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we can & should stand in the space of our values & principles. abiding in tender heartedness & fierce compassion. seeing clearly with wisdom through the eyes of love.

may it be so!

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#OpenHeart #love #compassion #clarity #wisdom #path #practice #MindfulResistance #JinpaLhaga

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sticking with a path & practice of love is something we recommit to everyday. living by vow, is not a one & done deal, but a moment to moment realignment with our values & our integrity of purpose, to reduce harm & bring benefit to the world around us. each moment is an opportunity to begin anew.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#BeginAnew #path #practice #vow #values #integrity #OpenHeart #love #JinpaLhaga

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We have the ability to respond 

to every situation with hope, 

with love, with kindness, with compassion. 

Or we have the ability to respond 

to every situation with anger, 

and hatred and rage and violence. 

And that choice is ours every day.

~

Jeffrey Zlotnik

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#ChooseLove #ChooseKindness #ChooseCompassion #path #practice #OpenHeart #JeffreyZlotnik #BuddhistWisdom #JinpaLhaga

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love is our work.

our work here is to continually open ourselves to love. so where our love ends, where we begin to exclude, where we begin to label “other” is where our work is.

we can begin this work by asking ourselves “why?” why do i want or feel a need to exclude? why do i want or feel a need to label something or someone as “other”? what is underneath the feeling to do so? if we are brutally honest about it, the answer is likely fear, & this is generally something that we don’t want to admit to ourselves. it takes deep vulnerability to do so and such vulnerability requires immense courage. 

if we do so, the façade, the walls that we have built up to protect ourselves, to protect what we think is true, begin to crack & crumble. we think our world will fall apart – & it will, but this is the work of love, to undo all that is not true, all that is not love. 

it is in such spaciousness that fear loses its footing. without fear, other people & forces lose their power to manipulate & control us. love is the true freedom we are seeking, it aligns us with truth, with life, & each other.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#LoveIsWork #ChooseLove #love #OpenHeart #courage #practice #SitDownRiseUp #MindfulResistance #JinpaLhaga #JMWart 

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it is in opening our heart to life 

as it is that we allow space for awareness to arise. and it is in such awareness that we begin to see reality more clearly. and from such space of clarity, we can choose how to act with love in a way that benefits the world.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#OpenHeart #love #spaciousness #awareness #clarity #RightAction #SitDownRiseUp #MindfulResistance #JinpaLhaga

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today Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was laid to rest.

i’m not alone in sharing a deep affection for Pope Francis. on one hand we shared December 17th as our birthday, so that may play a part, but more than that when he chose the name Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi whom i’ve long felt a connection to since my childhood, he caught my attention. choosing Francis as his name was a deeply symbolic choice that represented not only his connection to the poor, the outcast, & nature, but also represented a needed refocus for a world obsessed with wealth, consumption, & othering.

a Papacy marked by integrity of message, a message that all are sacred & worthy of love, that all deserve dignity & inclusion especially those on the margins. even today at his funeral, the end of his procession was an honor guard made up of homeless, migrants, prisoners, & trans people. he understood that such symbolism coming from the Pope has incredible power to move people, to draw attention & move us closer to love.

Pope Francis was a voice of fierce compassion, speaking truth to power, calling all to rise to love, even imperfectly at times. without ever actually changing any Church doctrine, he pushed back on tradition that excluded, reminding all of us that “being woke” is simply being kind, inclusive, generous, empathetic, & compassionate.

i’m not alone in feeling a deep loss that a voice so sorely needed at this time, a voice that so powerfully counters the cruelty we are seeing has left us. but has he? it’s hard to believe that even death can stop such a force of love. i can only imagine he will continue the work of love from Beyond, in Catholic Christian parlance a Saint, in Buddhist parlance a Bodhisattva. the words don’t really matter, it is the movement of Love, which Pope Francis found so deeply in Christ, & embodied so well for us all, for a world in need. a movement we can continue with our own words & actions.

bows of gratitude for Pope Francis, for his life, his presence, & his service.

~j

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#PopeFrancis #Saint #Bodhisattva #OpenHeart #path #JinpaLhaga

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medicine.

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#compassion #OpenHeart #love #path #practice #MindfulResistance #ThichNhatHanh #JinpaLhaga

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this life here is marked by impermanence. things arise & fall away, conditions come together & then fall apart, the tide comes in & the tide goes out. life is constant movement, constant change. no thing is permanent, fixed, or solid. this applies to all things, even tyrants & their empires. impermanence means potential, openness to possibility. aware of this, in addition to pushing back against harm, we can use this time to work on transforming conditions with our love, planting seeds of generosity, kindness, equity, compassion & peace for the spring to come, the spring that will follow this winter. 

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#impermanence #empire #life #PlantingSeeds #MindfulResistance #OpenHeart #love #bodhisattvas #LaoTzu #JinpaLhaga 

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even as others choose differently, choosing cruelty & harm, destruction & a culture of fear & death, may we who are aware of our interdependence choose open-heartedness, tenderness, & fierce compassion, embodying empathy over indifference, generosity over greed, gentleness over cruelty, courage over fear, & love over hate.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#WeAreHereToLove #OpenHearts #love #compassion #SitDownRiseUp #MindfulResistance #bodhisattvas #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

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Pope Francis.

his, is a voice, that is sorely needed & will be missed. when those at the height of power exclude & push out the poor, the sick, the migrant, the imprisoned, the marginalized, Pope Francis undeterred by such worldly powers, spoke truth to power & centered his love & ministry on the very people that Jesus tended to in his life.

may we all learn to live in such a way that we include rather than exclude, that we open our hearts to the suffering in the world, & see ourselves as instruments of healing, of equity & justice, & of peace.

may it be so.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#PopeFrancis #Jesus #love #compassion #OpenHeart #JinpaLhaga