bandages are great, but where surgery is needed, we need to do surgery 🙏🏻
…also please read “him” as “them.” the struggle and need for compassion are gender inclusive.
~j
#BrokenSystem #poverty #struggle #empathy #compassion #LoveInAction #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga
like most things in life, gratitude is a practice. perhaps one of the most important, since it has a way of subtly coloring our perspective on all areas of our life.
practicing gratitude is made all the easier when we are surrounded and supported with such immense love and friendship as i have been.
thank you all for your many birthday wishes and kind, generous words. i am so grateful.
on this past Thursday, December 17th, i turned 46 in honor and celebration of our newly elected 46th President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris (and also because i was born in 1974). it’s a what will hopefully be a fresh start, a new opportunity for better things to come. life is always offering us such opportunity and moments, but it is easier to see sometimes on a grander scale.
i had a beautiful day. i am fortunate enough to be quarantined with family and they made my day truly wonderful, filled with good meals (french toast breakfast from my sister and Chipotle’s for dinner from my parents) and a fun ice cream/donut party with my nieces and nephews. i also got to participate in a three hour meditation session with some of my fellow meditation teacher trainees from Tibet House. the day was concluded (as always) with a Star Wars movie.
this life passes so quickly. turning 46 can put a perspective on that, but time means loses its hold when one feels and knows love.
wishing you all the same, not just on your birthdays, but every day!
~j
#gratitude #birthday #46 #love #life #Zen #enso #JMWart #JinpaLhaga
“Someone has said, ‘To be a saint is to have loved many things’ —many things — the tree, the dog, the sky, the flowers, even the color of someone’s clothing. You see, when you love, you love, and love extends to everything all the time and everywhere.”
~
Richard Rohr
the path and practice is love, from our hearts, extended out into the world.
~j
#love #path #practice #OpenHeart #JMWphotography #photography #JinpaLhaga
2018-2019 Flu Season in US:
35.5 million known cases
34,200 known deaths
2020 (so far) COVID-19 in US:
16.8 million known cases
304,000 known deaths (50,000 deaths in the last month)
these numbers do not reflect the long term health concerns for those who had even the slightest of symptoms or who are asymptotic.
i’ve known many people who have been affected by this illness, ranging from barely having symptoms, to seriously ill, and some losing loved ones.
this isn’t the flu.
there is hope on the horizon due to science.
i am in awe of health professionals, they give me hope.
there are still those that refuse to believe and refuse to adhere to masking and social distancing. how do we teach people to care? shaming and pleading have not worked. i don’t know what will.
~j
#WearAMask #SocialDistance
#COVID19 #suffering #empathy #empathymatters
while human beings have the capacity to do much harm, we also have the capacity to not ignore the harm, or run from the harm, or descend into the violence of the harm we see. we have the capacity to choose to keep our hearts open in the face of pain and suffering, and to do something about the harm we are bearing witness to.
this love stuff, this open and tender heart stuff isn’t mere sentimentality. this is hardcore stuff, in the trenches, hands getting dirty stuff.
it is when we leave our hearts open, allowing them to break over and over again, that we find our true super power, a capacity for love that is beyond the limits of our own initially small view. with our hearts broken open, we access the powers of empathy and compassion, bravery and strength.
with an open, tender heart, we can even still find much beauty, much joy and even a lightness and humor to life (enlightened people laugh!), all while doing the difficult work of love and healing in the face of harm and suffering.
don’t give in to cynicism, to hyperbole, to conspiracy. face the harm, face the suffering with your open, tender heart, and make a vow to transform it while still being open to beauty, to joy, to laughter. all of this is life and none is beyond love.
~j
#OpenHeart #TenderHeart #empathy #compassion #suffering #humor #joy #healing #love #EngagedBuddhism #ChogyamTrungpaRinpoche #JinpaLhaga
yesterday (Dec 8th) was Bodhi Day, the day Mahayana Buddhists commemorate the enlightenment of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, 2600 years ago.
as the story goes, the Buddha was moved by the suffering he saw in life and felt upon seeing sickness, aging, and death. disenchanted with the excess from which he came, and the practice of extreme asceticism which he practiced for a time, he set out to meet life face to face as it is. practicing the middle way of neither aversion or grasping, he sat until he woke up. in waking up he became the Buddha, which simply means awakened or awakened one. meeting life with an open heart, with clarity and balance, he found freedom from suffering.
my favorite part of the story is when Buddha is tested by the demon Mara who eventually challenges Siddhartha’s ability and right to enlightenment as a mere human. the story goes – after not succumbing to Mara’s temptations, Mara challenged Siddhartha, “What right have you to be enlightened? Who will speak for you, who will bear witness for you?” sitting beneath the Bodhi tree, Siddhartha reached out his right hand and touched the earth, and the earth itself shook saying, “I bear you witness!”
this wasn’t just for the historical Buddha – it is for all buddhas, for you, for me. we too can wake up, we too have within us the ability to be with life as it is, to live open-hearted with clarity and balance, to be free and at peace.
may it be so.~j
#BodhiDay #Buddha #Buddhism #Mahayana #TouchingTheEarth #OpenHeart #WakeUp #WhoYouAre #JMWphotography #JinpaLhaga #photography
mountains and rivers
not striving to be other
perfect as they are.
~j
nature’s dharma.
true freedom.
#zen #buddhism #nature #dharma #freedom #haiku #JMWart #JinpaLhaga
“It’s not just love. Remember that everything is short. Think of it this way: Maybe this is the last cup of coffee I have. Maybe this is the last book I read. When you are constantly alert, you can really enjoy and love. Otherwise, we are always thinking about the next thing, and we can’t really feel life.”
~
Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche
our awareness of the profundity of impermanence can be transformational and revolutionary. in an instant, there is no longer anything mundane, all becomes sacred, all becomes opportunity, all becomes deeply meaningful and gratitude 🙏🏻
~j
#impermanence #gratitude #sacred #engagedbuddhism
there’s a practice in Buddhism, where we see everything as our guru, that is to say, as our teacher. no matter what arises, with it also arises the opportunity to tap into our true nature, our Buddha-nature (awakened nature), to grow in our openness, our warm-heartedness, and our capacity to be with life as it is and respond in a sane and compassionate way. Franciscan Priest, Richard Rohr, says it another way – it is all “grist for the mill”. in other words, it is all usable, all of it can align us with and unify us with the heart of God, where we already reside.
it can be challenging to look at the present moment and 2020 with gratitude. there’s been so much loss and pain. is this saying we should be grateful for the harm, for illness, for injustice and inequity, for pain and suffering? i don’t think so. rather, i believe this perspective is saying that we can be grateful for the opportunity that arises, that these challenges bring us, to open our hearts, to practice kindness and compassion, to awaken to each other’s needs, to the harm and pain, and then exercise the best of who we are in our humanity, putting our love, our compassion into beneficial action. in that regard, 2020 – the year of clear seeing, has brought us a lot to be grateful for.
today, i’m grateful to be spending Thanksgiving at home (the first time in 15 years not working on this day) quarantined with my family. my heart is also aware and holding all who are not able to do so due to the pandemic. for those who have lost loved ones, i say – you are in my heart, held with love, may the love you shared with loved ones passed, comfort you. for those who have chosen to stay home, i say – thank you for thinking selflessly, for taking this pandemic seriously, for sacrificing for your loved ones. you are not truly alone and you are loved.
Happy Thanksgiving friends!!
~j
“Zen questioning is a very gentle questioning. It is the kind of questioning that the Colorado River asks the Grand Canyon over centuries and centuries.”
~
Taigen Dan Leighton
patience, allowance, humility, and trust as the path gently unfolds, as we practice, as we awaken.
~j
#path #practice #patience #gentleness #unfold #Zen #Buddhism #EngagedBuddhism #enso #JMWart #Jinpa
The Metta Garden 