Reblogged from living dharma:

The Dalai Lama says that the core of his practice is to prepare for death. Which sounds a bit grim. But if you really look at what he is saying he means that he is practicing to live a good life, so that when death comes he is ready and free of regret. I’ve been thinking more about death than life this last week, after the suicide of a very close friend in Plum Village. Phap Kinh and I were room-mates together as aspirants (sleeping two feet from one another), sharing everything as we entered monastic …

On the 2nd of June 2011 strangers gathered at 6:30pm in Trafalgar Square to share a peaceful 30 minutes meditating. Organised by Wake Up London Sangha www.wkuplondon.org

People everywhere are making choices more connected with their values. We are simplifying our lives, buying less, living more because we know that the Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.

越来越多的人会依照自己的价值判断来做選擇。人们不断把生活简单化，亲近自然，买少一点东西，多活出一点精彩，因为我们意识到，地球能满足我们的寻求，但不能满足我们的欲望。

製作： NonviolenceUnited.org
中文製作: www.newwe.info/tw

+++

我們所有的人都有著相互的關聯。我們的選擇不只影響自身，也影響其他人的生活。

有一種”相互關聯”的選擇可以創造一個更美好的世界——一個所有的人都喜愛的世界，一個充滿人性之美的世界，充滿正義、友愛和慈悲的世界。

這種選擇將產生無比強大的力量。

選擇它，你將：
-使飢餓從地球上消失
-終結森林的砍伐——使北國的森林重新繁茂，讓熱帶雨林消逝的步伐停止
-使鄉村田園重現生機，保存家庭農場
-杜絕水污染和水資源浪費的最大來源
-使絢爛多彩的海底世界重獲生氣
-使癌症和心臟病發病率降到最低
-使土地回歸它的主人（野生動物）

現在的你，通過改變飲食就能做到！

選擇純素食，為人類、為地球和為動物！

But there is one connected choice that sometimes gets overlooked. It’s one of the most far-reaching personal, practical and ethical choices you can make. With this choice we can help…

… feed ourselves and every hungry person on the planet.
… end deforestation — replenish the deep woods of the North and save our disappearing rainforests.
… revitalize our rural landscapes and save family farms.
… stop the number one polluter of water and the number one waster of water.
… return our oceans to thriving underwater worlds teeming with life and wonder.
… make cancer and heart disease a rarity instead of a common occurrence.
… stop the unnecessary suffering of billions and billions of animals.
… and return wild lands to their rightful owners.

This powerful choice can be done by everyone every day… by you… right now.

Vegan.

Every day you are invited to make choices. Live your values. Change the world.

It’s that simple.

Produced by： NonviolenceUnited.org
Chinese production: www.newwe.info/tw

To let ourselves be seen,
deeply seen, vulnerably seen;

To love with our whole hearts,
even though there’s no guarantee

To practice gratitude and joy
in those moments of terror

To be able to say “I am enough”
because when we work from a place that says, “I’m enough,”
then we stop screaming and start listening,
we’re kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we’re kinder and gentler to

A New Earth

This is a book I am coming back to again and again, made convenient by the free audio and video downloads from Oprah.com, they are with me everywhere I go.

Excerpt from Oprah.com:

In his insightful look into humanity’s ego-based thinking, Eckhart Tolle provides practical teachings for waking up to a new, enlightened mind-set. If you’re seeking a more loving self and a more loving planet, A New Earth has the tools to begin your transformation.

Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection? Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness? Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego in place and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?

The possibility of such a transformation has been the central message of the great wisdom teachings of humankind. The messengers—Buddha, Jesus, and others, not all of them known—were humanity’s early flowers. They were precursors, rare and precious beings. A widespread flowering was not yet possible at that time, and their message became largely misunderstood and often greatly distorted. It certainly did not transform human behavior, except in a small minority of people.

Is humanity more ready now than at the time of those early teachers? Why should this be so? What can you do, if anything, to bring about or accelerate this inner shift? What is it that characterizes the old egoic state of consciousness, and by what signs is the new emerging consciousness recognized? These and other essential questions will be addressed in this book. More important, this book itself is a transformational device that has come out of the arising new consciousness. The ideas and concepts presented here may be important, but they are secondary. They are no more than signposts pointing toward awakening. As you read, a shift takes place within you.
Read more

❝ I invite you to join Oprah and myself in our weekly online sessions. We will be studying A New Earth, but not as an academic subject or in order to acquire new theories or beliefs. Our aim is to explore through the teachings of the book the most important question you can ask: What is the purpose of my life and how do I fulfill that purpose? It will be a course in self-exploration and awakening. It will help you see what the dysfunctional patterns are within yourself that create unnecessary conflict and suffering and prevent you from finding true fulfillment. Hopefully, it will also help you access a dimension within yourself that perhaps you didn’t know existed or only caught glimpses of on rare occasions. Don’t be trapped for the rest of your life within the narrow confines of your personal history and your conditioned personality and allow your life to be transformed from within, through the power of consciousness itself. ❞ ~ Eckhart Tolle

► Join / Download the Online Study

Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the “Singin’ Scientist.”

Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight from TEDTalks on Vimeo.

The wonderfully wise Ajahn Chah

Excerpts from the book No Ajahn Chah

❝ The Buddha told his disciple Ananda to see impermanence, to see death with every breath. We must know death; we must die in order to live. What does this mean? To die is to come to the end of all our doubts, all our questions, and just be here with the present reality. You can never die tomorrow; you must die now. Can you do it? If you can do it, you will know the peace of no more questions. ❞

❝ If our body really belonged to us, it would obey our commands. If we say “Don’t get old,” or “I forbid you to get sick,” does it obey us? No! It’s take no notice, We only rent this “house,” not own it. If we think it does belong to us, we will suffer when we have to leave it. But in reality, there is no such thing as a permanent self, nothing un- changing or solid that we can hold on to. ❞

❝ What is Dharma? Nothing isn’t. ❞

❝ Regardless of time and place, the whole practice of Dharma comes to completion at the place where there is nothing. It’s the place of surrender, of emptiness, of laying down the burden. This is the finish.

Conditions all go their own natural way. Whether we laugh or cry over them, they just go their own way. And there is no knowledge of science which can prevent this natural course of things. You may get a dentist to look at your teeth, but even if they can fix them, they still finally go their natural way. Eventually even the dentist has the same trouble. Everything fall apart in the end. ❞

Ajahn Chah meditating in the forest

❝ When those who do not understand the Dharma act improperly, they look all around to make sure no one is watching. But our karma is always watching. We never really get away with anything.

We don’t meditate to see heaven, but to end suffering. ❞

❝ Remember you don’t meditate to get anything, but to get rid of things. We do it not with desire but with letting go. If you want anything, you won’t find it.

The real foundation of the teaching is to see the self a being empty. But people come to study the Dharma to increase their self-view, so they don’t want to experience suffering or difficulty. They want everything to be cosy. They may want to transcend suffering, but if there is still a self, how can they ever do so? ❞

❝ If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.

Ajahn Chah receiving alms

Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught us that sort of home is not our real home. It’s a home in the world and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace. ❞

❝ If you see certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer.

You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth – inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important. ❞

❝ No one and nothing can free you but your own understanding.

Look after your virtue as a gardener takes care of his plants. Do not be attached to big or small, important or unimportant. Some people want shortcuts. They say, “Forget concentration, we’ll go straight to in- sight; forget virtue, we’ll start with concentration.” We have so many excuses for our attachments. ❞

Ajahn Sumedho (centre) & other monks at Ajahn Chah's funeral

❝ The Buddha taught to lay down those things that lack a real abiding essence. If you lay everything down you will see the truth. If you don’t, you won’t. That’s the way it is. And when wisdom awakens within you, you will see truth wherever you look. Truth is all you’ll see. ❞

The above quotations are excerpted from the book ‘No Ajahn Chah’ which is available to view or download at the following link: No Ajahn Chah

The photographs of Ajahn Chah are taken from the following site, where there are many more wonderful images of him: Ajahn Chah Photo Gallery

The Free State ~ Lester Levenson

Get Off The Rollercoaster Part 1 ~ Lester Levenson

Get Off The Rollercoaster Part 2 ~ Lester Levenson

The second truth he discovered was that he had the inborn ability to let go of his feelings. He discovered how to completely discharge them and their negative influences from his life. Instead of struggling with them by suppressing, coping and venting as he had previously done, he discovered how to totally release them. This put an end to his struggle! He found permanent happiness. And, he found the more he released his feelings, the happier and healthier he became. In fact, within three months he was completely well, and he stayed well for over 40 more years!

You know from your own experience, that when too many negative feelings build up in you, you feel anxious, uncomfortable, and unhappy. The first thing you’ll try to do is to get away from them. You’ll do this by suppressing them (hiding them from yourself is the worst thing you can do), coping with them (trying to escape their effects by various means), or by venting them.

Take Full Responsibility to Achieve Your Goal

Read more

The wonderful balloon illustration is shared by richesforrags.tumblr.com

If there is no mud,
there will be no lotus flowers

~ Thich Nhat Hanh