Dharma Reflections

Interview 30 years ago (1994) with this blogger Mostly, a focus on Western Dharma and Sangha

A Dharma teacher found online last month (November 2024) this interview held 30 years ago with this wallah in Jerusalem in 1994. – published in the Autumn issue of the Insight Journal of Barre Centre for Buddhist Studies and Insight Medication Society (IMS), MA, USA.

Interview 30 years ago (1994) with this blogger Mostly, a focus on Western Dharma and Sangha Read More »

Daily Buddha and the Daily Talmud. Read a page a day of what the Buddha said to support your daily life

I subscribe to online versions of the New York Times and The Guardian* with regular appreciation for some of the articles and Letters to the Editor, which appear on the pages of these two newspapers.

Daily Buddha and the Daily Talmud. Read a page a day of what the Buddha said to support your daily life Read More »

Application of the Buddha’s Ethics to end War

Application of the Buddha’s Ethics to end War Read More »

Twenty One Aphorisms on Love. To meditate on. So we do not deceive ourselves

Metta, A Pali word (language of the Buddha) means a profound depth of love/loving kindness/friendship, often depending on context.

He used the strongest possible language for those citizens in India of deep religious faith. In its deepest sense, he said metta ranks as a ‘Brahma Vihara’ – literally Abiding with God.

To the non-religious, he stated Metta is Immeasurable -has no limits, needs no measurement. In the same way, reality has no limits, no measurement in the expanse of things.

1.    “I love you so much and I need you so much” obscures love. Such neediness come from lack of love.

2.   Compassion confirms love with the purpose to reduce or dissolve suffering.

3.   Daily meditations/reflections on love and its expressions in daily life develop knowing the value of love.

4.   Dedication to what is beautiful and significant reveals an act of love transcending dynamics of praise and blame.

5.   Desires might get what you want but that does not mean you can give love to who or what you want.

6.   Experiences of authentic reality uncovers an extraordinary freedom from deceptions triggering wonder. There is love for profound experiences to enlighten our life and life of others.

7.    Know the support for love, which includes consciousness, interest, patience and a deep resolution to move through the storms of life, inner and outer.

8.   Love abandons domination of self-interest preferring to weather insecurity, instead of indulging in possessive behaviour.

9.   Love affirms life without the desire to get what we can from it.

10.                    Love bears little or no relationship to intense emotions.

11.                     Love confirms a sharing or giving towards the other while desire wants the other to come to oneself.

12.                    Love confirms that that we matter no more, no less, nor the same, as the other.

13.                    Love has the power to reveal truths, never seen nor known before.

14.                    Love moves beyond the contracted self to support the movement of love

15.                    Love reveals as an activity, not as a personal claim.

16.                    Love supports who or what is loved. It is indispensable for a wise and sustainable co-existence

17.                     Love triggers aliveness bringing us closer to the nature of things, inwardly and outwardly.

18.                    Poetry provides a legitimate resource to see into reality and expand our view.

19.                    Love includes an expansion of views contracted through projections. Love explores an infinite numbers of ways to confirm love.

20.                  Romantic love does not require presence of another but experiences of sensuality in the waking up of the senses.

21.                    Self-forgetfulness does not dissolve through self-love, self-compassion or self-help but reveals in a transcendent priority unbound to self.

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