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Post by t-bob on Sept 12, 2019 8:21:23 GMT -5
Keeping an Ongoing Practice
Enlightenment and mastery are great goals, but not required to reap the benefits of Buddhism. The main thing is to have a practice, and to keep it alive, personally relevant, and engaged. Make it your own, and bring it with you everywhere.
—Erik Hansen, “Bartelby the Buddhist”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 13, 2019 8:13:07 GMT -5
Practicing to Benefit All Beings
As we cultivate the ability to see clearly, to understand one another, all beings benefit in ways we comprehend and ways that are still beyond our grasp.
—Nina Wise, “The Psychedelic Journey to the Zafu”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 14, 2019 8:43:09 GMT -5
You Are an Active Presence
Action is not something you do, it’s something you are. In other words, you are not a noun, you’re a verb. That is our true nature
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Post by t-bob on Sept 15, 2019 9:31:34 GMT -5
Releasing Your Ego
We often think that insecurity comes from a weak ego, but in my experience it is the result of an inflexible ego that has mistaken itself as the center of the universe, which keeps contradicting it on this key point.
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Post by t-bob on Sept 16, 2019 9:39:13 GMT -5
Acknowledging Our Blindspots
The capacity to recognize and accept where we are and to investigate what must be changed to minimize the harm that our own views and blindspots cause others is essential to the work of racial justice. And the capacity to do all of this with as little attachment and identification to the outcome is essential to true liberation
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Post by t-bob on Sept 17, 2019 9:32:38 GMT -5
The Purpose of Mindfulness
The purpose of nirvanic moments of mindfulness is to create an ethical space from which to see, think, speak, act, and work in ways that are not conditioned by reactivity.
—Stephen Batchelor, “A Buddhist Brexit”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 18, 2019 8:07:13 GMT -5
How to Combat Burnout
Well-being, self-care, and self-love bring me joy, inner peace, hope, and happiness daily. This, I think, is the core of sustainability for activists and activism and is a foundation for transforming difficulties in work and in personal life and especially our own ego.
—Interview with Ouyporn Khuankaew by Caitlin Dwyer, “Toward a Thai Feminist Movement”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 19, 2019 8:21:39 GMT -5
The Outcomes of Wisdom
Wisdom does not alter the world; it lets the sage transcend the world.
—Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano, “The Phone Rings
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Post by t-bob on Sept 20, 2019 9:00:45 GMT -5
Continuous Renewal
Buddhist psychology urges that we recognize that dying is a continuous process, going on all the time—a “perpetual succession of extremely short-lived events.” To recognize this authentically is to experience some form of enlightenment.
—Dean Rolston, “Memento Mori”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 21, 2019 8:45:30 GMT -5
How Can You Forget the Self?
One forgets the self by becoming one with the task at hand. Zazen, or seated meditation, is the quintessential form for this focused awareness, but it can be practiced anywhere and anytime.
—Andrew Cooper, “Spirit in Sport”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 22, 2019 8:50:33 GMT -5
The Gift of Every Breath
There was just no telling which breath would be my last. And so I breathed. And breathed again. And each breath was better than the one before because it was a gift, an unexpected bonus.
—Leath Tonino, “The Ground Under Our Feet”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 23, 2019 8:28:34 GMT -5
How to Appreciate Every Season
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.
—Wumen Huikai, “The Best Season
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Post by t-bob on Sept 24, 2019 8:13:26 GMT -5
Open to the Sacred
Despite our loyalty to our Western materialistic and scientific view, we may come to suspect that reality is actually multidimensional, that vestiges of other worlds sometimes accompany us, that a sacred embodied presence may be available to us if only we are open to it.
—Sandy Boucher, “Meeting the Friend She Always Knew
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Post by t-bob on Sept 25, 2019 8:54:04 GMT -5
Accepting Moments as They Are
Every moment of mindfulness renounces the reflexive, self-protecting response of the mind in favor of clear and balanced understanding. In the light of the wisdom that comes from balanced understanding, attachment to having things be other than what they are falls away.
—Sylvia Boorstein, “The First Teachings”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 26, 2019 8:11:55 GMT -5
Finding Joy in Simplicity
It’s in precisely those moments when we experience how crowded our minds are that we have the chance of letting go and experiencing just how light we can be. What a joy to simply bow and light a stick of incense.
—Noelle Oxenhandler, “Twirling a Flower”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 27, 2019 8:29:34 GMT -5
Why Is Suffering So Painful?
Clinging to our notion of what we think should be is what causes the “suffering of suffering.” The suffering itself is not so bad, it’s the resentment against suffering that is the real pain.
—Allen Ginsberg, “Negative Capability: Kerouac’s Buddhist Ethic”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 28, 2019 8:15:18 GMT -5
Facing Our Emotions with Clarity
If you turn your awareness directly into an emotion it stops developing. This doesn’t mean you are analyzing it or thinking about it but rather turning toward it with clear awareness.
—Lama Tsultrim Allione, “Feeding Your Demons
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Post by t-bob on Sept 29, 2019 8:19:02 GMT -5
Observing The Results of Our Actions
It is not possible for actions to disappear without residue or result once the action is over. To think it could be otherwise, the Buddha explained, would be like believing you could toss a stone into a pool of water and not create a single ripple.
—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: Karma and the Tonka Truck”
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Post by t-bob on Sept 30, 2019 9:13:21 GMT -5
Notice the Teachings Around You
We have to discover [the real Buddhist teachings] for ourselves through meditation. The real Buddhist teachings are hidden in the lotus. The real teachings are hidden in the full moon.
—Sam Mowe, “Changed by Brightness
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Post by t-bob on Oct 1, 2019 8:46:40 GMT -5
Appreciate the Opportunity to Notice
When I put so much stock in formal meditation, I forget that it’s only one way of helping me see the magic that surrounds me and that is me. Redefining meditation simply as “the opportunity to notice” opens up a world of possibilities.
—Barry Evans, “I Like It … but Is It Meditation?”
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