February 2012
28 posts
"The Green Bible" →
From Amazon.com:
Is God green? Did Jesus have anything to say about the environment? With over 1,000 references to the earth in the Bible, the message is clear. All of God’s creation—nature, animals, and humanity—are inextricably linked to one another. As creation cares for us, we too are called to care for creation and engage in the work of healing and sustaining it. Read the scriptures...
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“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
– Gandhi
lisawhitehare asked: Hi Terry, thank you very much for your note. As a relative newcomer to meditation I've found your posts of great value, and really appreciate your taking the time to send a message. It was synchronicitously timed, too, as I'd got up this morning intending to look for more meditation / buddhist blogs to read. The ones I've found most helpful so far have been yours and...
“Live simply that others may simply live.”
– Ghandi
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“‘To display His eternal attributes In their inexhaustible variety, The...”
– Thanks to Eknath Easwaren’s “Thought for the day”
For more about Jami click here
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“The word mindfulness, for instance: anyone who’s naive to hearing it is going to...”
– Jon Kabat-Zinn, as interviewed in “Opening to Our Lives” by Krista Tippett On Being (via sharanam)
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“As I silence myself I become more sensitive to the sounds around me, and I do...”
– Tayeko Yamanouchi, 1979; “Quaker Faith & Practice” 2.54
More here
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Something to think about from Ajahn Amaro
sharanam:
Yesterday I sat a day-long retreat with Ajahn Amaro. I am very grateful for the opportunity as his teachings really resonate with my own experience and practice. Here are two little things he said yesterday that I thought were particularly worthy of sharing.
In Thai, the same word is used for both “heart” and “mind”. I’ve heard that if you ask a Thai person to point to their mind,...
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"Heartfulness" ~ a round-up of references
Thanks to bahaistudies.net
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Leonard Cohen on Meditation
crashinglybeautiful:
“You run through your top ten erotic fantasies, ambition fantasies, revenge fantasies, global ratification fantasies. You run through them all until you bore yourself to death, basically, and the faculty that produces opinions and snap judgments and unrealistic scenarios for your own prominence, after you run through them for a number of years, they cease to have charge....
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On mindfulness and heartfulness ~ Thomas Keating
TGI: What is the relationship between mindfulness and heartfulness?
TK: You might say they are not exclusive of each other. According to my understanding of
Hebrew religion and mindfulness, they are meant to include both mind and heart in the
deeper seat of human consciousness. The Hebrew Bible in certain passages clearly deals
with higher consciousness and contemplative states. ...
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Buddhist and Christian formal practices compared
A paper by Robert Aitken.Fom the thezensite with gratitude.
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“Dwell not on the faults
and shortcomings of others;
instead, seek clarity...”
– Dhammapada 50, Ajahn Munindo rendition (download/read or listen)
This month, I am contemplating the sixth grave precept in Zen Buddhism as part of my training at NYZCCC. I am finding it to be the most painful to look at in just how habitual the mind’s judgments still are, and how externally-focused...
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a silky attention brought to bear
crashinglybeautiful:
“Violinists practicing scales and dancers repeating the same movements over decades are not simply warming up or mechanically training their muscles. they are learning how to attend unswervingly, moment by moment, to themselves and their art; learning to come into steady presence…Yet however it is brought into being, true concentration appears—paradoxically—at the moment...
“I think it would have been an excellent idea”
– Gandhi, when asked on his arrival in Europe, what he thought of Western civilisation. (via terreverte)
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“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings...”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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"The Tree of Life" ~ Eknath Easwaren
terreverte:
“Sages speak of the immutable Tree, with its root above and its branches below… . The limbs of this tree spread above and below. Sense objects grow on the limbs as buds; the roots hanging down bind us to action in this world. The true form of this tree – its essence, beginning, and end – is not perceived on this earth.”
– Bhagavad Gita
“We are all familiar with the unflattering...
“As we practice Buddhism, let’s take care. Let’s not put ourselves on a...”
– From “The sky above, the mud below” the latest posting by Seth Segall on his blog, “The Existential Buddhist”. With gratitude.
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“God has no religion”
– Gandhi
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“I did not come to the study and practice of Buddhism to become a Buddhist. In...”
– Alice Walker, in Dharma, Color, and Culture: New Voices in Western Buddhism (Parallax Press, 2004), adapted from a talk given at the African American Dharma Retreat and Conference, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, August 2002.
If it’s not outrageous for me to do so, I would modify “enlightened being”...
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“Even elements of the environmental movement approach the earth as an object to...”
– Joseph Epes Brown, “Teaching Spirits: Understanding Native American Religious Traditions”
(thanks to the latest Parabola Magazine Newsletter for this quote)
“The Earth is a tiny and fragile world. It needs to be cherished”
– Carl Sagan, 1980 (via terreverte)
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“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”
– Simone Weil
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“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”
– Simone Weil
On this quote, Stephen Mitchell made this comment:
“I love that. I think that could be as close as someone can get to a wonderful definition of prayer. In that sense, prayer has nothing spiritual or religious about it. A mathematician working at a problem or a little kid trying...
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Meditating on an inspirational text ~ Eknath...
“We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
– THE BUDDHA”
The method of meditation I teach involves sitting quietly with eyes closed and going slowly, in the mind, through the words of an inspirational passage that appeals to you deeply. It may...