Archive for July 2011

We Invite You to Visit Us Online!

July 5, 2011

Dear Friends,

We would like to take this opportunity to wish His Holiness the Dalai Lama a very Happy and Healthy 76th Birthday on July 6th! In commemoration of this eventful day, we have created a new "look and feel" to our website www.dalailamafoundation.org. We invite you to visit and explore the site. Please let us know what you think. We hope you will like it!

Thank you so much for your ongoing interest and support of our work. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
The Dalai Lama Foundation
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The Blind Man Who Taught Himself To See

July 5, 2011

Vision is the art of seeing the invisible. — Jonathan Swift

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Good News of the Day:
Daniel Kish has been sightless since he was a year old. Yet he can mountain bike, navigate the wilderness alone, and recognize a building as far away as 1,000 feet. How? The same way bats can see in the dark. Since his infancy, he has been adapting to his blindness in remarkable ways. He has learned to use what he calls “Flashsonar,” or echolocation. He produces a brief, sharp click with his tongue, and the sound waves bounce off every object around him, returning to his ears vastly decreased in volume, but perceivable. Kish has trained himself to hear these slight echoes and to interpret their meaning. Standing on his front stoop, he can visualize, with an extraordinary degree of precision, the two pine trees on his front lawn and the curb at the edge of his street. http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4670

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Be The Change:
Practice the art of “seeing” something that is invisible to you. Some inspiration on vision-making regularly: http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4670a

**Share A Reflection**
http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?qid=4670

A 10,000 Year Clock in the Mountains

July 4, 2011

No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – it speaks in silence to the very core of your being. — Ansel Adams

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Good News of the Day:
There is a Clock ringing deep inside a mountain. It is a huge Clock, hundreds of feet tall, designed to tick for 10,000 years. Why would anyone build a Clock inside a mountain with the hope that it will ring for 10,000 years? Part of the answer: just so people will ask this question, and having asked it, prompt themselves to conjure with notions of generations and millennia. If you have a Clock ticking for 10,000 years what kinds of generational-scale questions and projects will it suggest? If a Clock can keep going for ten millennia, shouldn’t we make sure our civilization does as well? If the Clock keeps going after we are personally long dead, why not attempt other projects that require future generations to finish? The larger question is, as virologist Jonas Salk once asked, “Are we being good ancestors?” http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4667

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Be The Change:
Reflect on your own life, and how you can be a good ancestor.

**Share A Reflection**
http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?qid=4667

A Love Affair With Questions

July 3, 2011

Wisdom is a love affair with questions. Knowledge is a love affair with answers. — Julio Olalla

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Good News of the Day:
In this beautiful black-and-white vignette, filmmaker Nic Askew interviews a man named Julio Olalla. Julio candidly speaks about an encounter with his father that changed his life, and what he learned: “Gratitude in so many ways is so dramatically missing in the world today. Without gratitude nothing is enough.” Over this 10-minute video, he reflects on his own experiences, ranging from exploring the spirit of true conversation to the wisdom of falling in love with questions. Watching this everyday hero exhibit a characteristic joie de vivre perhaps inspires a shift from the notion of gratitude as being an expression, to gratitude as being an embodiment. http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4669

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Be The Change:
Consider all the gifts in your life, and practice embodying gratitude as a response.

**Share A Reflection**
http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?qid=4669

20 Untranslatable Words From ‘Round The World

July 2, 2011

Being your own story means you can always choose the tone. It also means that you can invent the language to say who you are and what you mean. — Toni Morrison

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Good News of the Day:
There are at least 250,000 words in the English language. But to think that English — or any language — could hold enough expression to convey the entirety of the human experience is naive. For example, ‘Toska,’ from Russian, which is a kind of dull ache of the soul. Or ‘Mamihlapinatapei,’ from Yagan, describing the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start. Here are twenty such examples where other languages have found the right word and English is either speechless — or too verbose. http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4664

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Be The Change:
Learn or share a meaningful word from another language with a friend today.

**Share A Reflection**
http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?qid=4664

Dalai Lama Quote from Snow Lion Publications

July 1, 2011
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Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

In the Mahayana ’cause and effect’ refer to totally supreme emptiness and supreme immutable bliss. The Brief Explication of Initiations (Shekhoddesha) [included in the Kalachakra cycle] says:

That bearing the form of emptiness is the cause,
That bearing immutable compassion is the effect.
Emptiness and compassion indivisible
Are called the mind of enlightenment.

The indivisibility of these two is a Cause Vehicle in the sense of being the means by which one progresses, and it is an Effect Vehicle in the sense of being that to which one is progressing. Such a Vajra Vehicle has reference to Highest Yoga Tantra and cannot occur in the lower tantras. For the supreme immutable bliss can only arise when one has attained the branch of meditative stabilisation (in the system of the Kalachakra) and thus the branches of mindfulness and those below must be the means of achieving it. The three lower tantras do not have all the factors that are included in these causal branches. (p.107)

–from Tantra in Tibet by H.H. the Dalai Lama, Tsong-ka-pa and Jeffrey Hopkins, published by Snow Lion Publications

Tantra in Tibet • Now at 5O% off
(Good until July 8th).

Video of the Week: An Unlikely Crusader for Food Safety

July 1, 2011
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Video of the Week

Jul 01, 2011
An Unlikely Crusader for Food Safety

An Unlikely Crusader for Food Safety

A (formerly) twinkie-lovin Texan and successful Wall Street analyst shares the story of one morning’s family breakfast that changed the course of her life, as well as (she hopes) the course of the American food industry. Realizing that her child was allergic to what she had considered safe foods, Robyn O’Brien put her analytical and research skills to work and discovered far more than she’d wanted to about what’s really in the foods we feed our families. This video will have even the hardened skeptics pondering whether their food habits need some tweaking.
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A Remarkable Refuge for Birds

July 1, 2011

Forgive us our trespasses, little creatures everywhere. — James Stephens

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Good News of the Day:
They call him the Bird man of Long Beach. “It all started with one little one-legged guy I named Buddy,” ex-marine Dan Lubniewski said. Dan saw the little bird hobbling along, and felt sorry for him. He started feeding him and wound up taking him home for rehab. Apparently, someone had been tying pigeons’ feet together. “They were all tied up the same way, with the same strength,” Dan said. “I didn’t know what I was doing any more than you would have. I had about 40 tools with me them, and no antibiotics. I worked with each one for several hours.” That was the start of Dan’s tireless calling. He has since treated thousands of wounded birds, sometimes even working with Animal Control. “I think I was never happier because of all the lives I’m saving,” Dan said. “It is so rewarding.” http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4665

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Be The Change:
If you feel moved by his dedication, write Dan a note of appreciation. http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4665a

**Share A Reflection**
http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?qid=4665