Friday, February 6, 2015

Via JMG: 81% Of College Freshmen Back Marriage


 
In its annual American Freshman Survey, UCLA researchers polled over 150,000 incoming freshmen at 227 colleges and universities. This year's result on marriage:
The survey last asked about same-sex marriage in 2012. In the interim, support for same-sex couples having the legal right to marry has increased 6.5 percentage points to 81.5%. This increase covers a span of time where the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s state ban on same-sex marriage. Additionally, since these Supreme Court decisions, state-level same-sex marriage bans have fallen across the country in U.S. Circuit and District courts; as of January 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up four pending cases from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Figure 10 breaks support for same-sex marriage down by political ideology. The findings show that only students who identify as “far right” do not support same-sex marriage. Just 44.3% of students identified as “far right” either “agreed somewhat” or “agreed strongly” that same-sex couples should have the legal right to marry. This figure contrasts with 56.6% of “conservative” students, 84.7% of “middle-of-the-road” students, 93.9% of “liberal” students, and 90.5% of “far left” students. It is clear that same-sex marriage is no longer an issue for the vast majority of entering college freshmen.
We can't wait for Tony Perkins to spin this one.


Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via Daily Dharma


Experiential Ethics | February 5, 2015


The wonderful challenge of Buddhism is that it does not offer any absolute formulas for virtuousness. In the Silabatta Sutta, the Buddha asks Ananda if every precept and practice taught by the dharma is holy. Ananda replies, 'Lord, that is not to be answered with a categorical answer.'

- Hannah Tennant-Moore, "Personal Heaven, Personal Hell"

Flower of the Day: 02/06/15

"By deepening the practice of self-observation, we may reach the surprising conclusion that we feel pleasure through our negative actions in the world. There is a pleasure connected to the negative situation that repeats itself in our lives. Our vital energy is invested into this destructive action. As we deepen even further into this practice of self-observation, we realize that this may be the only way we know how to feel pleasure. Oftentimes, the positive manifestation of pleasure is a threat to the human being. Since we are so identified with this negativity, we suffer the terror of being annihilated in its absence. Unconsciously, we believe that letting go of this negativity would mean death."
- Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma


You Can't Always Get What You Want | February 6, 2015


The chains of desire pull us into a life of frustration and suffering, while renunciation cuts those chains. Renunciation, though often understood to mean 'giving up,' is, more accurately, the willingness to experience things as they are, not as we want them to be. Here you discover true freedom, the deep, quiet joy that has always been present in you.

- Ken McLeod, "You Can't Always Get What You Want"


Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Flor do Dia - Flor del Día - Flower of the Day - 04/02/2015

“Alguns seres que atingiram a meta da autorrealização enxergam esse planeta como uma prisão. Eu prefiro vê-lo como uma escola, onde a principal matéria é o amor desinteressado. Mas, para amar de forma desinteressada você precisa aprender a perdoar e agradecer, e para perdoar e agradecer, você tem que aprender muitas outras coisas.”

“Algunos seres que han alcanzado la meta de la autorrealización ven este planeta como una prisión. Yo prefiero verlo como una escuela, donde la principal materia es el amor desinteresado. Pero para amar de forma desinteresada, precisas aprender a perdonar y agradecer, y para perdonar y agradecer, tienes que aprender muchas otras cosas.”

"Some beings who have attained the goal of self-realization see this planet as a prison. I prefer to see it as a school, where the main subject matter is selfless love. To be able to love selflessly, we must learn to forgive and give thanks. In order to forgive and thank, we have to learn many more things."
- Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma


The Enlightened Life | February 4, 2015


When we call forth and base ourselves on the magnificent enlightened life that exists within each of us without exception . . . even the most fundamental, inescapable sufferings of life and death need not be experienced as pain. Rather, they can be transformed into a life embodying the virtues of eternity, joy, true self, and purity.

- Daisaku Ikeda, "Faith in Revolution"


Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Via Daily Dharma


Liberation is Already in Effect | February 3, 2015


From the viewpoint of a leap philosophy, there is no causal connection between the liberated and the unliberated state; it is, therefore, impossible to build a bridge between these two wholly incompatible realms. If it is not possible to create a causal chain that will lead one from unliberated to liberated status, and yet, as is claimed, liberation is possible, it must be the case that liberation is already in effect. All we must do as practitioners is allow ourselves to see, and to acknowledge, that fact.

- Jan Nattier, "A Greater Awakening"

Flor do Dia - Flor del Día - Flower of the Day - 03/02/2015

“Toda a entidade humana em evolução carrega partes dentro de si mesma com as quais não pôde chegar a um acordo; partes que, de alguma maneira, ela se envergonha ou não compreende, e por isso as mantêm separadas, trancadas em negação. Mas, a negação é o principal obstáculo para a felicidade, pois é somente através da integração dessas partes negadas e separadas que se pode ter um vislumbre da Unidade, e por consequência da paz e do amor.”
Acesse ao Satsang completo: bit.ly/1uTivU9

“Toda la miseria que vemos en este mundo es causada por el olvido de nuestra verdadera naturaleza espiritual. La crisis que vemos en todas las áreas de la sociedad se debe a este olvido. Podemos decir que nuestra sociedad está psicótica, porque existe una profunda identificación con el falso yo. Todos están demasiado ocupados en mantener y embellecer la propia historia, pero no saben que ella no es más que una ficción, una gran mentira; y para sustentarla son capaces de cualquier cosa.”

“All evolving human entities carry parts of themselves that they have not yet come to terms with. They somehow still feel ashamed of these parts within them or have not yet been able to fully understand them, so they keep these feelings separate, locked up in denial. Denial is the main obstacle towards happiness, because only by integrating these denied and separate parts can one have a glimpse of unity and, consequently, of peace and love.”
- Sri Prem Baba

Monday, February 2, 2015

Hallmark Valentine's Ad Stars Gay Couple


Gay Pride Parade Mumbai


Jimmy Fallon, The Roots, and Music Superstars Sing "We Are The Champions" (A Cappella)


Via JMG: Anti-Gay Lawmakers Seek Revenge with New Laws: Feb 2 MNW


Via JMG: Obama's Budget Gives Social Security Benefits to Gay Couples Nationwide


Via Talking Points Memo:
In his fiscal 2016 budget, released Monday, President Barack Obama proposed allowing married same-sex couples to receive spousal Social Security benefits, regardless of which state they live in. Currently, married same-sex couples lose their benefits it they move to a state that does not recognize their unions. "The budget proposes to amend the Social Security Act to ensure all lawfully married same-sex couples will be eligible to receive Social Security spousal benefits, regardless of where they live," Obama's proposal states. "Under this proposal, such married couples would have access to these benefits," the budget says. Same-sex marriages are currently recognized in 36 states, as Bloomberg noted. The proposal would have to be approved by the Republican-led Congress to take effect.
Freedom To Marry reacts via press release:
Once again, President Obama has demonstrated his commitment to fairness and freedom for all Americans, including same-sex couples and their families. His proposal to ensure equal Social Security benefits would fix a crucial gap in federal protections for same-sex couples.President Obama's leadership in helping bring the freedom to marry to all Americans will be a shining part of this president's legacy. Of course, the only way to ensure same-sex couples nationwide have all the protections of marriage is for the Supreme Court to put the country on the right side of history by ending marriage discrimination throughout the United States, leaving no family and no state behind.

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Julian Bond For Mississippi Marriage


 
"Mississippians know sexual orientation or gender identity shouldn’t matter when it comes to working hard and taking care of your neighbor. Mississippians know all children are valued, no matter who they are. And Mississippians know that above all, treating one another with dignity and respect is what counts.

"The fight for basic civil rights is not a quest for superiority or an unvoiced desire for power. It is, at its root, a battle to raise us all up. We all deserve the right to try and fail, move forward and fall back, and ultimately succeed on our own merits and individual gifts. But for many of us, our ability to dream of a greater and more brilliant future is limited by the color of our skin, the texts of our religious tomes, and the gender of whom we love and who we are.

"The push for full equality for all Americans has always come with hurdles and setbacks. But we are not dissuaded from our path. LGBT Mississippians and their families yearn for a better day, one that we can work together to create. Let’s begin right now."
- NAACP chairman emeritus Julian Bond, writing for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. Hit the link and read the full op-ed.


Reposted from Joe Jervis

Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Arthur C. Clarke - God, The Universe and Everything Else (1988)


Neil deGrasse Tyson and Richard Dawkins - The Poetry of Science


14 glorious minutes of religious people getting served by Richard Dawkins


Love Letters to Richard Dawkins (NSFW)


Via Tricycle: Was the Buddha an Atheist?

Preeminent Buddhist thinkers—Badiner, Kornfield, Batchelor, and Thurman—weigh in. Philip Wolfson


"The Buddha was an atheist."
Writer Allan Badiner made this bald pronouncement in the midst of a conversation that spanned the wee hours of a cloudless Burning Man night. Sitting in a vast tent where, during the day, scores of partygoers had washed off their dust and grime in a plexiglass chamber, we discussed prevailing notions of a Buddhist godhead and, conversely, our mutual embrace of the religion in its secular form.  
I was most intrigued, though, by Badiner’s description of the Buddha as an atheist. I asked for sources. 
 Allan’s first response:

I would need time to do it, but there are passages from the Tripitaka that strongly indicate that the Buddha denied the existence of a creator god. Rather than classify him as an atheist or an agnostic, it would be more appropriate to use the term nontheist. An atheist believes only what he can see but, of course, the Buddha suggested that not all that you see is real.
I responded with enthusiasm and persistence: "I like nontheist—thanks—but do send me the citation when you can."
He did:

According to Stephen Batchelor’s Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist, on the few occasions in the [Pali] Canon . . . where the question of God is addressed, Gautama is presented as an ironic atheist. The rejection of God is not a mainstay of his teaching, so he did not get worked up about it. Such passages have the flavor of a diversion, a light entertainment, in which another of humanity’s irrational opinions is gently ridiculed and put aside. This approach stands in contrast to the aggressive atheism that periodically erupts in the modern West. The Buddha regarded questions about the cause of the universe, or other questions related to a creator god as not useful, in light of the more important task of bringing about the cessation of human suffering. 
A few weeks later, at a conference on psychedelic research in Marin, California, I asked Insight Meditation Society cofounder Jack Kornfield the same question: "Was the Buddha an atheist?"
He responded later in an email, in his usual sweet manner:
"Yes, the Buddha was a nontheist. But he believed in and talked a lot about Brahma, King of the Gods and about other Gods . . .” 
He continued, rather cryptically, with a quote from the Buddha himself: A star at dawn, a drop of dew, an echo, a rainbow and a dream.
Now we were getting somewhere, or perhaps nowhere, or maybe somewhere rather koan-istic.
Then Stephen Batchelor himself weighed in on our group email:

I’m happy you are happy with nontheist. The problems are manifold.  The term atheist as we use it today would not have been used in that way at the Buddha’s time. Nor, for that matter, would the concept nontheist. There are no equivalents for either in Pali or Sanskrit, though many Hindus today still regard the Buddha as a nastika, usually translated as nihilist but which means something like one who asserts there is nothing.  
Again, the Buddha would have rejected this since he warns against the two extremes of atthi [it is] and natthi [it is not] and seeks to establish his dharma in the middle (madhyama), which does not lapse into the extremes of eternalism or annihilationism. The Buddha simply did not define himself or his teaching in such ways. So trying to capture him in these terms is bound to misrepresent him.
On the other hand, the only way we can talk about him and his vision is via the concepts of our own time and language, which has been the case throughout Buddhist history in the different countries in which it took root. I take nontheist to mean one who does not employ God as a necessary term in his or her teaching. In this sense, yes, the Buddha was a nontheist
However since he is recorded in the Agganna Sutta as mocking and rejecting the very idea of God, he also comes close to being an atheist in the modern sense. It is probably best to drop trying to categorize the Buddha in any of these ways, to cultivate a healthy skepticism regarding views and opinions, and to concentrate on practicing the dharma instead. 
Stephen, as usual, had cut through the Gordian Knot with that “practice the dharma” thing—or get over yourself with the intellectual stuff that leads to more intellectual stuff: the obsessional path. It stung like the smack of the keisaku provoking a kensho
Then, some weeks later when I had almost given up, Bob Thurman, noted Columbia University Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, gave his view:

From the records we have, I think we can fairly say that Buddha was a non-monotheist—or non-creator-theist— and also a non-atheist, since he was in conversation with various gods quite often, actually one of his names was devamanusyanam shasta (Pali), or teacher of gods and humans. So the Buddha is an example of one who can be a theist while rejecting a creator. As I like to say, no one person is to blame for creating this whole mess—other than each of us, that is!
So there you have it—as close to the horses’ mouths as I can get. Pick and choose from atheist, nontheist, agnostic, non-creator-theist, and non-atheist; or make up one of your own. 
Did I learn something from this? Yes. For one, as Stephen said, pinning the Buddha down to a specific category of belief is a difficult thing, because we live in a different time with a different set of values and a whole other language to express them. Therefore, we cannot know the Buddha directly as a historical personage. Moreover, Buddhism has been of such benefit to a variety of practitioners, its modifications and commentaries leaves grown from a single tree. Why hold the Buddha stuck in place? The dharma is a moving thing. And clearly, he, Gautama, touched its essence. For that wisdom we owe great gratitude to the Buddha, atheist or not, and all those who have breathed life into his path.

Phil Wolfson is a psychiatrist and secular Buddhist practitioner. He lives in the Bay Area.
Image: Chris Sorensen/Gallerystock