oktober 2017

meditatie-ruimte op school

Gepubliceerdop okt 30, 2017

Teachers and administrators at Brooklyn College Academy, a New York City public school that prepares students for college study, want their meditation room to be a model for other schools across the five boroughs.

Before there was a dedicated room and trained instructors, Lisa Noble started her classes with a mindfulness exercise. Noble, a social studies teacher and mindfulness practitioner who has taken Mindful Schools and MBSR [Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction] courses, said that she got into meditation as a way to deal with the physically and emotionally draining teaching profession.

… Damkina Jeromey, 15, who is now in tenth grade and her second year as a meditator. “At the beginning of ninth grade I was stressed out, always worrying. School is very rigorous because [I go to an] early college high school, so I have a lot of work to do. Also, I go to an extracurricular program called Legal Outreach, and they give a lot of work, too. It was really rough for me in the beginning. Mindfulness really helped me destress and stop worrying too much.”  Jeromey … said mindfulness has helped manage her migraine headaches and improve her grades and relationships with other people.

Noble said she sees mindfulness’s value, especially when it comes to students who are from low-income households or whose families are homeless. – excerpt from article on tricycle.org

 

naar buiten

Gepubliceerdop okt 29, 2017

I have lived on the lip
of insanity, wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door. It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside!

Rumi

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dankbaarheid

Gepubliceerdop okt 23, 2017

The quality of our life is determined by our mind’s response to the circumstances of our life. It is not determined directly by the circumstances. We make the mistake of trying to produce happiness and meaning by controlling circumstances, mistakenly thinking that they are the primary cause. In the old texts, this is referred to as “beating the cart to make the horse move.” …
Since this is the culture of our society— that meaning comes from wealth, status is in the eyes of others, and love is dependent on performance, and so on— one needs great courage to go against the current. The wisdom that says these goals are meaningless in the face of our temporary stay here is hidden in our culture. The grace of a gentle, noble spirit is not valued. The fact is that every day we are gifted with the incredible present of a body and mind, and a universe that supports our life. Instead of living in deep gratitude, people take that for granted and go off on egotistical binges; this is a sign of the darkness of our time.

And it is all so simple—wake up with a profound “Thank you” and cultivate that mood as much as possible.

Yoshin David Radin

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stoffige zachtheid

Gepubliceerdop okt 22, 2017

“The Buddha’s view of home leaving is summarized in these words: ‘Household life is crowded and dusty; life gone forth is wide open. It is not easy, while living in a home, to lead the holy life.’ …  We need to regard the Buddha’s first teaching about ‘life gone forth’ carefully; we need to be careful about cutting off both human feelings and relationships. Practicing nonattachment is not the same as practicing detachment. The former practice addresses the human selfishness we bring to all of our relationships and is guided by the relinquishing of self-clinging to reactions that arise. The latter is repressive and disconnected and seeks to keep our delusional selfcenteredness intact by avoiding intimate relational contact and feelings.

Furthermore, the description of family life as ‘crowded and dusty’ might encourage some to think that holiness is found elsewhere than that dustiness. Somewhere, other than right where we are, there is an ideal practice life that is dustless. Somewhere there exists a life pure and elevated from the dust of human family relations. Imagining this to be true is a serious mistake, and sadly not an uncommon one. While each of us needs to find quiet time to reflect on our true nature, it is important to see buddha-nature reflected even in our most annoying family members, relatives, and associates. If we cannot do this, our practice develops a puritanical, precious, detached, and heartless quality.” – Grace Schireson

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Petitie tegen fusie Bayer en Monsanto

Gepubliceerdop okt 19, 2017

Stop monster-merger BaySanto! (to: Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager, European Commission)  A Bayer-Monsanto merger would be a disaster for our farmers. It will be a catastrophe for our bugs, bees and birds. We urge you to reject the merger and prevent the damage caused by these corporations. We also demand full openness about your decision making processes.

Why is this important? On October 16 we have published scientific research with our partners, showing the proposed merger should be forbidden under EU competition law. The research, done by international competition law experts from the University College London, explains how Bay-Santo would control our entire food system. They want farmers to buy all they need from one company. Starting with GMOs, seeds, and pesticides as their main products, Bay-Santo will also offer fertilizer, digital equipment, and farm machinery.

Bayer is one of the largest producers of agricultural chemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides. And Monsanto is one of the leading producers of genetically modified plants. [1] Together, these companies could have a total lockdown on what farmers put in their fields, the pesticides they use, what we buy in the shops, and ultimately put on our dinner tables. If the merger is to be successful, the two companies must gain approval of competition authorities all over the world, including from the EU. Bayer has managed to “convince” Donald Trump to back the mega-merger [2], and now there is really only one organisation that has enough clout to stop the deal – the European Union.

We know that Margrethe Vestager, Commissioner for competition informally is already negotiating with Bayer behind closed doors. If we don’t act now this mega-merger could be a done-deal. That’s why we have to tell her to reject the deal now. – WeMove.EU

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jezelf zijn

Gepubliceerdop okt 18, 2017

De manier om het terrein van je beoefening te verbreden is jezelf bloot te geven zoals je bent, zonder proberen iemand anders te zijn. Als je erg eerlijk bent tegenover jezelf en dapper genoeg bent, kun je jezelf helemaal tot uitdrukking brengen. Wat andere mensen er ook van mogen denken, het is goed. Wees gewoon jezelf, in elk geval tegenover je leraar. Dat is je eigenlijke beoefening, je eigenlijke leven.

Shunryu Suzuki

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VN Werelddag van verzet tegen extreme armoede

Gepubliceerdop okt 17, 2017

The very poor tell us over and over again that a human being’s greatest misfortune is not to be hungry or unable to read, or even to be without work. The greatest misfortune of all is to know that you count for nothing, to the point where even your suffering is ignored.

Joseph Wresinski

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onze beslissingen

Gepubliceerdop okt 16, 2017

Iemand die de verantwoordelijkheid voor zijn beslissingen aanvaardt, is in een positie om een grote verandering in zijn leven te verwezenlijken … Als we onszelf als slachtoffer beschouwen van de condities die anderen ons opleggen, zitten we in een hinderlaag. Er is geen manier om onze situatie te verbeteren door anderen te veranderen of het verleden ongedaan te maken. Hoe kunnen we denken dat we anderen kunnen beheersen en tot verandering aanzetten, wanneer we zelfs niet onze eigen geest besturen?

Als we echter de verantwoordelijkheid voor onze beslissingen nemen – zelfs die we namen toen we jong en onwetend waren, zelfs als deze beslissingen gemaakt werden in minder dan optimale omstandigheden of ten gevolge van dwang of manipulatie door anderen – dan geven we onszelf de kracht tot verandering. We houden ermee op vast te raken aan het verleden en in plaats daarvan vergeven we onszelf en anderen. We leren van onze fouten en beginnen andere mogelijkheden te overwegen voor onze huidige gewoonten en gedragspatronen. We beginnen met onze eigen geest te werken, we brengen zijn fantastische kwaliteiten voort zoals liefde, mededogen en wijsheid.

Laten we het proberen!

Thubten Chodron

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