When the precious pot shatters and all our valuables roll away like marbles on a table, reality as we thought we knew is disrupted and the game of contriving an ideal self is suddenly irrelevant.
~ Pema Khandro Rinpoche
Surfing our Relationships
Cultivating a deep and intimate relationship over a period of decades means there will be times of transcendent happiness and also times of suffering and unhappiness. There is this duality in a relationship.
Learning how to stick it out is an art. John Welwood’s article “Intimate Relationship as a Spiritual Crucible” in Lion’s Roar (September 2017) offers some guidance.
This involves learning to ride the waves of our feelings rather than becoming submerged by them. This requires mindfulness of where we are in the cycle of emotional experience. A skilled surfer is aware of exactly where he is on the wave, whereas an unskilled surfer winds up getting creamed. By their very nature, waves are rising fifty percent of the time and falling the other fifty percent. Instead of fighting the down cycles of our emotional life, we need to learn to keep our seat on the surfboard and have a full, conscious experience going down.
Can you live and practice with the ups and downs of our relationships? My experience is that it’s possible and offers a richness to life that can’t be compared.
Transcending White Nationalism and Developing White Racial Literacy
In over 15-years of teaching information literacy classes, I often used the Stormfront website as a teaching tool because they own an MLK domain. Most students didn’t even know about David Duke, prominently quoted on the MLK site, and now he’s front and center thanks to President Trump. On some level this is okay, because it brings white nationalism front and center, but it also means we can’t count on our leaders to speak out against what they represent.
It’s up to us whites to transcend white nationalism and cultivate a more pluralistic and fair society for everyone. It’s up to all of us to counter the white nationalist movement, recognize and transform our white privilege, pursue atonement and repatriation. We begin by recognizing that we live in a systemically racist society, that we each carry these seeds of racism (some conscious and some unconscious), and that we can become more literate about racism through dialogue, openness, and study.
This opinion piece, in the New York Times, is written by a former white nationalist. He writes, “The United States was founded as a white nationalist country, and that legacy remains today.” This is a critical recognition and one of the first steps we can take in moving forward.
Here’s the complete article by R. Derek Black: What White Nationalism Gets Right About American History
Adding Songs to Music Library with Apple Watch
I listen to a lot of music in my car. And I also don’t like pushing buttons on my phone while driving. And using Siri to add a track to my music library is super easy, but it interrupts the music playing. Yuck!
If you’re an Apple Watch owner, then you’re in luck. While the track is playing, you can activate Siri on the watch by pushing on the crown (it’s a little safer than handling the phone while driving and I can keep my hands on the wheel and eyes on the road). Then just day, “add song to my library.” That’s it! It will add the currently playing song.
Sunday Morning Clouds
Morning Gift from a Cactus
Injustice and the Four Noble Truths
This morning I spent time revisiting the Tenth Mindfulness Training of the Order of Interbeing. This training sometimes causes confusion for practitioners who are uncertain how to engage in public action and discourse. The text from the book Interbeing is quite clear.
A spiritual community, however, should take a clear stand against oppression and injustice. This should be done with a clear voice, based on the principles of the Four Noble Truths. The truth concerning the unjust situation should be fully exposed (the First Noble Truth: suffering). The various causes of injustice should be enumerated (the Second Noble Truth: the causes of suffering). The purpose and desire for removing the injustice should be made obvious (the Third Noble Truth: the removal of suffering). The measures for removing the injustice should be proposed (the Fourth Noble Truth: the way to end suffering).
We can do this and transcend partisan politics. I can think of numerous opportunities in today’s social and political environment.
Table and Chairs
iPhone 7 Plus with Moment Lens
Insight Gatha
The partner, child, and parent are the teacher.
Clouds and mountains teach the student.
The seed of diligence supports marriage, family and sangha.
The fruit springs forth from love and understanding.
Using WordPress with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
Twitter takes the title, image and then links, so this limits title length. Facebook takes the post content and makes it the FB post and then adds the packaged link with title, image and content. LinkedIn packages it together as a shared link and shows title, summary, and image. It’s probably best to always include an image, especially for Facebook.
Updated: Facebook is inconsistent. If an image is included in the native post, then Facebook ignores the post title completely and only uses the post content, image, and then links to native post.