 Happiness or sorrow – whatever befalls you, walk on untouched, unattached.
– Buddha |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 17, 2019
 Some people are like magnetite: they don’t look unusual – don’t act unusual – until they are struck by lightning. (I mean metaphorically.) Like sickness, divorce, unemployment, your dog dies, you get abused. Frankly, there are a million ways to “get struck by lightning” and they all suck, except that some of them, in some people, turn on a kind of inner compass – nothing special to look at – but having a tendency to swing towards True North. In every ancient culture there were certain people to whom this was more likely to happen and they were called by different names in different cultures – medicine woman, shaman, mystic. I call then Wayfinders. Are you on this Team of Wayfinders? (I bet you are!)
– Martha Beck, About the Team video |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 16, 2019
 It is not enough to have faith in spiritual ideals, based on the testimony of the scriptures or spiritual teachers. We must realize these truths for ourselves, in our own life and consciousness. As the Buddha was fond of saying, the spiritual teacher only points the way; we must do our own traveling. The personal example of others may plant the seed in our hearts, but faith can develop fully only when we begin to experience these truths in our own lives.
– Eknath Easwaran |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 15, 2019
 Learning to Fall
We all suffer the limitations of our humanness: not just our aches and pains but our fear, our anger, our pettiness, our grief. Fact is, we do practice being human in every waking moment. And the more mindfully we practice, the more often our conflicts dissolve, the more easily we create new possibilities for relationship and community. – Philip Simmons, “Learning to Fall” |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 14, 2019
 Breaking Through
It’s imperative for us to understand that spiritual practice is not just something we do when we’re sitting in meditation or when we’re on retreat. Failing to see everything as an opportunity for practice is a setup for frustration and disappointment, keeping us stuck where we are and limiting our possibilities for inner growth. The more we include in our practice, the more satisfying our life can be. – Ezra Bayda, “Breaking Through” |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 13, 2019
 How Habits Stick
Sticking to the precepts requires constant self-monitoring, discernment, and effort, but there comes a point when the practicality, the boon, of the thing sinks into the organic body and saturates one’s actions. Violating the precepts gets harder to do. – Mary Talbot, “The Joy of No Sex” |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 12, 2019
 Great Compassion
The virtues of great compassion are infinite; they could be expounded upon forever without exhausting them, but it boils down to this: Whoever has great compassion can extinguish all obstructions caused by past actions and can fulfill all virtues; no principle cannot be understood, no path cannot be practiced, no knowledge not attained, no virtue not developed. Just as when you want to win people’s hearts you first love their children, the Buddhas and bodhisattvas consider all living beings their children, so if you love all living beings equally, all the Buddhas will be moved to respond. – Zen Master Torei, “Great Compassion” |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 11, 2019
 Nothing Happens Without a Cause
Nothing happens without a cause. Things are the way they are not because of chance or the will of a deity but because people have acted in particular ways and generated particular consequences. The world we inhabit is the product of our actions, which are themselves reflections of our minds. – Andrew Olendzki, “Medicine for the World” |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 10, 2019
 Remembering MLK
We are caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. . . . Strangely enough I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way the world is made. – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Sangha by Another Name” |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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Mini Mindfulness Break for January 09, 2019
 Embracing Groundlessness
It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our effort to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. – Pema Chodron, “The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being Human” |
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May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering! All my best,
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