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on this Holy Saturday, the bridge between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, i want to share this video.

i invite and encourage Christians and non-Christians alike to contemplate and meditate on this, as i am doing as well.

it’s incumbent upon all of us in whatever variation of tradition or religion, who may appreciate and attempt to follow the teachings of Jesus, to push back against the movement of “Christian” Nationalism and theocracy, which are counter to Jesus’ teachings of a path of radical love and inclusivity, nonviolence and speaking truth to power, of healing, compassion and reconciliation. 

Holy Saturday is an opportunity to reflect on the cost of such radical love and the call to align with all who are suffering (which Good Friday places directly in front of us in no uncertain terms), a love so profound and inclusive that it upsets the status quo and power structures that depend on separation (or dis-union), oppression, and violence that can be both obvious and subtle. it can be an opportunity to reflect on who we may exclude from our love, who we may see as separate and “other”, for whom we may allow for violence, aggression, and oppression, and a call to tear down such walls of ignorance and fear within our own hearts and minds, and society.

Holy Saturday is also a call to reflect on the hope of Easter Sunday, which reveals that love has the last word. that love doesn’t only transcend death, but holds both life and death within it, and the wisdom that in love new life is born, that the ultimate truth is one of union, not separation. 

love is a path available for us to live and practice, a path of radical inclusivity, fierce compassion, non-harming, and of healing and restoration.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#Easter #HolySaturday #GoodFriday #Jesus #Christ #love #inclusivity #restoration #union #nonviolence #OpenHeart #wisdom #path #practice #JinpaLhaga #JamesTalarico

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“Ours is not a caravan of despair. Even if you have broken your vows a thousand times, it doesn’t matter. Come, come yet again, come.” ~ Rumi

each breath is a fresh start.

in every breath we are reborn.

what an opportunity to grow, to love, to bring benefit to this needful world.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#BeginAgain #FreshStart #BeginAnew #OpenHeart #SteadyMind #path #practice #RumiQuotes #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #art #calligraphy

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our job is to keep our heart open, our mind steady, and through our words and actions, plant seeds of lovingkindness, of compassion, of joy in the happiness of others, and equanimity for the benefit of a world that suffers.

we have no idea if, when, or where these seeds will bear fruit, but we plant them nonetheless.

happy planting 🌱

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#PlantingSeeds #TheFourImmeasurables #TheFourBrahmaviharas #DivineAbodes 

#lovingkindness #metta #compassion #karuna #SympatheticJoy #mudita #equanimity #upekkha #OpenHeart #SteadyMinds #path #practice #WilliamDeBuysQuote #JinpaLhaga  

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each moment, only once.

this is the truth of impermanence, of this world, and life.

but what an opportunity to cherish, to honor, to offer, to heal, to create, to love and make each moment count. 

each moment, a gift.

each new moment, a new gift.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#JustThisMoment #presence #now #impermanence #life #opportunity #OpenHeart #SteadyMind #path #practice #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #art #calligraphy 

Happy #WorldTheatreDay 🎭

theatre has been such a gift in my life. some of the best memories & friendships. wish i had more pics digitized from the 1990s when i was in my 20s doing theatre, but i think that was before digital cameras & those pics are packed away somewhere 😂 

combining some pics of productions i’ve been in multiple times or shows back to back, but also trying to keep in chronological order. Instagram only allows 10 pics 😑

so much growing up through so many stages of my life. 

long live the theatre & storytelling!! 🤗💛🙏🏼

pic 1

Lend Me a Tenor – Orange Glen High School 1992 (or ’93?)

Comedy of Errors – Palomar College 1999

pic 2

Berzerkergang – Sledgehammer Theatre 2003

[sic] – Sledgehammer Theatre 2003

NU – Sledgehammer Theatre 2003

pic 3

Deporting the Divas – Diversionary Theatre 2003

The Miser – La Jolla Playhouse 2005

pic 4

A Man of His Word – Playwright’s Project at The Old Globe 2006

pic 5

A Christmas Carol – Cygnet Theatre 2008

pic 6

Journey To The Lost Temple – Legoland California 2008-2012

Mail Order Monsters – Legoland California 2011-2015

pic 7 & 8

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) – w/ Palomar College 2000, 2006

w/ Luminary Arts 2012, 2016

pic 9

A Slip From Reality – Scripps Ranch Theatre 2017

pic 10

West Side Story – Moonlight Stage Productions 2007 & 2019

#actorslife #storytelling

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i once wrote and shared:

“Be a lighthouse, rather than a bullhorn.” 

it was a call to nonaggression, non-harshness, to simply (though not so simple) shine our light of love and lead by example.

and while the spirit of this still resonates with me, and i still think aggression is destructive and embodying love in the long term is most beneficial, i’ve grown in my perspective around this.

sometimes love does embody as a bullhorn, because we need to wake up. we can’t see the light if our eyes are closed and we’re asleep.

a bullhorn can wake us up to the harm and suffering around us, to the work we need to do within ourselves and in the world.

so…now i’d say: 

“Be a lighthouse, and when needed, be a bullhorn as well.”

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#ShineYourLight #JustBe #LeadByExample #Light #Wisdom #Shine #Nonaggression #SpeakUp #SpeakTruth #attention #SitDownRiseUp #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

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may the force be with you 💫

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#love #FierceCompassion #wisdom #OpenHeart #power #persistence #path #practice #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

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there are solutions to immigration and border challenges that don’t involve putting up razor wire on a bank of a river, where human beings and their children are desperate to cross. 

in a relative way, borders can serve a practical purpose. but we’d be wise not to lose our humanity over them. they are constructed and impermanent. they were not always there, nor will they always be there. they do not occur in nature, they are not visible from space, and they are not ordained from on high.

it’s mindboggling to watch professed “Christian” politicians not only resort to such cruelty but encourage and celebrate it as some sort of victory moment, or pass the blame for cruelty. they should read what the Bible and what Jesus have to say about immigrants.

but what do i know as a Buddhist, who still attempts to follow Jesus’ teachings? i know one thing, borders built on the outside likely begin as borders built on the inside. also, that no one person is more sacred or deserving of a full, healthy, and happy life than another. if all things come from God who is beginningless and endless, we can also say: if God is in one, God is in all. or as a Buddhist, we may say all beings have Buddhanature and are interdependent.

we forget ourselves, when we forget this, when we forget others.

so, if we want to take up immigration and border challenges, we should begin with opening the borders of our own heart and proceed with empathy and compassion. there will be a time when we need it as well. 

may hearts open, may awareness and wisdom arise.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#immigration #immigrants #border #OpenTheBordersOfYourHeart #OpenHeart #emapthy #compassion #generosity #kindness #awareness #wisdom #PabloCasals #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #art #calligraphy

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perhaps the most beneficial practice? if we are not able to simply breathe, to be at home with our own breath, then how can we practice anything else?

breath is the foundation of all practice. as we breathe in, we are saying yes to this moment, to this life, to all that is possible. we are saying “i am at home, here and now.” as we breathe out, we are saying yes to letting go, to impermanence, to change, to generosity and offering. 

as we breathe in, we accept our life. as we breathe out, we offer our life back.

to be able to accept our life, and offer it back, we are allowing for equanimity and peace within ourselves. 

imagine such steadiness.

how would our lives change, acting from such spaciousness? how would it benefit our relationship to ourselves, others, and all life?

i have a calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh hanging on my wall that reads, “Peace is every breath.”

may it be so. 

just breathe.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#breathe #path #practice #JinpaLhaga #JMWart

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are we able to open to, to see and hear the sacred in all things?

in the car in front of us, the neighbor across the street?

the person on the other side of a border we constructed, not just physically, but within our own hearts and minds?

are we able to settle our minds and open our eyes and hearts where we are, to all around us?

love is always calling, life is always teaching.

this is the practice, to let go of all that separates us, and realize the interdependence, the interrelatedness of all things. then who would we seek to harm?

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏼

#life #sacred #interdependence #interbeing #OpenHeart #love #SteadyMinds #clarity #wisdom #path #practice #HafizQuotes #JinpaLhaga #JMWart