Via Daily Dharma / True Nature

Accept your concrete individuality, and having done that, then you may also realize you are blessed just as you are.

—Ruben L. F. Habito, "Be Still & Know"

Via Daily Dharma / Emptiness Is Not What You Expect

Emptiness refers to the absence of something that, for some reason, one expects to find—as when we say a glass, normally used to hold liquids, is empty even though it is full of air. The point is not that there is nothing there at all, but rather that what is there differs from your expectations.

— William S. Cobb, "The Game of Go"

Via Ram Dass

 

You are listening as well as you can to the universe, and often you will see that when things start to happen a certain way, your mind will focus in on that because you’re looking for patterns, which we call ‘synchronicity’.

Often you will just get caught in your desire to find a pattern that will give you an external validation for what you’re doing. You just end up using the universe again to do it to yourself.

So stay with your truth from moment to moment, and get the clues wherever you can. I mean, I’ll open up the Chuang-tzu and read something when I have a question, and if it doesn’t feel good, I say, “Well, that was interesting,” and I close it. If it feels like what I wanted to do anyway, I say, “Ohhh, wow, synchronicity!” And I do it, so I’ve learned that I’m a complete phony anyway, so I might as well just honor it and get on with it.

Via Daily Dharma / Accepting What Is

A deeper equanimity comes when we learn how to be with our life as it is, not as we would like it to be.

—Eliot Fintushel, "Something to Offer"

Via Daily Dharma / Nature’s Spirit

Walls and fences cannot instruct the grasses and trees to actualize spring, yet they reveal the spiritual without intention, just by being what they are. So too with mountains, rivers, sun, moon, and stars.

—Dogen, "Everything is Holy"

Via Daily Dharma / The Terrain of a Moment

Every moment is a unique view of a unique territory, both of which unfold in perpetual motion. Because of the continual flux of it all, holding on to anything that has happened is futile, while being open to what happens next is crucial.

—Andrew Olendzki, "This Moment is Unique"

Via Ram Dass

Truth is one of the vehicles for deepening spiritual awareness through another human being, and if there is a license for that in the relationship, in any relationship – with guru, with friend, with lover, with whatever it is – it is an absolutely optimum way of coming into a liquid spiritual relationship with another person. But it’s very, very delicate because people feel very vulnerable. They have parts of their mind that are cut off, that the idea that’s been socialized is, “If I show this part of me, I would not be acceptable.” And the ability to risk that, finally you learn how to have your truth available.

So truth is one of the exciting vehicles to work with in a relationship. And what I’ve learned is to use my lecturer role to make my truth as available as I possibly could, and what I find is people say to me, “Thank you for being so truthful. It makes it easier for me to be truthful about myself, because you’ve done that.” And I think well, it’s a cheap price to offer yourself up for that purpose, if that in itself starts to help other people.

Via Daily Dharma / Elaborating On the “Now”

We know not to get caught in the past or the future, but in order to be in the Now, we also have to let go of the present. The Now is not confined by relative clock time, yet it is also not pure timelessness.

—Loch Kelly, "When Am I?"

Via Daily Dharma / Storm Dharma

If suffering and awakening form a single weather-system, as many a wise person has come to know, then when storms come, perhaps we can accept them with less dread and aversion, and more trust, and even hope.

— Henry Shukman, "Beautiful Storm"