Posted @withregram • @bbcnews Sir David Attenborough told world leaders at the COP26 climate conference that the future of young people should provide impetus to “turn tragedy into triumph” on climate change.
The naturalist said: “In my lifetime I’ve witnessed a terrible decline. In yours you could – and should – see a wonderful recovery.”
The burning of fossil fuels and other industrial activities jeopardises “everything we have achieved in the last 10,000 years,” he said. “We are already in trouble, the stability we all depend on is breaking.”
“This story is one of inequality as well as instability. Those who’ve done the least to cause this problem are being the hardest hit.”
Click the link in our bio for the latest news from the conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
indeed it does. and we all should be listening to our Indigenous family who have been listening for generations upon generations. the wisdom traditions of connection to earth and life are vital if we seek to transform our current crisis situation with climate change. 🌍❤️🙏🏻
#climatechange
Posted @withregram • @washingtonpost At just 34 years old, Dana Tizya-Tramm has risen not only through elected ranks, but from the depths of addiction and trauma to become the youngest leader in the First Nation’s history.
And he’s used that mandate to aggressively combat what he says is among the most pressing threats to his people: climate change.
The shifting Arctic is squeezing the Vuntut Gwitchin on multiple fronts. Tizya-Tramm says less predictable caribou migration patterns have meant some villages can go years without a successful hunt, and the spawn of certain salmon species has dropped so low that fishing has been severely restricted in recent years.
“Nature speaks to us,” he said. “Just not in English.” With Tizya-Tramm at the helm, the community is listening. In 2019, the Vuntut Gwitchin became among the first Indigenous peoples in Canada to declare a climate emergency — a move that catapulted them into the international limelight.
That same year they set a target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and as they strive toward the goal, the First Nation has been working to build among the largest solar farms in the Arctic.
Read more by tapping the link in Washington Post IG bio.
today is All Souls’ Day, a day in which all those who have past are remembered.
strictly speaking it is a day of remembrance within the Catholic and some other Christian traditions for the faithful who have departed. however, the spirit of this day and the benefit of honoring those who have past, who have transitioned, who are beyond this particular time and place, is one that can be practiced by any of us and can help us to still feel connected to our ancestors and loved ones.
in that spirit, i thought i’d share this quote from the BARDO THODOL: Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State by Padmasambhāva, also commonly known as the Tibetan Book of The Dead. i recently came upon this quote from the text and found it really beautiful. so much so, i’ve begun to regularly incorporate it into my practice for those i remember and who have past. the words are a reminder for those who have past to remember and also for those who remain to share in thought and prayer for those who have past. in both cases, the practice is done to help guide oneself or another person who has past through their transition beyond.
of course, Christian and Buddhist traditions are quite distinct and have their own cosmology, etc. but nearly all my teen through adult life, i’ve seen undercurrents, streams of thought, belief, and reflection that provide some common threads in various spiritual traditions. i think these commonalities speak to our shared humanity, our shared story and also speak to a greater truth that no one tradition holds on its own. as is often said in the Zen tradition, they are all fingers pointing to the moon, not the moon itself. so we point, all of us in our various ways, reflecting the light of the moon, the light within our own hearts, where that primordial and absolute love resides.
“…something’s up with Jack, something’s up with Jack.”
he’s meditating!
how else can he be fully present to best meet the demands of this Halloween Eve? meditation gives Jack clarity, balance, and resilience as he dives into this spooktacular holiday.
and if things don’t go as planned, perhaps we too can meet it with a bit of curiosity and ask, “what’s this?”
let’s be like Jack 🙂 happy Halloween Eve, friends! ~j
“In the deepest forms of insight, we see that things change so quickly that we can’t hold onto anything, and eventually the mind lets go of clinging. Letting go brings equanimity; the greater the letting go, the deeper the equanimity.” ~ Sayadaw U Pandita
letting go can sometimes be misunderstood as not caring or being indifferent, but this isn’t the case. if caring for others wasn’t important than there wouldn’t be so much emphasis on lovingkindness & compassion, there wouldn’t be the call to diminish suffering, to bring healing, to stop harm, etc.
so what are we letting go of? we are letting go of control. we are letting go of the when, where & how. we are letting go of the idea that we know all the answers. instead, we commit to doing good, acting w/ compassion out of our loving open heart & bringing healing where there is harm without trying to manipulate & control life.
life is always changing & rarely goes as we planned. if our happiness & peace depend on life not changing or unfolding just as we think it exactly should, in our ignorance, we are bound to ping pong between grasping at life or becoming aggressive toward life, all of which lead to suffering.
there comes a point, when we tire of insatiable grasping & we tire of being angry at things not being just as we want them to be, how we want them to be, where or when we want them to be. we wake up to the futile game we’ve been playing & we finally breathe out, unclench our hands & we let go. when we are able to do this, we feel lighter, happier, more at ease. we are no longer filtering everything through our grasping or our aggression. we aren’t holding tightly & we aren’t pushing away, our hands are open to receive & release all that life may bring as we live & act w/ openness & love. one can even say, i think, that to love is to stay open, is to let go. ~j
*If you like this calligraphy, you can own your own print or have the reminder to let go on a variety of products & apparel. visit JMWart at Redbubble, via my website (www.jaysenwaller.com) or directly at JMWart.redbubble.com.
life is our guru, our teacher. …and oh man can it be tough!
we can choose to ignore it, attach to what we only like, push away and fight what we don’t like, a fancy combo of all three, or…we can meet our life where it is. we can practice meeting our life where it is. and we can do so with an open heart.
how else to learn, how else to turn suffering into love?
no one can live our life for us. this great mystery, this life, is ours to engage fully with hearts open.
and our time to do so is brief. as the Buddhist teachings say in the Diamond Sutra, “So you should view this fleeting world as a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud…”
it passes so quickly. there is an urgency to engage our life. the Evening Gatha in Zen says:
Let me respectfully remind you:
Life and Death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.
On this night, the days of our life are decreased by one.
Each of us should strive to awaken.
Awaken! Take heed! Do not squander your life.
we are urged to go deep, to go fully – so we sit, we breathe, we unfold, we open, we love in the only way we truly can, with our entire life.~j
i was a freshman in high school sitting on the bus to go home and a voice behind me said, “Saw you running in P.E. today. You run like a girl. What are you – a faggot?”
i can still feel it in my body. it’s incredible how the body can store such experience. this was 1989/1990 and we didn’t have a Gay/Straight Alliance, no one at my high school was “out” and i wasn’t out to my family or friends. i was alone with my fear.
so many LGBTQ+ kids have it worse, facing mental and physical bullying and abuse, just for being who they are.
things are better now in a lot of ways, more resources, more allies, but bullying of LGBTQ+ youth, especially towards our Transgender family, continues.
we may know how true it is that bullies are actually quite weak and fearful, but the harm they bring acting out of their fear and weakness can manifest very real consequences and trauma to our LGBTQ+ family who are bullied.
make the decision to speak out on bullying and stand up to bullying wherever it is manifest. ~j
Let go of any ideas about meditation. There is no call to be special. Drop the whole project of enlightenment & just sit. Not being attached to samadhi, satori, awakening, being a Bodhisattva. Do not separate from that which is your experience right now by reaching toward a goal.~Roshi Joan Halifax
meditation is deceptively simple. could there be anything more simple and natural than sitting and breathing? yet, the very act of simply sitting upright and supported, open and receptive, placing our attention on our breathing, can be so foreign to our daily life, and opposite to our habitual patterns of tasking, ruminating, and trying to manipulate, control, and achieve. in this way it is quite profound. we breathe on our own naturally, but to mindfully stop and sit? it seems not so.so the teaching begins with this:Just Sit. ~j
*a while back, i created some calligraphy with this simple and direct reminder. it is available to purchase as various prints framed/unframed, posters, pins, stickers, houseware, decor, and apparel at JMWart, my Resbubble store. you can visit directly at JMWart.redbubble.com or via my website (www.jaysenwaller.com). ⭕️❤️🙏🏻
if we want to sustain, if we want resilience and balance and to maintain our clarity, we must move beyond our initial anger at injustice and be fueled instead by love. anger is our reaction to harm, it is clarifying and initially beneficial, but it can lead to aggression. love, however, sparks and sustains action. love in action is compassion.
if we are not motivated by love and living out compassion, we are in danger of burnout, cynicism, bitterness and even hate. we may become the very monster we think we are valiantly here to slay.
what good have we done then? how have we brought healing and benefit then? have we just added to the war, or have we worked to bring true justice and peace?
The Metta Garden 