Random Dharma

Should contain the advisory: "will put practitioner under extreme pressure."

Obviously, this works for some!

Kate Gowen wrote: Should contain the advisory: "will put practitioner under extreme pressure."

Obviously, this works for some!

It was a game Alan played with his students. I did the same, as did others I knew at that time. Not sure he still does that exercise. The point is to create that sense of pressure and frustration. It doesn't matter if you wake up on the day you choose (usually chosen via a ritual, dream, vision, etc. so as to be less "selfie"). Rarely did someone actually wake up on the day. But having the deadline put you in a more vivid relationship with your spiritual process, which brought things to light (such as particular misconceptions or fears).

Agreed, Chris! I used to say, "I didn't jump-- I was pushed!"

Even though there was no "one" to pin it on.

New and good from Brad Warner:

hardcorezen.info/the-more-drama-you-have...e-real-you-feel/3596

COME TO YOUR SENSES

There is only one Truth
and as you go looking for it
through a forest of seeking
be careful lest you bump into a tree.
That lump on your head
may remind you that everything is God.

You are like a forest dweller
looking for the forest.

What am I to do?

Listen friend
each crackling leaf beneath your feet
is a personal invitation
to come to your senses.

Has it ever occurred to you
that you are seeking God
with His eyes?
~ Adyashanti
My Secret is Silence

Another one from Adyashanti, which I find beautiful:

Q. “When a person becomes awake and enlightened, does he or she also become wise and loving?”

Adya: “When you awaken, all becoming ceases. Being awake means that you realize by direct experience who and what you are. You do not become anything. All becoming is in time, which is mind. Awakening is outside of time: You awaken from time to that which is timeless. Wisdom and love are aspects of your own Self and as such do not need to be created or pursued.

Many people try to become wiser and more loving, and they remain in a constant battle with themselves. This approach never works because it assumes a separate ‘you’ who wants to be a better person. It is the you that is the dream, a thought only. In taking yourself to be a separate entity, you blind yourself to the Truth of your being which is love and wisdom.”

~ Adyashanti
The Impact of Awakening

I just discovered this podcast: meditatethispodcast.com/

Episode 35 is really good. Here's the text for the podcast:


Dr. Ellen Langer, Ph. D.
The Mother of Mindfulness
episode 35

Feeling lethargic? Does life just seem dull and gray?

Then you MUST listen to our interview with Ellen Langer, best-selling author and Harvard professor of social psychology who has been dubbed the "mother of mindfulness." How much more convincing do you need? She has authored 11 books and more than 200 research articles. And she's going to tell you why making some very simple changes in how you perceive the world can have a very profound impact on how you live.

So what are you waiting for? Sit up, put down your phone, and just press play!

And afterwards, be sure to check out www.ellenlanger.com and www.langermindfulnessinstitute.com for links to her books and lots more information. Also, this recent New York Times article is an excellent read.

I'm only about halfway into it but damn, that's *really* good!

Agreed. 30 minutes in. This is great. My favorite line so far is how she says Mindfulness = endless playfulness.

“One can’t write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes.”
—Virginia Woolf

www.brainpickings.org/2015/02/06/virginia-woolf-soul-aging/

Time for my periodic Ken McLeod fanboy post:

www.unfetteredmind.org/nb-sangha-and-teaching/

This one is FACINATING to me. It teases apart the social and spiritual aspects of a spiritual groups... basically how any organization becomes primarily a social organization and really the only alternative is SCHIZM!!!! (He doesn't use the word, but I will.)

Just one of the pithy observations related in the podcast: "Traditions are formed by people who do untraditional things."

vimeo.com/119134995

american bonsai master

Shinzen on working with the emotional body:

'The conceptual environment of primitive man commonly affects his life more profoundly than his external environment. And this is also true of modern man'

'There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory, which states that this has already happened.' - hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

Cool quotes Femto- what's the first one from?
(Apologies if it's from a link up-thread). That's something I reflect on a lot (well, in my own terms, without the primitive-modern dichotomy).
Especially when I reflect on the way that Buckminster Fuller and others like him approach issues of resource allocation it makes me feel that the only thing separating our current world from paradise is the way we humans speak, think and feel (and how this drives our behaviors). Meanwhile we collectively project all that inner content of fear and aggression and possessiveness onto the world and act as if there are insurmountable problems of lack 'out there' and thus we need to fight over scarce resources... our very competitiveness, economically and militarily, ironically contributing to the destruction of natural systems which, if we engaged in a more economically collaborative and ecologically literate way, these systems could sustain us and we them.

its by Rene Dubos from A God Within

Spell check is changing "noself" to "nosilly". Hmmmmmmmmmm..........

"Our personal memories seem so essential that one might expect to be paralyzed without them. But our waking life may involve less conscious reflection than we suppose."

Mainly tempted to post this here because of the wonderful portrait above,
but the article may contain several other valuable insights too...

teaser: boingboing.net/2015/04/30/the-life-of-an-amnesiac.html

long: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/an-artist-with-amnesia

artist's site: lonnisuejohnson.wordpress.com/