thoughts are not our own. Language, culture, memory, history, and relationship live within us. To understand ourselves deeply is to realize that there is no independently existing self standing apart from the world. This insight lies at the very heart of Buddhist teaching.
In this moment, is it still possible to face the gathering darkness, and say to the physical Earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you, and to embrace fearlessly the burning world?
—BARRY LOPE Z, “Love in a Time of Terror”
www.upaya.org/2026/06/all-...
Many of the crises we face today arise from the illusion of certainty. Individuals become attached to rigid identities, communities cling to fixed narratives, and nations defend
Roshi Joan: "Each of us is the flowering of countless causes and conditions. We are made of the breath of forests, the labor of strangers, the sacrifices of ancestors, the teachings of our mentors, and the care of those who loved us. Even our
Bodhisattva recognizes that uncertainty is not the enemy of wisdom. It is the very condition from which wisdom arises. To remain open in the midst of uncertainty requires courage, as does staying present when outcomes are unclear.
William Blake (1757–1827) saw it clearly in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked paths without Improvement are paths of Genius.”
hardened ideologies. Fear seeks certainty because certainty appears to offer safety. Yet certainty often becomes the foundation for division, exclusion, and violence. The Bodhisattva takes another path. The
Dignity and compassion, important values to consider at this time.
The Buddha’s realization of dependent co-arising was not merely a philosophical observation. It was a profound revelation about the nature of existence itself. Nothing exists independently. Everything is contingent, relational, and mutually arising."
Jul 12, 11-12:30 MT WISDOM with Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi.
In the MEASURE OF OUR HUMANITY SERIES
www.upaya.org/program/the-... A special time when great teachers speak to the issues of our era and a gathering of the global community.
Free, online.
