Via Daily Dharma / Staying Grounded:

If we want to overcome our anxiety and feel good about ourselves, it’s not enough to invest in outer things. We have to make investments in our inner life as well. . . . It’s about keeping grounded and having perspective. It’s never too late to open that door.

—Lawrence Levy, "Why Former Pixar CFO Lawrence Levy Walked Away from It All"

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / Tasting Peace

When we explore directly, in our experience, the meaning of the Buddha’s declaration, we can see for ourselves how craving obscures the natural ease and openness of mind, and how in moments free of desire, wanting, and clinging, we can recognize the taste of happiness and peace.

—Joseph Goldstein, "The End of Suffering"

Via Ram Dass

For each of us, you’ve got to be very quiet to hear your unique dharma, your unique way of expression.

Somebody comes along and their major thing in life is to regain the rights of indigenous peoples.

Someone else comes along and their major thing is to awaken people to environmental degradation.

Someone else comes along and their major thing is to clean up the incredible oppression of women.

It isn’t a question of which thing is worse, or which is more worthwhile. Each person has to hear what is their part in the whole process of how their compassion expresses itself.

I am doing this gig. This is my part. It’s no better than your part, it’s just my part. I’m not under some illusion that I have a different part and I honor everybody else’s part, I just have to constantly keep listening to hear what my part is anew. 

-Ram Dass

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / Who Are You?

If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path.

—bell hooks, "Agent of Change: An Interview with bell hooks"
 

Via Daily Dharma / The Heart Holds Two Truths

Take refuge in the dharma when you’re hurting; gain perspective; expand your capacity for empathy; uncover the biases you carry within yourself; and also see all arisings as empty. And then, see with complexity, and hold both conventional and ultimate truths in your heart.

—Jay Michaelson, "Retreat or Fight? Both are Right."

Via Daily Dharma / Not-blaming

When you check your own mind properly, you stop blaming others for your problems. You recognize that your mistaken actions come from your own defiled, deluded mind.

—Lama Thubten Yeshe, "Your Mind is Your Religion"

Via Daily Dharma / Embrace Each Error

Anyone has the right to be a Buddhist, no matter. There is no need to be afraid of having faults, because knowing we have them can help us to improve.

—Master Sheng-Yen, "How to Be Faultless"

Via Ram Dass

There is no drama any manifestation can present that denies the truth of the fact that behind the drama, here we are; no matter how poignant, captivating, dramatic, bittersweet it may be. Our work is to not get snared in anybody else’s or our own drama; be it police, or the person who’s suffering.

Can you accept total suffering, take on the karma of another human being, and yet not be attached to the melodrama of suffering? If a person is suffering, the only thing you can do for them is to find the place in them which is behind suffering. It’s all you can do. It’s all that’s available.

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / Everyone Is Welcome

Anyone has the right to be a Buddhist, no matter what they believe.

—Robert Thurman, "Reincarnation: A Debate"

Via Sri Preem Baba

Via Daily Dharma - 02/02/16

The Buddha taught that freedom is going beyond conditions. For me, the people who have been through the harshest conditions—and survived—have the greatest potential to transform the madness of their lives.

—Vinny Ferraro, "The Heartful Dodger"

Via Daily Dharma / December 31, 2016: Cherishing Existence

This is who and what we are: constellations of matter, vulnerable, impermanent, and—for moments? for lifetimes?—illumined by the miracle of awareness. Whether fleeting or eternal, it’s a miracle that we must never take for granted.

—Noelle Oxenhandler, "Awake and Demented"

Via FB

"Trump courted evangelicals and promised to appoint judges to overturn the historic Obergefell ruling on marriage equality (and he has publicly opposed marriage equality since 2000). Even if you believe he wouldn’t do that, why would you give even conditional support to a man who has given hope to the people who detest you and wish you harm?"

- Michelangelo Signorile

Via Ram Dass

At a certain point, you realize that you see only the projections of your own mind. The play of phenomena is a projection of the spirit. The projections are your karma, your curriculum for this incarnation. Everything that’s happening to you is a teaching designed to burn out your stuff, your attachments. Your humanity and all your desires are not some kind of error. They’re integral parts of the journey.

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / January 1, 2017: A New Year’s Resolution

I intend to cultivate equanimity and balance—not to panic when things appear to be off track, and not to relax when everything seems to be going smoothly. I intend to cultivate awareness and presence and not focus too hard on the outcome—paying more attention to the process and developing understanding and sympathy for myself and others.

—David Nichtern, "A New Year's Resolution to Consider"

The Biggest LGBT Advances of 2016

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / December 30, 2016: Leading the Charge

Individually, we might feel that global problems are beyond our capacity to solve. What I have noticed, though... is that if one or two people take the lead in making even small changes, it energizes the whole community.

—Joseph Goldstein, "Facing the Heat"

Via Daily Dharma / December 29, 2016: The Binding Thread

A string of beads has a thread running through all the beads, keeping them together. What we need is a thread too—of sanity and stability. Because when you have a thread, even though each bead is separate, they hang together.

—Sogyal Rinpoche, "The Stability of Ease"

Via Ram Dass

As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be, you can't see how it is.

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / December 28, 2016: Learning How to Love

To love is, first of all, to accept ourselves as we actually are. —Thich Nhat Hanh, "Cultivating Compassion"

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / December 27, 2016: Give Up the Pursuit

If you were to let go of the pursuit of happiness, what would you do? To put it a bit more dramatically, suppose you were told that no matter what you did, you would never be happy. Never. What would you do with your life?

—Ken McLeod, "Forget Happiness"

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma/ December 26, 2016: A True Understanding

When you understand interconnectedness, it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying.

—Robert A. F. Thurman, "Rising to the Challenge: Cool Heroism"

RIP George Michael - Freedom! '90

Via Ram Dass

When I asked Maharajji how to meditate, he said, “Meditate like Christ.” I said, “Maharajji, how did Christ meditate?” He became very quiet and closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he had a blissful expression on his face and a tear trickled down his cheek. He opened his eyes and said, “He lost himself in Love.”

Via Daily Dharma / December 25, 2016: Giving, but Losing Nothing

The Buddha taught “kingly or queenly giving,” which means giving the best of what we have, instinctively and graciously, even if none remains for ourselves. We are only temporary caretakers of all that is provided; essentially, we own nothing. —Marcia Rose, "The Gift That Cannot Be Given"

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / December 24, 2016: True Generosity

The practice of true generosity is rare; it is an exchange in which both giver and receiver are enriched.

—Judy Lief, "The Power of Receiving"

Via Ram Dass

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma/ December 22, 2016: Buddhism for Everyone

If I truly believe that Buddhism is for everyone, then I have to act that way. It requires introspection and a commitment to weeding out everything within that prevents that compassion and acceptance from happening.

—Myokei Caine-Barrett, "A Right to the Dharma"

Via Daily Dharma / December 23, 2016: The Constant Dharma

As long as you give the Dharma to nourish others, it will be there. As long as you are alive and are able to practice, this will be true.

—Sheng Yen, "Rich Generosity"

Tricycle’s Top 16 of 2016 Our most memorable magazine and Trike Daily articles and dharma talk from the last year.

Make the jump here

Via Daily Dharma / December 20, 2016: You Are Already Whole

You and I don’t manifest in the universe as meaning, we manifest as living human beings. We’re not here to represent something else. We’re here in our own right.

—Lin Jensen, "Wash Your Bowl"

Via Daily Dharma / December 19, 2016: One Stitch at a Time

When you think how many yards you will sew, chanting the Buddha’s name with every stitch, if you count all the stitches, you say, ‘I cannot do it!’ But, if you do this stitch: one stitch. One stitch. One stitch continuously, you will finish.

—Tomoe Katagiri, "Oneness With Every Stitch"

Via Ram Dass

Real love is the One celebrating itself as the two.

 

- Ram Dass

 

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / December 18, 2016: Pattern Recognition

When fear arises within our meditation, we apply an antidote. Recognizing what is happening at each instant as mind, we remain in the present. It is important to remember that patterns don’t have to repeat themselves.

—Lama Tsony, "Facing Fear"

Via Lion's Roar:

Photo by Alex Abian

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / December 17, 2016: Nothing to Gain

If you wonder what Buddhism has to offer you, the answer is: nothing. If you think that becoming a Buddhist will bring you all sorts of goodies and fringe benefits, forget it.

—Trinlay Tulku Rinpoche, "East is West"

Via Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma / December 16, 2016: Renounce Your Self-Importance

Buddhism means not being concerned with whether you’re seen as a hot-shot Dalai Lama, or a hot-shot Pope, or a hot-shot parent, or even a halfway decent anything. . . . The ego is just a construct. Get over it. —Christine Cox, "The Groucho Moment"