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The Path Of Compassion

Thoughts On Spiritual Practice And Social Action

I could make a very convincing case to you for the practice of sitting meditation — just to do that and nothing else — and an equally convincing case for going out and serving the world.

The Light From Different Windows

As a Westerner turning Buddhist in 1982, I was concerned about abandoning my “Christian heritage” for a foreign culture. I had never felt completely at home with that heritage: church seemed like a sterile routine, and any form of dogma affected me like one more arrogant know-it-all telling me how I should live.

The Heart Of Compassion

An Interview With Ram Dass

So there’s a part of me that’s perfectly allowing of suffering. And then there’s the human heart that hurts like hell. And it’s that balancing that’s such a beautiful art form. The deepest line I work with, personally and in my lectures, is, “Out of emptiness arises compassion.” That’s the one. Getting to the place where you do what you do. And you’re not milking it for righteousness, and you’re not trying to change the world.

Ruminations On The Great Peace March

There must be many creative things one can do or statements one can make with a million signatures, but the most important moment in the life of a signature may be just when it is signed and the most important effect, however infinitesimal, may be on the signer. Today some people signed their names to a petition calling for nothing less than global nuclear disarmament, and joined their names with hundreds of thousands of others. Even if they turn right around and “forget” about it, does that render it an insignificant act? I don’t know, but I doubt it.

Being Peace

Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We also need to be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, everywhere, any time. Does it require a special effort to enjoy the blue sky? Do we have to practice to be able to enjoy it? No, we just enjoy it. We don’t need to travel to China in order to enjoy the sky.

Unseen Rain: Quatrains Of Rumi

Three Cities

A dozen men sit in comfortless plastic chairs staring at the floor. No one speaks. No one moves. Sunlight pours through yellow blinds into a room without time. It is clear that one is among the damned.

Taming The Mind

An Interview With Roger Guest

Aggression generally is a big problem. So what I would recommend is that first you tame your mind, which is a different way of working with emotions. The first level is to let the transparency of thoughts be seen. Then emotions will also begin to become transparent. So when you’re in a fit of anger the best thing you can do is just hold your seat. Be careful what you do.

Broken Bond

An Interview With Joseph Chilton Pearce

If the majority of our children stopped producing twelve-year molars, we’d be in shock; yet they’ve stopped producing twelve-year mentality. Operational thinking fails to take place in seventy percent of our children, and no one pays that much attention. Instead, we do what we are doing to our children earlier and do more of it. We put them in school earlier and earlier, and keep them in school longer and longer.

The Gift Of Sexual Energy

Please understand that you did not come to this planet at this time out of the void. You have been on a journey for a very long time. So you have come with certain tendencies, which are outpictured through your own being, your own consciousness, through your own life. These tendencies have produced certain attitudes in you toward sexuality and have become a part of who you are.