidad es posible solamente a través del amor - ese tan inmenso poder capaz de remover todas las barreras de separación.”

“Only when we can fully love can we experience freedom. Even if we are not conscious about it, what we are actually seeking is the experience of freedom. This is the fragrance of union. Union is only possible through love. Only the immense power of love has the capacity to remove all the barriers of separation.”

Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 18/06/2016
 
“Normalmente, o medo e o orgulho trabalham juntos para proteger os porões do inconsciente. Me refiro a um aspecto bem específico do orgulho: a vergonha. Você tem vergonha de si mesmo, da sua história e do seu passado; tem vergonha de estar numa situação de insegurança e fragilidade, e tem medo que o outro descubra. Você não admite estar nesse lugar. Esse é o orgulho, mas o principal guardião é o medo – medo de entrar no núcleo da origem da dor.”

“Normalmente, el miedo y el orgullotrabajan juntos para proteger los sótanos del inconsciente. Me refiero a un aspecto muy específico del orgullo, la vergüenza. Tienesvergüenza de ti mismo, de tu historia y de tu pasado; tienes vergüenza de estar en una situación de inseguridad y fragilidad, y tienes miedo de que el otro lo descubra. No admites estar en ese lugar. Este es el orgullo, pero el principal guardián es el miedo - miedo de entrar en el núcleo del origen del dolor.”

“Usually, fear and pride work together to protect the dungeons of the unconscious. I am referring to a very specific aspect of pride, which is shame. We are ashamed of ourselves, of our story, and of our past. We feel ashamed to be in a situation that exposes our insecurity and vulnerability. We are afraid that the other will discover this. We don’t want to admit that we are in this place. This is an example of pride acting in us, whose main guard is fear. We fear getting in touch with the original core of this pain.”

Via Ram Dass:


June 19, 2016

The world is perfect as it is, including my desire to change it.

Antigua, Guatemala June 2016


Via Dialy Dharma / June 19, 2016: When Dualism Collapses

When sense and the objects of sense both become empty, then emptiness and sense merge and reach a state of absolute perfection.

—Kuan-Yin, "Hearing, A Door to Liberation"

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Via Daily Dharma / June 15, 2016: Examining Interdependence

It is entirely appropriate to examine in our moment-to-moment experience how craving and aversion manifest in personal psychological suffering. It is also important to follow that strand out through the interdependent karmic relationships in which each moment is entangled, to see how our desire is affecting everyone and everything around us.

—Andrew Olendzki, "The Other Dukkha"

Via Ram Dass

June 15, 2016

All action is prayer.
All trees are desire-fulfilling.
All water is the Ganga.
All land is Varanasi.
Love everything.


- Neem Karoli Baba (Maharajji)

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 16/06/2016

“Antes de identificar o que fecha o seu coração e te impede de amar, é preciso identificar o fechamento. Nem sempre é fácil ver que o coração está fechado, mas é fácil identificar os sintomas do fechamento: acusação e julgamento. Se você acusa e julga é porque o seu coração está fechado. Uma coisa é enxergar o erro no outro e rezar para que ele transforme determinado aspecto negativo, e assim se libere. Outra coisa é identificar o erro e usar a sua energia (pensamentos, palavras e ações) para fortalecê-lo. Dessa forma, você cristaliza o outro naquele aspecto negativo para poder se sentir melhor do que ele. Isso é vingança.”

“Antes de identificar lo que cierra tu corazón y te impide de amar, esnecesario identificar elcierre. No siempre es fácil ver que el corazón está cerrado, pero es fácil identificar los síntomas del cierre: acusación y juicio. Si acusas y juzgas es porque tu corazón está cerrado. Una cosa es ver el error en el otro, y rezar para que él transformeun determinado aspecto negativo, y así se libere. Otra cosa es identificar el error y utilizar tu energía (pensamientos, palabras y acciones) para fortalecerlo. De esta manera, cristalizasal otro en aquel aspecto negativo para poder sentirte mejor que él. Esto es venganza.”

“Before we can identify what makes our hearts close and prevents us from loving, we must first identify when our hearts are closed. It isn’t always easy to see that our hearts are closed, but it is easy to identify the symptoms of a closed heart: blame and judgment. If we are blaming and judging the other it is because our hearts are closed. It is one thing to see the faults of another and pray for them so that they may be able to transform certain negative aspects and become free of them. It is another thing to see their faults and invest all of our energy into blaming or judging them throughour thoughts, words and actions. This only crystallizesand reinforces the other’s negative behavior so that we can feel superior to them. This is what we call revenge.”

Via Daily Dharma / June 16, 2016: Recognizing Mortality, Cherishing Life


Recognizing mortality means we are willing to see what is true. Seeing what is true is grounding. It brings us into the present.

—Anne Klein, "The Supreme Contemplation"

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Via John Peart: To my heterosexual friends: this is why Orlando hurts




To my heterosexual friends,

Lots of you have been silent about events in Orlando this weekend. That’s OK; maybe you were busy, life moves fast. But this one cuts a little deeper for your LGBT friends, like me, and you should know why.

It’s not because it’s terrorism; though that plays a part in it.

It’s not because of the size of the death toll. There isn’t a scale and this isn’t a competition.

It hurts because it’s not so different from the violence we experience every day. Until you’ve been scared to hold your partner’s hand in public, unless you’ve faced fear of revealing yourself to those closest to you; you can sympathise, but you can’t understand.

This hurts because whilst families and our community are grieving, the media is denying our collective identity.

The world around us tries to politicise every part of our lives as an LGBT community: our fundamental rights, who we can marry, whether we can donate blood. And yet, the rare occasion we want our community to be at the forefront of politics, the politics of hate is erased from the discussion.

This wasn’t “America’s Bataclan”. It wasn’t an attack on ‘the West’ or Western culture. This attack was specific. Pre-meditated. Fuelled by a hatred of people like me.

This hurts because so many remain silent when usually they are most vocal. They’ll mourn the death of a gorilla but they won’t mourn 49 dead LGBT people.

This hurts because it brought the worst of the world out of the woodwork. From presumptive Presidential nominees to priests to small town hicks, they congratulate a terrorist for killing “pedophiles” and “deviants”.

This hurts like it always has. Like Harvey Milk said:
The anger and the frustrations that some of us feel is because we are misunderstood, and friends can’t feel the anger and frustration. They can sense it in us, but they can’t feel it. Because a friend has never gone through what is known as coming out. I will never forget what it was like coming out and having nobody to look up toward. I remember the lack of hope - and our friends can’t fulfill it.
This hurts because of when it happened. June isn’t just any month in the year: it’s the anniversary of the Stonewall riots. It’s the time of the year when our community comes together to celebrate the progress made, and remember those who came before us. Now this year, more than most, Pride will be a reminder of how far we still have to go.

But we remain defiant. As a community, you hurt one of us and you hurt us all, and we’ll come back fighting.

In cities around the UK, and around the world, people stood still last night to honour and remember the dead. Thousands flocked to pay their respects and draw strength from our collective voice: love is love, and love always wins.

So my friends, don’t stay silent in the face of homophobic terror. Do something.

Be defiant. Light a candle. Teach your children LGBT people are to be loved not feared. Lend your support to homophiles not homophobes. Ask your LGBT friends if they’re OK. Do whatever you can, but don’t stay silent and don’t let this happen again.

John Peart

Liberal Redneck: Orlando shooting and 'Radical Islam'

From the New York Daily News:
There’s no joke to be told here for Daily News Hillbilly-in-Chief Trae Crowder following the massacre in Orlando. In an impassioned and powerful appeal to stop the “archaic lunacy” of religious and gun fanaticism, Crowder breaks it down to its most granular level on whether you’re on the side of love or hate.

“Saying that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to get married or be parents is not the same as murdering them, OK? Clearly. But that is where this road leads. This is what happens when zealous hate masquerading as faith is allowed to go unchecked.”

Beautiful Song - Krishna Das - Sri Argala Stotram - Show Me Love


Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Stephen Colbert: Despair Is A Victory For Hate


Anderson Cooper pushes Pam Bondi on LGBTQ issues


Via LGBT Brasil / FB:




‘The guilt of being alive is heavy’: Orlando massacre survivor describes encounter with gunman


Via Lion's Roar: Buddhist figures, communities respond to Orlando massacre


Buddhist flad and pride flag.

The Buddhist flag (right) debuted in Sri Lanka in 1855 and was adopted internationally in 1952. The rainbow pride flag, designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978, has become a symbol of LGBTIQ hope and progress worldwide. 
After the almost incomprehensible news of the early-Sunday morning mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Buddhist teachers and communities began to share their grief and support for and with the LGBTIQ community. Here’s a sampling of what they had to say.

Note: this page has been updated with additional comments since it was originally posted. These most recently added comments start immediately following here.

Larry Yang, East Bay Meditation Center:

In the chaos of violence, senselessness, carnage, and despair, we can take care of each other. We can hold each other with the most precious thing we can offer, our compassionate attention. Unwavering, we can love one another without questioning or second-guessing any aspect of that love or anyone’s life experience or identity. There is great Power in that coming together from wherever we are. In that solidarity with the deepest of places of our tender humanity, we begin to live the truth that the Buddha spoke of:

Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate.
This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.
 
We begin to create justice in the only ways possible—through just means. Instead of trading Homophobia with Xenophobia as an insidious pattern of the market economy—Instead of displacing and playing off the oppression of one, for the oppression of another—we endeavor to dispel all oppressions, for the freedom of all beings. We can only create justice through just means—that is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.

San Francisco Zen Center:

Dear sangha,
Today, many of us are experiencing great sorrow and disbelief at the recent tragedy in Orlando. We are deeply saddened that one individual, whose mind may be clouded by ignorance and hate, has taken the lives of 50 people at a gay dance club in Orlando and injured 53 more. At this difficult time, we turn to our practice – to our loving, compassionate heart-minds – and hold everyone tenderly in Buddha’s embrace.

May we focus our hearts and minds now on unity, acceptance, and resilience rather than blame and hate. May we bring the world into our hearts and extend our loving kindness to those affected by this violent act.

May we turn our hearts and minds towards the conditions for realizing our Bodhisattva vow of freeing all beings from suffering and the causes of suffering.

Eyes of Compassion
Observing Sentient Beings
Assemble an Ocean of Blessings
Beyond Measure
—Chapter 25, Lotus Sutra

Adapted from City Center Tanto David Zimmerman’s opening remarks at a memorial service today for the victims of the recent shooting in Orlando.

Tara Brach:

The tragedy in Orlando brings us together in deep sorrow and prayer.
May those suffering loss feel held in our love;
may those suffering from hatred be healed with compassion;
may yet more violence awaken our collective dedication to living from peaceful, open hearts.

Lama Rod Owens of Natural Dharma Fellowship:

Remembering the loss of life everywhere this morning. I continue to watch, fight, and pray. May you continue to do the same.

The Dalai Lama:

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama today led a minute of silent prayer, in recognition of the events in Orlando, noting that he “is quite skeptical about the effects of prayer. The real change, effect, comes through action.” Watch his full comments here.

Mushim Patricia Ikeda:

This morning I offered a Dharma talk titled “Let’s all become buddhas together: the importance of spiritual friendship” to the full house Sangha gathering at Insight Meditation Center of Redwood City, California. When I left my home in Oakland, the first report of 20 people who died in the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida was in the news; by the time I returned home, there was a report of 50 dead and 53 wounded.

Acknowledging this hate crime in my talk, I said: “I propose that, considering all of the desperate and liberatory people’s movements now happening all over the world, that we need to look deeply and continuously — as continuously as we return to the physical sensations of the breath or whatever the object of our meditation practice is — to ask whether we are creating not only community, but whether we are creating *beloved* community. After all, this is more than an abstract question. We live in earthquake country, and at any moment those of us gathered in this meditation hall, whether we know one another or not, might need one another in ways that are highly intimate and highly unromantic. The Big One could happen at any time. 

Then we would need to rely on that essential human bond, in moments of crisis, which asks: ‘Even if I am not your parent, your child, your sibling, your coworker, your neighbor, will you help me? Will you be my spiritual friend?’ When I was in the Korean Buddhist monastery in 1988, I learned the phrase ‘songbul hashipshio,” which I was told translates into English as ‘Let’s all become buddhas together.’ Creating beloved community this year and next year and beyond is an urgent matter.”

Insight Meditation Society:

IMS stands in solidarity with the LGBTIQ community grieving over the Orlando Massacre. May you rest in abiding love during this tragedy.

Maia Duerr of the Liberated Life Project:

Feeling kind of stunned today, in the aftermath of the news from Orlando… I am remembering back to years that I lived in Oregon when hate crimes against LGBT were commonplace, and when legislation to discriminate against our community was being pushed on everyone.

This level of violence, hatred, and bigotry is traumatizing… any group of people that has experienced oppression has experienced that. May we never forget what this trauma can do to people, and let that help us to have great forbearance with each other in the days to come.

I keep remembering something that dear Frank Ostaseski has said — “There is endless suffering. There is also endless compassion.” Let us abide in that place of compassion in the days and weeks ahead…

Kalu Rimpoche:

I heard and saw on television news the tragic event that happened in Orlando Florida for those who were simply having fun in their life. I am strongly doing my prayers for those who have passed away, those that are hurt and those who are going through a difficult time. All my love and caring and respect to the LGBT community and individuals around the world.

All the teachings from the great masters comes with nonviolence, kindness, love and compassion. This is the foundation of the teachings of all religions and all the great masters. We must continue with that direction for what we believe.

Be proud of who you are and don’t let any religion tell you what you have to be. Just look for happiness and quality and wisdom in mind. Happiness and truthfulness is never based on lies, violence and ignorance. It Is always based on wisdom and equality and living the life we want with simplicity and freedom.

Love and care from your Kalu Rimpoche

Jack Kornfield:

As I learn of the shootings in Florida, I am filled with tears and an ocean of compassion for so many who have been harmed. Sitting quietly, this tragedy strengthens my resolve to not let terror and fear take over my heart.

As we move through this beautiful and troubled world, may we vow to be a beacon of peace, a fearless carrier of respect and lovingkindness for all life, a teller of truth , a voice for justice, a protector of those who are vulnerable or targeted. May the power of wisdom, integrity and compassion be our guide.

And may I/we follow these instructions of the Buddha…….

Others will kill. We shall not kill. Thus we should direct our hearts. Others will be cruel. We shall not be cruel. Thus should we direct our hearts. Others will speak falsely. We will speak what is true. Thus we should direct our hearts. Others will be fraudulent. We shall not be fraudulent. Thus we should direct our hearts. Others will be hateful. We shall become loving. Thus we shall direct our hearts. Others will be unwise. We shall become wise. Thus we shall direct our hearts.
May I/we carry these intentions with courage, as a beacon and a medicine, as a blessing to all we touch.

Metta, Jack

Lama Zopa Rinpoche:

Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims and their families and all those affected in Orlando, FL.

When Rinpoche heard about this tragedy he immediately started doing prayers.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche always advises to make strong prayers to Medicine Buddha for anyone who is dying, sick, injured or who has already passed away. Also this can be dedicated to anyone who needs protection, support, strength and love.

Lodro Rinzler:

I am very sad and tired today. But posting things on the internet doesn’t seem like enough today. So I’m committing to volunteering for a nonprofit that does gun violence prevention work going forward. Do you have one you’d recommend? Willing to put in a few hours a week.

[Rinzler also wrote a piece for Huffington Post called “Meditation Isn’t Enough: A Call to Take Action Against Gun Violence.”]

Miguel Chen:

This pain belongs to all of us. Senseless, awful violence. May we unite from a place of compassion, rather than divide from a place of fear. Our brothers and sisters need our love.

Greg Snyder of Brooklyn Zen Center:

This morning I got really irritated about something not that important and realized I was resisting letting my heart break for Orlando. Then it just did. I have no idea what to say here, other than Charleston, Orlando, on and on – enough with the hatred, all of us. I am speaking from grief, so forgive my insistent tone; but we have just got to stop as a nation, as a people of many peoples, communities, and take stock, slap ourselves in the collective face and wake up to the ways we are creating the conditions for this. People are being executed… executed in nightclubs and churches, on streets for nothing. Nothing. 

Nothing. They are worshipping and dancing and walking. I pray every person with a shred of sanity – especially those of privilege and power – train her or his heart on love and, from that place, work to expose and heal hatred wherever we see it. I would encourage us all to take up the practice of watching our every word and silence, every action and inaction, every thought and distraction, every vote and political shrug of the shoulders, and ask ourselves – Am I right now cultivating a world of love or hate? Is the language I’m getting behind a language of love or hate? I know I fail at this intention everyday of my life, but all I feel right now is that we must work tirelessly to cultivate a society deeply rooted in love. Most of us will fear this because love is both personally and societally revolutionary. Love will shake us to our core as people and as nations. But it’s so long past time. It has been said so many times that it’s boring, but business as usual really has to stop being business as usual. I can already see the story unfolding in the news and soon it will be all too easy just to blame this on ISIS and take no stock of who we are. We too easily use this or that terrorist or sociopath as a free ticket for moving on. This too has to stop. We have to bring the world into our hearts and make love our first thought, our first intention for ourselves and every person we meet. That means we have to critically engage the mental and societal habits that resist love. Despite all we can do to each other, I choose to have faith in humanity. Yes, we can be a wind of fire that leaves scars and burning, but we are also dear and precious and deserving of our birthright of peace and happiness, every one of us. I vow to focus my heart on the latter, knowing that we must learn to clearly see and end the conditions for the former. May the mystery forever cradle those murdered in Orlando and may we all learn to care for each other while here. Love to the families and communities of those lost. Love to all of you, my sacred sisters and brothers.

Spirit Rock Meditation Center:

May we be free from hatred and the suffering caused by hatred. May we hold our suffering and the suffering of the world with fierce, deep, and tender compassion.

The Orlando Shooting: A Closer Look