Golfing with the Dalai Lama

Things will work out!  Be happy and your outlook changes.  Be caring. Be kind.  Wave a people.  Smile at people.

Say this, believe it, and then see what happens: “I am more helpful today than I was yesterday.”

Name the two players that played on a Bellefontaine, OH, basketball and baseball team that went to the State Tournament in the same year.

Some mornings (most?) as I lather up in the shower, my mind begins to think of what I will be doing, or, frequently, what has been bothering me. I notice that I talk as if I’m talking to another person – typically someone that has been bothering me.

I know that this brings negative energy, but I wonder why it feels “good” to me to get this off my chest?  Maybe it doesn’t, maybe it’s just bringing more of what I don’t want. So, how do I stop this?

One way is to think of the good people and those that have helped you in your life.  I sometimes have to mindfully focus to move that energy pattern from the victim mentality to the peace, love and acceptance mentality.  It’s hard.

http://www.tricycle.com/insights/do-thoughts-ever-stop

But, let’s not be too hard on ourselves either. There’s no such thing as perfection.

http://www.tricycle.com/interview/practice-first

And, there’s no such thing as bad meditation.

http://www.tricycle.com/-practice/stepping-towards-enlightenment

From the movie: “I am”

When you plant seeds in the garden, you don’t dig them up every day to see if they have sprouted yet. You simply water them and clear away the weeds; you know that the seeds will grow in time.

Similarly, just do your daily practice and cultivate a kind heart. Abandon impatience and instead be content creating the causes for goodness; the results will come when they’re ready.

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/meditators-toolbox

I am nice to people and people are nice to me.

I give money freely and my own bank account grows.

I have a good thought, something good happens.

I think of nice people I know, nice people come to know me.

I trust people, people trust me.

I am peaceful with people, people are peaceful with me.

I love and I am loved.

I accept others, others accept me.

One way that the giver sees his or her generosity return is found in “instant karma,” the Buddhist idea that acts that you do have direct consequences on the state of your mind and heart, even as you do them. The consequences of giving are quite wonderful in the present moment; if we are present for them, we can receive these wonderful consequences during the act of giving. 

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/joy-giving

A profound statement: Brothers can’t live beside each other once they’re married, but sisters can.

“When talking about others is motivated by thoughts of ill will, jealousy, or attachment, conversations turn into gossip.

Read this today, along with having some conversations recently with friends who are unsure of their gifts in life.  Sometimes, it seems, that we base distrust on very few situations, and trust on not too many situations. Overall, are we in a better place in life to trust than to distrust?

Granted, we get taken advantage of on occasions, but do those situations outweigh what trusting situations can bring us?

Overall, I would say – what can we do to make things better?  I’m not just talking right here, or at work, or home or anywhere geographically. I’m talking about a lifestyle of helping, trusting, believing and, as I think the Latin Poet Horace, Carpe Diem.

I think to myself, am I in a better place when I am angry, discontent, untrusting, cynical and disruptive; or, am I in a better place when I focusing on what I’m doing right now, not letting the past dictate my emotions.  Now, granted, one cannot take that to an extreme – one has to be cognizant on pitfalls and have avoidance radar, but, overall, for me at least, I’m much better when I’m trusting, even if I do get taken advantage of occasionally.  

http://www.tricycle.com/dharma-talk/first-thought

Accept Where You Are and Work From There

In human life, if you feel that you have made a mistake, you don’t try to undo the past or the present, but you just accept where you are and work from there. Tremendous openness as to where you are is necessary. This also applies to the practice of meditation, for instance. A person should learn to meditate on the spot, in the given moment, rather than thinking, “…When I reach pension age, I’m going to retire and receive a pension, and I’m going to build my house in Hawaii or the middle of India, or maybe the Gobi Desert, and THEN I’m going to enjoy myself. I’ll live a life of solitude and then I’ll really meditate.” Things never happen that way.

—Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

http://www.tricycle.com/practice/your-life-your-practice

The Path is Personal and Intimate

It is essential at the beginning of practice to acknowledge that the path is personal and intimate. It is no good to examine it from a distance as if it were someone else’s. You must walk it for yourself. In this spirit, you invest yourself in your practice, confident of your heritage, and train earnestly side by side with your sisters and brothers. It is this engagement that brings peace and realization.

– Robert Aitken Roshi

http://www.tricycle.com/-practice/the-teacher-everything

Turn Down the Heat

Something empowering happens when we begin to see these problems as internal rather than external. We have access to ourselves. We have the ability to make internal changes when the mechanisms for change are within our reach. A slight shift of attitude, a minor adjustment of priorities, an occasional opening to a wider perspective, the glimpse of a good greater than the merely personal— these all contribute in a small way to turning down the heat. And since we are faced not with a single enormous fire but with billions of little fires, each one ablaze in one person, miniscule changes in one mind here and one heart there can add up to a dramatic reduction of greenhouse defilements.

Andrew Olendzki, “Burning Alive”

http://www.tricycle.com/thus-have-i-heard/burning-alive

From Tricycle: When people genuinely meet the dharma, they realize it directly within themselves. So the Buddha said that he is merely the one who shows the way. In teaching us, he is not accomplishing the way for us. It is not so easy as that. It’s like someone who sells us a plow to till the fields. He isn’t going to do the plowing for us. We have to do that ourselves.

http://www.tricycle.com/dharma-talk/meeting-dharma-alone

The Choppy Seas of Conversation

Like surfing, staying present is always a challenge, but doing it while interacting with others tends to be like managing in choppy, cross-current seas. We have not only our own thoughts and impulses to contend with but also those of our conversational partners. So if we can stay present and compassionate when, say, a coworker is kvetching, odds are we can do it anytime.

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/talk-buddha

Welcome to the Revolution

The Buddha was a revolutionary, a radical advocate for personal and social transformation. He rejected the religious forms of his time and renounced all forms of greed, hatred, and delusion. He dedicated his life to going “against the stream,” to the subversive path of an outlaw transient. He wasn’t afraid to speak out against the ignorance in this world’s political, social, and religious structures, but he did so from a place of love and kindness, from an enlightened compassion that extended to all living beings. The Buddha’s teachings are not a philosophy or a religion; they are a call to action, an invitation to revolution.

http://www.tricycle.com/community/heart-revolution

Awaken Aspiration

When the clarity of practice becomes obscured by the dark and swirling energy of emotional distress, it is useful to have some clear and concise reminders to bring us back to reality. The first reminder is to awaken aspiration. On an elementary level, to awaken aspiration means simply that we remember to practice. Once we remember to practice, to awaken aspiration means that we see our particular distress as our path. Instead of seeing our distress as the enemy, as something to get rid of; instead of giving it juice by solidifying the thoughts around it into the heaviness and drama of “me,” we learn to view distress as our opportunity to see and to open.

http://www.tricycle.com/practice/bursting-bubble-fear

We Will Our Lives

We will our lives with activities. Many of them are really very good activities but if we are not careful, they can just be an escape. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do good and necessary things, but there has to be breathing in as well as breathing out. We need to have both the active and the contemplative.

http://www.tricycle.com/blog/three-kinds-laziness

The Controlling Faculties of Mind

Acquiring skillful attitudes involves developing two qualities: continuity of awareness and insight knowledge, which is the progressively refined intuitive understanding of impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and conditionality (anatta). Stabilizing the mind and refining wisdom are the natural results of developing faith, energy, and awareness through insight practice. These five qualities together—faith, energy, awareness, stability of mind, and wisdom—are known as the “controlling faculties of mind.”

http://www.tricycle.com/dharma-talk/got-attitude

Sangha is Essential

Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are three precious jewels in Buddhism, and the most important of these is Sangha. The Sangha contains the Buddha and the Dharma. A good teacher is important, but sisters and brothers in the practice are the main ingredient for success. You cannot achieve enlightenment by locking yourself in your room. Transformation is possible only when you are in touch. When you touch the ground, you can feel the stability of the earth and feel confident.

http://www.tricycle.com/insights/fertile-soil-sangha

The Importance of Giving

Giving needs to be practiced and developed because our underlying tendency toward attachment, aversion, and confusion so often interferes with a truly selfless act of generosity. An act of giving is of most benefit when one gives something of value, carefully, with one’s own hand, while showing respect, and with a view that something wholesome will come of it. The same is true when one gives out of faith, respectfully, at the right time, with a generous heart, and without causing denigration.

http://www.tricycle.com/-practice/dana-practice-giving

Lead by Being Led. – MLK

A – The beginning of life. The wonder. Ahhh.

U – The life itself. Full of experiences, agony, pleasure, love and distrust.

M – Life’s end.  Hmmm. It was a good life.

Then, the silence before the cycle continues.

“Your life evokes your nature and you learn more about yourself as you go on. Put yourself in situations which evoke your higher nature.”  — Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

When we recognize our metaphysical connection to others, we enable the Hero within us.