Sangha of Auspicious Companions

Dalai Lama Quote from Snow Lion Publications

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week Bodhisattvas give solely out of concern for others, without a self-cherishing attitude. That is the proper way of giving. Courageous Bodhisattvas risk even their lives to help others, and so, when we are in relatively better, more comfortable situations, we must certainly practice giving. Even if they are threatened, the courageous ones will not engage in improper actions. Instead, after examining the situation carefully, when they find that certain actions are correct and justified, on the basis of reason, they engage in them even at the risk of their lives. That is the way of the decent, civilized and courageous ones, who do not follow misleading paths.(p.20) –from Generous Wisdom: Commentaries by H.H. the Dalai Lama XIV on the Jatakamala, Garland of Birth Stories by H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama, translated by Tenzin Dorjee, edited by Dexter Roberts Generous Wisdom • Now at 2O% off! (Good until February 3rd).

Kindness Daily: Starting A New Life With Smile Cards

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Starting A New Life With Smile Cards January 27, 2012 – Posted by upasaka I have been trying recently to help a young girl who begs on the street. Well, a few days ago she shared some good news with me. She has been offered a job in another town! It’s about 150 km away and she will be moving there in a week or so. Realizing that moving and starting a new job would require several things she couldn’t afford I picked up a $50 Walmart gift card and gave it to her along with ten Smile cards. I explained that this was actually two gifts. The Walmart card was one gift but the smile cards were her way to pay it forward in thanks for all who had helped her. I explained that the best gift of all would be the joy she would find in using those cards. Her smile, the heart felt thank you, and the sincere look of gratitude on her face were all the thanks I needed. I will probably never see her again but the warmth I felt knowing she now has the opportunity to start a new life made it all worthwhile. Add/View Comment >> About Newsletter Kindness Daily is an email that delivers today’s featured story from HelpOthers.org. If you’d rather not receive this email, you can also unsubscribe. Similar Stories Carnations with a Smile at a Supermarket, by Kat C. The Almond Paw, by twocents My First Experience With Smile Cards, by Hope4lisa One Blessed Can of Coke, by courts A Neighbor’s Blessings, by Agnes Haddaway Helpful Links Smile Cards: do an act of kindness and leave a card behind to keep the chain going. Smile Decks: 52 cards with a kindness idea on each! Smile Groups: share your own stories, make friends, spread the good. Smile Ideas: loads of ideas that can support your drive of kindness. Unsubscribe If you’d rather not receive these stories by email, you can remove yourself with two easy clicks. Community

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Video of the Week: Kindness Boomerang

You’re receiving this newsletter because you are a KarmaTube subscriber. Having trouble reading this mail? View it in your browser. Not interested anymore? Unsubscribe Video of the Week Jan 27, 2012 Kindness Boomerang What goes around comes around. This charming short film depicts the ripple-effect of kind acts — the way in which receiving an unexpected moment of generosity from a stranger can cause us to become more aware of the needs of those around us and to take action to become a vector of goodness. Share: Related KarmaTube Videos Be Selfish, Be Generous At a Coffee Shop in Loveland Mukhtar’s Birthday Surprise Ripple Effect of a Small Act About KarmaTube: KarmaTube is a collection of inspiring videos accompanied by simple actions every viewer can take. We invite you to get involved. Other ServiceSpace Projects: DailyGood // Conversations // iJourney // HelpOthers MovedByLove // CF Sites // Karma Kitchen // More Thank you for helping us spread the good. This newsletter now reaches 40,833 subscribers.

Road Trip Nation

Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking. — Antonio Machado

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Good News of the Day:
“I’d feel so much better about the world we live in if being ‘passionate’ or ‘inspired’ was a national standard instead of so much of the academic trivia that is mandated,” a high school teacher wrote. Working with 11th graders in his capacity as college advisor, he was helping them explore how their own passions could lead to further study and possible career choices. In the process, he introduced some video excerpts from the public television series “Roadtrip Nation,” whose motto is “Define your own road in life.” Roadtrip Nation began in 2001 when four friends just out of college set out across the country in a green RV to interview people who loved what they did. Ten years later, it’s a movement.
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Be The Change:
Take a “road trip” of your own: interview someone who loves what s/he does.

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Dharma Quote from Snow Lion Publications

Dharma Quote of the Week Merely understanding the mind is not good enough. Recognizing it as the source of happiness and suffering is good, but great results come only from looking inward and meditating on the nature of the mind. Once you recognize its nature, then you need to meditate with joyful effort. Joyful meditation will actualize the true nature of the mind, and maintaining the mind in this natural state will bring enlightenment. This type of meditation reveals the innermost, profound wisdom that is inherent in the mind. Meditation can transform your body into wisdom light, into what is known as the rainbow body of wisdom. Many masters in the history of the Nyingma lineage have achieved this, as can anyone who practices these methods of meditation. The wisdom aspect of our nature exists at all times in each of us. You have always had this nature and it can be revealed through meditation. When you maintain the mind in its natural state, wonderful qualities shine out like light from the sun. Among these qualities are limitless compassion, limitless loving-kindness, and limitless wisdom. –from The Buddhist Path: A Practical Guide from the Nyingma Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, by Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche, published by Snow Lion Publications The Buddhist Path • Now at 5O% off! (Good until February 3rd).

Kindness Daily: Broken Bodies, Broken Minds, Amazing Spirits!

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Broken Bodies, Broken Minds, Amazing Spirits! January 26, 2012 – Posted by hasifa Yesterday I went to the nursing home to visit my step mom’s grandma. She just got out of the hospital recently where she underwent some serious operations. I wanted to surprise her after work so I stopped by for a quick visit. When I got there she was happy to see me. We hugged, kissed and exchanged greetings. Then I heard a woman crying. It was my great grandma’s roommate. The curtain was drawn so I could not see her. She started calling out a name that wasn’t mine but she was definitely talking to me, begging me to go to her side of the room. I ignored her at first and continued visiting with my great grandma. Then she started begging and saying, “Please, come see me!" So I went to see her. When I drew the curtain back she looked so old and frail but flashed me the biggest smile! She opened her arms wide for me to hug her so I bent low and gave her a hug. She held me so tight and would not let go. I had to force myself to pull away from her and I hated doing it. I sat on her bed and talked with her for a few minutes. She kept calling me by the other name but I did not correct her. She told me stories like I had been there when they happened. Eventually I went back to visit with my great grandma. Then the other woman started crying again, saying, “Please, come back." She eventually dozed and when she woke up again she said some of the most beautiful and heartwarming prayers I have ever heard. My great grandma told me how they prayed together at night. I stopped by the nurse’s station and the nurse told me that the lady suffers from Alzheimer’s, otherwise known as dementia. I mentioned the name she had called me. The nurse told me it was the lady’s daughter’s name. Then I understood why she wanted me to go visit with her. It was a heart-breaking experience but it gave me a new perspective on life. We will all get old someday. Some of us will have broken minds like my great grandma’s roommate and some of us will have broken bodies like my great grandma. But what was beautiful was the fact that both ladies, one 86 and the other 90, did not have broken spirits. As I was leaving I promised I would go back and visit the lady, even after my great grandma moves back to her home state. Add/View Comment >> About Newsletter Kindness Daily is an email that delivers today’s featured story from HelpOthers.org. If you’d rather not receive this email, you can also unsubscribe. Similar Stories Snail Mail Surprises, by brighteyes Children Have The Best Hearts, by ljcrowefamily A Simple Prayer, by Shelley Looking for Josephs, by Della Give One, Get Two Skates Free, by J. Madden Helpful Links Smile Cards: do an act of kindness and leave a card behind to keep the chain going. Smile Decks: 52 cards with a kindness idea on each! Smile Groups: share your own stories, make friends, spread the good. Smile Ideas: loads of ideas that can support your drive of kindness. Unsubscribe If you’d rather not receive these stories by email, you can remove yourself with two easy clicks. Community

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The Inventor Who Disrupted the Period Industry

Imagination is more important than knowledge. — Albert Einstein

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Good News of the Day:
When Arunachalam Muruganantham hit a wall in his research on creating a sanitary napkin for poor women, he decided to do what most men typically wouldn’t dream of. He wore one himself — for a whole week. Fashioning his own menstruating uterus by filling a bladder with goat’s blood, Muruganantham went about his life while wearing women’s underwear, occasionally squeezing the contraption to test out his latest iteration. It resulted in endless derision and almost destroyed his family. But no one is laughing at him anymore, as the sanitary napkin-making machine he went on to create is transforming the lives of rural women across India. Right now, 88% of women in India resort to using dirty rags, newspapers, dried leaves, and even ashes during their period. Perhaps most amazing of all? Muruganantham is a high school dropout.
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Be The Change:
“Genius is often expressed through a change of perception — a modifying of context of paradigm.” A short passage on the humility in true genius.
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Inside Tim Tebow’s World of Kindness

Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. — George Bernard Shaw

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Inspiration of the Day:
“I’ve come to believe in Tim Tebow for what he does off a football field, which is represent the best parts of us, the parts I want to be and so rarely am. Who among us is this selfless? Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured.” He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, and gives them a treat of a lifetime. This ESPN article shares the altruism of one of America’s most famous athletes. In Tebow’s own words: “Here you are, about to play a game that the world says is the most important thing in the world. Win and they praise you. Lose and they crush you. And here I have a chance to talk to the coolest, most courageous people. It puts it all into perspective.”
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Be The Change:
What is your privilege? Share it with someone who would benefit from it, and wouldn’t otherwise have access to it.

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Quote of the Week | We Are Completely Interrelated

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Teachings by Pema Chödrön, taken from works published by Shambhala Publications. Photo by ©Andrea Roth. Forwarded from a friend? You can subscribe to this e-mail emailList, and be sure to include both your old and new addresses. If you no longer wish to receive the Heart Advice e-mails, click here. If you can’t see the images, click here.

5 Books on the Psychology of Love

Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. — Rumi

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Inspiration of the Day:
“It’s often said that every song, every poem, every novel, every painting ever created is in some way ‘about’ love. What this really means is that love is a central theme, an underlying preoccupation, in humanity’s greatest works. But what exactly is love? How does its mechanism spur such poeticism, and how does it lodge itself in our minds, hearts and souls so completely, so stubbornly, as to permeate every aspect of the human imagination? Today, we turn to 5 essential books that are ‘about’ love in a different way — they turn an inquisitive lens towards this grand phenomenon and try to understand where it comes from, how it works, and what it means for the human condition.” Cultural curator Maria Popova shares further.
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Be The Change:
An insightful piece on “giving somebody your heart — the real you, your presence, your true attention. This is the hard thing to do. The risky thing to do.”
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