Dalai Lama Foundation Study Circle Montreal

PLEASURE AND PAIN

The primordial push to pleasure is important to acknowledge because it explains the knee-jerk response we have to pleasure and pain and the patience that is required to reverse it. The spiritual path, with its open invitation to pain, goes against the grain of the very foundation of our ego-centered being.

This means that the path will give us exactly what we need and not necessarily what we want. We may not want to face our fear, loneliness, and heartache, but we need to if we want to grow. It is the adult version of having to eat our vegetables. They may not taste good, but fear, loneliness, and heartache can be good for us.

Of Interest to Readers

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June 11, 2012

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Mr. Roger’s at the Emmy Awards

For 33 years, Fred Rogers — known to one-and-all as Mister Rogers — invited children into his television “neighborhood” to teach them curiosity, ethics, and self-belief. When honored with an Emmy Award for lifetime achievement, Mister Rogers delivered a thank-you speech very much in keeping with his role as educator and role model — using ten very special seconds of silence. { read more }

Be The Change

Take ten seconds in silence to think of the people who are responsible for helping to shape your life.

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June 10, 2012

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The Radical Linguist Noam Chomsky

For centuries experts held that every language is unique. Then one day in 1956, a young linguistics professor gave a legendary presentation at MIT. He argued that every intelligible sentence conforms not only to the rules of its particular language but to a universal grammar that encompasses all languages. And rather than absorbing language from the environment and learning to communicate by imitation, children are born with the innate capacity to master language, a power imbued in our species by evolution itself. Almost overnight, linguists’ thinking began to shift.” In this article Noam Chomsky shares more. { read more }

Be The Change

Reflect on an experience from your own life that transcends words.

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June 9, 2012

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When Life is Ugly Make it Beautiful

“The Josephine beauty parlor in northern Paris is celebrating its first birthday Thursday. Some 1,200 disadvantaged women — abuse victims, former convicts or addicts, disabled women, single unemployed mothers — have come here for a professional haircut and makeup, or to borrow clothes for a job interview, since it opened on International Women’s Day a year ago. Thanks to volunteer workers and private sponsors, it’s just $3.95 for a haircut including highlights, less than the cost of a cafe au lait in a Parisian bistro. But the salon’s real attraction is the boost to morale, confidence and even job prospects that it provides.” { read more }

Be The Change

Help someone discover their inner beauty.

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WHAT DO WE MEAN BY BODHISATTVA?

Bodhi means enlightenment, the state devoid of all defects and endowed with all good qualities. Sattva refers to someone who has courage and confidence and who strives to attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings. Those who have this spontaneous, sincere wish to attain enlightenment for the ultimate benefit of all beings are called bodhisattvas. Through wisdom, they direct their minds to enlightenment, and through their compassion, they have concern for beings. This wish for perfect enlightenment for the sake of others is what we call bodhichitta, and it is the starting point on the path.

Of Interest to Readers

We’re pleased to announce that as of May 10, Snow Lion Publications has joined the Shambhala Publications family. For more information on how the union came to be, please visit Shambhala.com/SnowLion.

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June 8, 2012

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America’s First Public Food Forest

Imagine a 7 acre plot of land in a large American city, with hundreds of different kinds of edibles: walnut and chestnut trees; blueberry and raspberry bushes; fruit trees, including apples and pears; exotics like pineapple, yuzu citrus, guava, persimmons, honeyberries, and lingonberries; herbs; and more. The best part? All will be available for public plucking to anyone who wanders into Seattle’s first food forest — in fact, America’s first food forest. Says lead landscape architect Margarett Harrison: “This is totally innovative, and has never been done before in a public park.” { read more }

Be The Change

Create your own public food forest — share some produce (homegrown or otherwise) with neighbors.

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June 7, 2012

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Can Death Become Your Ally?

“Death is an important ally for appreciating life. I am not referring to a morbid preoccupation with death. Rather, I mean the felt awareness of our finitude as physical beings — an honest recognition of the short time we have to love and to learn on this earth. The knowledge that our bodies will inevitably die burns through our attachments to the dignified madness of our socially constructed existence…An awareness of death forces us to confront the purpose and meaning of our existence, here and now.” In this thoughtful article author and educator Duane Elgin shares more. { read more }

Be The Change

Does your own perspective and understanding of death enrich the way you live your life?

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