HAPPY PRIDE SAN DIEGO!

🤍🩷🩵🤎🖤

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the Astonishing Light of your own Being!” ~ Hafiz 

we are luminous life, embodied love. now is the time to shine. even as delusion, fear, & hate are on the attack, we shine w/ the authenticity of our lives in all of their beautiful diversity. now is the time to love, perhaps even more so, teaching this passing world to be open hearted, to embrace authenticity, diversity, beauty, empathy, kindness, & compassion. even as some single us out, may we know that we are part of a vast, diverse, interdependent, beautiful tapestry of life. no one can redefine that or take that away.

be beautiful, be you, you are loved.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏻

#SDpride #pride #LGBTQ #gay #queer #life #love #authenticity #diversity #beauty #OpenHeart #path #practice #QueerArt #LGBTQart #art #JMWart #JinpaLhaga #HafizQuote

🌀

“If someone thinks love and peace is a cliche that’s their problem. Love and peace are eternal.” 

~ John Lennon

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#love #peace #OpenHeart #path #practice #JohnLennon #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #calligraphy

meeting this moment with love, kindness, fierce compassion, & wisdom, through word & action, planting seeds for the future.

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#ThisMoment #OpenHeart #love #kindness #FierceCompassion #wisdom #PlantingSeeds #path #practice #JinpaLhaga

Happy 88th Birthday to Pema Chödrön! 🙏🏼

bows of gratitude for her life, practice, teaching, & many books that have benefited multitudes – including me.

from her book, “Practicing Peace in Times of War”:

“War and peace start in the hearts of individuals…We can talk about ending war and we can march for ending war, we can do everything in our power, but war is never going to end as long as our hearts are hardened against each other…there will never be peace until somebody softens what is rigid in their heart…So the solutions have to come from a change of heart, from softening what is rigid in our hearts and minds.”

so it seems to me our challenge in our time is to work on ourselves – the delusion, aggression, & violence w/in ourselves – while also pointing to & calling out what is harmful in our world, standing w/ those who are targets of harm & oppression, working to dismantle institutional harm, & being instruments of healing, while not adding to the harm & destruction we are bearing witness to.

silence is certainly not the answer in the face of harm or danger of harm.

rather, we can speak from our open hearts w/ clarity, compassion & wisdom, for the benefit of all.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#PemaChodron #peace #war #nonviolence #OpenHeart #path #practice #JinpaLhaga

📷: Pema Chodron Foundation

“For hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This is the law eternal.”

~ Buddha (Dhammapada vs. 5)

love is the path and practice.

the source, the compass, the wind in the sails, the journey, and destination.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#NoHate #love #EternalLaw #EternalRule #UnalterableLaw #UnendingTruth #TheBuddha #SiddharthaGautama #TheDhammapada #Buddha #OpenHeart #path #practice #RussellSimmonsQuote #JinpaLhaga

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

~ C.S. Lewis

bravery is a practice.

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#courage #bravery #virtue #CSLewis #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #art #calligraphy

to love

without reservation

or hesitation

our hearts

completely open

courageously open

with fearlessness

in the face of pain

when all seems dark

this is our calling

this is our task

to wake up this world

reminding her

that she is loved

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#love #OpenHeart #fearlessness #calling #bodhisattvas #path #practice #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

🌀

there is a Jewish traditional mystical story i draw inspiration from, the legend of the “lamed vavniks”, whom i’ve seen referred to as the hidden saints. my understanding of the story is that in every generation there are 36 righteous individuals, who are just and compassionate, whose virtuous presence keeps this world from descending into utter darkness and destruction.

i am inspired by this as a representation of all the people who are doing good in this world, embodying love, honoring the sacred, and living with empathy and compassion. in Buddhism, we may call such people bodhisattvas, people who vow to continue coming back to do the work of love, freeing all beings from suffering. and i am reminded that each of us can choose to be such a person for this beautiful world. we can choose to embody love, honor the sacred, and live with empathy and compassion.

this gives me hope.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#LamedVavniks #HiddenSaints #RighteousOnes #bodhisattvas #service #love #empathy #compassion #hope #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

🌀

“We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other,

carry each other…”

~ U2

our strength, our power is the very same moral virtue that is missing from any authoritarian regime: empathy – the concern for the well-being of others. we should be concerned for the well-being of others, if not for the virtue in and of itself, then for the reality that our well-being is inextricably tied to each other. this is the truth of interdependence. may our hearts open to the well-being of others and may we speak and act in ways, and support systems and structures, that honor and uplift our shared existence.

may it be so.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#empathy #interdependence #OpenHeart #path #practice #U2 #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

no one, but the very richest of the rich who are in league with the dictator & stay in his good graces, avoid the destruction brought forth by a fascist authoritarian government.

Timothy Snyder in his book, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century”, warns us that some powerful individuals & organizations, corporations, & institutions will surrender power in advance to the would be dictator to attempt to stay in his good graces. such movement also depends on the silence & indifference of the populace. 

such “strategy” is a fools errand, a dance w/ the devil. authoritarianism has no loyalty, but to the leader himself & those at the top echelons of power.

i posted just last week about Project 2025 w/ a link to the document itself & a link to a document that highlights the threats (see July 4th blogpost). here’s a quick bullet point preview of it as well.

maybe hearts & sanity prevail.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#Project2025 #authoritarianism #StandWithDemocracy