"All you really need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself."
Tolle, The Power of Now, 1999.
Post by Daily Dharma. 28 July 2006
On Rising
Today, like every day, we wake up hollow and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Reach for a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Jalil - Din Rumi, 1207 - 73, Persia.
Post by Daily Dharma. 27 July 2006
With boundless mind
Even as a mother at the risk of her life would watch over her only child, so let us with boundless mind and goodwill survey the whole world.
"Tribalism is not a bad word. It does not mean war it does not mean separation. It does not mean mine is better than yours. It means listening to our collective invisible drum. Close your eyes and put your hand to your heart and beyond the sound of a thousand sewing needles, you will hear the sound of hearts beating across the world. They are the same heart. They are a collective heart. We. Ours. Not they nor them. It is the heart of a family. It is our song.
Yet we are not listening. Only when the sound ceases, do we ache to hear it. Only when death is about do we ache to hear our most sacred and beautiful song, the sound of our collective heartbeat. But then it is too late.
We are only human beings. We are only a family."
Milk Collection 2001. Prologue by James McBride
Post by Daily Dharma. 25 July 2006
The last human freedom
"We who lived in the concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread....They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from us but the last of human freedoms... the freedom to choose our spirit in any circumstance."
Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning Post by Daily Dharma. 24 July 2006
Five Limitless States
"These five emotions - friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, and devotion - are the principle positive emotions that Buddhism encourages us to develop. These emotions occupy a central place in the spiritual life, and when fully developed they constitute what is known as the 'liberation of the heart'. In today's world the development of positive emotion is more important than ever before; without positivity there is no spiritual life. Unfortunately many people in the West fail to realize this. They think religion is dull and gloomy - well perhaps it is, but Buddhism isn't, and personal development certainly isn't. I would go so far as to say that without strong positive emotion no spiritual progress is possible at all. This means that many people's first duty, to themselves and to others, is simply to be happy: to develop friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity and devotion."
Sangharakshita, Buddhism for Today and Tomorrow. (Windhorse Publications 1996)
Post by Daily Dharma. 21 July 2006
"Compassion is a verb"
Thich Nhat Hanh
Post by Daily Dharma. 20 July 2006
The Noble Quest
"The Buddhist tradition can be seen as a tradition of questing. The Buddhist way, the Dharma, is the way of searching for the ultimate truth about life. It is a search for ever greater understanding of the nature of existence, ever greater solidarity with other beings, ever greater harmony with the universe. The Buddha himself called this the 'the noble quest'. We look for many things in life, but the Buddha distinguished one such search above all others - the search for spiritual awakening. Consisting as it does in wisdom combined with love for all beings (who, we realize, are essentially of the same mysterious nature as ourselves) Enlightenment is the greatest gift that life holds. The quest for Enlightenment, not just for our own sake but for the sake of others, is therefore considered to be the only true noble quest."
Moksananda, Ordination (Windhorse Publications 2004)
Post by Daily Dharma. 19 July 2006
Even as great rock is not shaken by the wind, the wise man is not shaken by praise or blame.
"Can you see and touch the divine that is in everything? We live in a secular society, with few ceremonies in our daily lives to help us remember and acknowledge the sacred. Robbed of small formalities, we become familiar with one another's humanness. I want a little distance, once in a while, to remind me of what a mystery others are to me, and I to them, to anticipate touching with awe the divine in another.
It's easy to lose sight of the divine in the partner who takes out the garbage, and easier still if he or she doesn't. It's hard to remember to look for and see the beloved in the parking attendent or the check out clerk we encounter. We need shared gestures, small ceremonies that help us pay attention, that let us see and honour the mystery of the other every day. This is the commitment my soul longs to make to the world.
And I want to stop trying to do this.
It is not the being, not even the doing that exhausts. It is the trying: trying to be present, to be awake, to hold the whole world, to be better, more self-aware, more conscious. My hopes for us are real: I want to help create a world where the very idea of toxic waste would raise such a cry of anguish from the people so as to make it unthinkable; where we would move, pulled by the heart, to care for the poor, the ill, the dying, without fear of contamination, seeing ourselves in each person."
Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Invitation. (Thorsons 1999)
Post by Daily Dharma. 14 July 2006
Programme Changes
A few changes have been made to the previously advertised programme.
There will now be a double meditation session on 27th July.
The Study Evening on Ethics has been extened to run over two evenings, instead of one. Part II will be on 3rd August. This means that the subjects for the study evenings will all be moved to the next month.
Suriyavamsa from the Glasgow Buddhist Centre will be leading an evening on Puja & Meditation on 28th Septenber.
Post by Jim Gardner.
