Barry Graham's Blog, page 19

The Only Happiness, the Only Freedom

When we turn life into a story with ourself as the protagonist, we poison everything we have. We find someone we love, and we poison the relationship by thinking,“This should make me happy.” We find we have a talent, and we poison our practice and enjoyment of it by thinking,“I could have a career.” The only happiness is in giving, not getting. The only freedom is freedom from ego.

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How Leo Tolstoy Became a Vegetarian and Jumpstarted the Vegetarian & Humanitarian Movements in the 19th Century

How Leo Tolstoy Became a Vegetarian and Jumpstarted the Vegetarian & Humanitarian Movements in the 19th Century

And R.I.P. Greg Lake, composer and singer of this great...

And R.I.P. Greg Lake, composer and singer of this great Christmas song, who died recently.

My favorite Christmas record is Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the...

My favorite Christmas record is Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart, an auditory dark carnival that sounds like a Christmas party in hell.

Anonymous’ Barrett Brown Is Free—and Ready to Pick New Fights | WIRED

Anonymous’ Barrett Brown Is Free—and Ready to Pick New Fights | WIRED:

“But prison wasn’t all bad for Brown, he says. Aside from honing his writing skills and winning the biggest journalist plaudits of his career, he also passed the time creating an elaborate Dungeons-and-Dragons-like tabletop roleplaying game based on the Nixon administration. And he read close to 500 books out of the thousands sent to him by supporters, getting the education in history he’d largely missed as a University of...

"God is madly in love with you regardless"

“God is madly in love with you regardless”

- church sign I saw in Portland this morning

The Problem With Headspace and All Those Mindfulness Ads

The Problem With Headspace and All Those Mindfulness Ads:

bethbrotz:

Spiritual materialism is what happens when you try to turn your meditation practice into a spiritual fitness program. It’s when you turn meditation (or any spiritual practice) into a competition, into something you succeed or fail at, “do right” or “do wrong,” and regard with the punitive, puritanical self-aggression that American culture is so expert at teaching people. It’s also what happens when you try too hard to become...

What About the Cost of Retreats?

What About the Cost of Retreats?:

I think Yetunde’s article is about the most important issue in contemporary Buddhism. (An organization that’s doing important work on this is Buddhist Insights.)

But our temple, our place of retreat, must be found where we are, not in some distant, silent location. Stillness is something that must be found in movement, silence in noise, peace in anger, calm in stress.

I had a Zen student who lived in poverty in a big city. He had no car, and his job was a 90-mi...

lareviewofbooks:Not sure whether to laugh or cry…

lareviewofbooks:

Not sure whether to laugh or cry… (regram from @janicerhoshalle ) http://ift.tt/2hhds4f