Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Via Thich Nhat Hanh - Lion's Roar / Growing Together


holding-hands-couple

In his introduction to the book, Love’s Garden: A Guide to Mindful Relationships, Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how we can use loving relationships to cultivate the seeds of buddhahood inside us.

To commit to another person is to embark on a very adventurous journey. You must be very wise and very patient to keep your love alive so it will last for a long time. The first year of a committed relationship can already reveal how difficult it is. When you first commit to someone, you have a beautiful image of them, and you marry that image rather than the person. When you live with each other twenty-four hours a day, you begin to discover the reality of the other person, which doesn’t quite correspond with the image you have of him or of her. Sometimes we’re disappointed.

In the beginning you’re very passionate. But that passion for the other person may last only a short time—maybe six months, a year, or two years. Then, if you’re not skillful, if you don’t practice, if you’re not wise, suffering will be born in you and in the other person. When you see someone else, you might think you’d be happier with them. In Vietnamese we have a saying: “Standing on top of one mountain and gazing at the top of another, you think you’d rather be standing on the other mountain.”

When we commit to a partner, either in a marriage ceremony or in a private way, usually it is because we believe we can be and want to be faithful to our partner for the whole of our life. In the Five Mindfulness Trainings, the third training is to be faithful to the partner you commit to. That is a challenging practice that requires consistent strong practice. Many of us don’t have a lot of models of loyalty and faithfulness around us. The U.S. divorce rate is around fifty percent, and for nonmarried but committed partners the rates are similar or higher.

We tend to compare ourselves with others and to wonder if we have enough to offer in a relationship. Many of us feel unworthy. We’re thirsty for truth, goodness, compassion, spiritual beauty, and we’re sure these things don’t exist within us, so we go looking outside. Sometimes we think we’ve found the ideal partner who embodies all that is good, beautiful, and true. That person may be a romantic partner, a friend, or a spiritual teacher. We see all the good in that person and we fall in love. After a time, we usually discover that we’ve had a wrong perception of that person and we become disappointed.

Beauty and goodness are always there in each of us. This is the basic teaching of the Buddha. A true teacher, a true spiritual partner, is one who encourages you to look deeply in yourself for the beauty and love you are seeking. The true teacher is someone who helps you discover the teacher in yourself.

According to the Buddha, the birth of a human being is not a beginning but a continuation, and when we’re born, all the different kinds of seeds—seeds of goodness, of cruelty, of awakening—are already inside us. Whether the goodness or cruelty in us is revealed depends on what seeds we cultivate, our actions, and our way of life.

At the moment of his awakening at the foot of the bodhi tree, the Buddha declared, “How strange—all beings possess the capacity to be awakened, to understand, to love, to be free—yet they allow themselves to be carried away on the ocean of suffering.” He saw that, day and night, we’re seeking what is already there within us. We can call it buddhanature, awakened nature, the true freedom that is the foundation for all peace and happiness. The capacity to be enlightened isn’t something that someone else can offer to you. A teacher can only help you to remove the non-enlightened elements in you so that enlightenment can be revealed. If you have confidence that beauty, goodness, and the true teacher are in you, and if you take refuge in them, you will practice in a way that reveals these qualities more clearly each day.

Each one of us is sovereign over the territory of our own being and the five elements we are made of. These elements are form (body), feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. Our practice is to look deeply into these five elements and discover the true nature of our being—the true nature of our suffering, our happiness, our peace, our fearlessness.

But when we’ve abandoned our territory, we’re not responsible rulers. We haven’t practiced and, every day, instead of taking care of our territory, we’ve run away from it and allowed conflicts and disorder to arise. We’re afraid to go back to our territory and face the difficulties and suffering there. 

Whenever we have fifteen “free” minutes, or an hour or two, we have the habit of using television, newspapers, music, conversation, or the telephone to forget and to run away from the reality of the elements that make up our being. We think, “I’m suffering too much, I have too many problems. I don’t want to go back to them anymore.”

We have to come back to our physical selves and put things in order. The Buddha gave us very concrete practices that show us how to do this. He was very clear that to clean up and transform the elements of our selves, we need to cultivate the energy of mindfulness. This is what will give us the strength to come back to ourselves.

The energy of mindfulness is something concrete that can be cultivated. When we practice walking mindfully, our solid, peaceful steps cultivate the energy of mindfulness and bring us back to the present moment. When we sit and follow our breathing, aware of our in- and out-breath, we are cultivating the energy of mindfulness. When we have a meal in mindfulness, we invest all our being in the present moment and are aware of our food and of those who are eating with us. We can cultivate the energy of mindfulness while we walk, while we breathe, while we work, while we wash the dishes or wash our clothes. A few days practicing like this can increase the energy of mindfulness in you, and that energy will help you, protect you, and give you courage to go back to yourself, to see and embrace what is there in your territory.

There are real, painful feelings, strong emotions, troubling perceptions that agitate or make us afraid. With the energy of mindfulness, we can spend time with these difficult feelings without running away. We can embrace them the way a parent embraces a child and say to them, “Darling, I am here for you; I have come back; I’m going to take care of you.” This is what we do with all our emotions, feelings, and perceptions.

When you begin to practice Buddhism, you begin as a part-time buddha and slowly you become a full-time buddha. Sometimes you fall back and become a part-time buddha again, but with steady practice you become a full-time buddha again. Buddhahood is within reach because, like the Buddha, you’re a human being. You can become a buddha whenever you like; the Buddha is available in the here and now, anytime, anywhere. When you are a part-time buddha, your romantic relationships may go well some of the time. When you are a full-time buddha, you can find a way to be present and happy in your relationship full-time, no matter what difficulties arise.

Becoming a buddha is not so difficult. A buddha is someone who is enlightened, capable of loving and forgiving. You know that at times you’re like that. So enjoy being a buddha. When you sit, allow the buddha in you to sit. When you walk, allow the buddha in you to walk. Enjoy your practice. If you don’t become a buddha, who will?

Every single person contains the seeds of goodness, kindness, and enlightenment. We all have the seed of buddhanature. To give the buddha in you a chance to manifest both in yourself and your loved ones, you have to water those seeds. When we act as if people have these seeds inside them, it gives us and them the strength and energy to help these seeds grow and flower. If we act as if we don’t believe in our inherent goodness, we blame others for our suffering and we lose our happiness.

You can use the goodness in yourself to transform your suffering and the tendency to be angry, cruel, and afraid. But you don’t want to throw your suffering away because you can use it. Your suffering is compost that gives you the understanding to nourish your happiness and the happiness of your loved one.

Two Gardens

You have two gardens: your own garden and that of your beloved. First, you have to take care of your own garden and master the art of gardening. In each one of us there are flowers and there is also garbage. The garbage is the anger, fear, discrimination, and jealousy within us. If you water the garbage, you will strengthen the negative seeds. If you water the flowers of compassion, understanding, and love, you will strengthen the positive seeds. What you grow is up to you.
If you don’t know how to practice selective watering in your own garden, then you won’t have enough wisdom to help water the flowers in the garden of your beloved. In cultivating your own garden well, you also help to cultivate her or his garden. Even a week of practice can make a big difference. You are more than intelligent enough to do the work. You need to take your situation in hand and not allow it to get out of control. You can do it. Every time you practice walking mindfully, investing your mind and body in every step, you are taking your situation in hand. Every time you breathe in and know you are breathing in, every time you breathe out and smile to your out-breath, you are yourself, you are your own master, and you are the gardener in your own garden. We are relying on you to take good care of your garden, so that you can help your beloved to take care of hers.

When you have succeeded with yourself and with your beloved, you become a sangha—a community of two people—and now you can be a refuge for a third person, and then for a fourth, and so on. In this way, the sangha will grow. There is mutual understanding between you and your beloved. When mutual understanding is there and communication is good, then happiness is possible, and the two of you can become a refuge for others.

If you have a difficult relationship, and you want to make peace with the other person, you have to go home to yourself. You have to go home to your garden and cultivate the flowers of peace, compassion, understanding, and joy. Only after that can you come to your partner and be patient and compassionate.

When we marry or commit to another person, we make a promise to grow together, sharing the fruit and progress of practice. It is our responsibility to take care of each other. Every time the other person does something in the direction of change and growth, we should show our appreciation.

If you have been together with your partner for some years, you may have the impression that you know everything about this person, but it’s not so. Scientists can study a speck of dust for years, and they still don’t claim to understand everything about it. If a speck of dust is that complex, how can you know everything about another person? Your partner needs your attention and your watering of his or her positive seeds. Without that attention, your relationship will wither.

We have to learn the art of creating happiness. If during your childhood, you saw your parents do things that created happiness in the family, you already know what to do. But many of us didn’t have these role models and don’t know what to do. The problem is not one of being wrong or right, but one of being more or less skillful. Living together is an art. Even with a lot of goodwill, you can still make the other person very unhappy. The substance of the art of making others happy is mindfulness. When you are mindful, you are more artful.

You and your partner each have a garden to water, but the two gardens are connected. We have two hands and we have names for them: right hand and left hand. Have you ever seen the two hands fighting each other? I have never seen this. Every time my finger gets hurt, I notice that my right hand comes naturally to help my left hand. So there must be something like love in the body. 

Sometimes they help each other, sometimes they each act separately, but they have never fought.

My right hand invites the bell, writes books, does calligraphy, and pours tea. But my right hand doesn’t seem to be proud of it. It doesn’t look down on the left hand to say, “Oh left hand, you are good for nothing. All the poems, I wrote them. All the calligraphy in German, French, and English—I’ve done it all. You are useless. You are good for nothing.” The right hand has never suffered from the complex of pride. The left hand has never suffered from the complex of unworthiness. It’s wonderful.

When the right hand has a problem, the left hand comes right away. The right hand never says, “You have to pay me back. I always come to help you. You owe me.”

When you can see your partner as not separate from you, not better or worse or even equal to you, then you have the wisdom of nondiscrimination. We see the happiness of others as our happiness. Their suffering is our suffering.

Look into your hand. The fingers are like five brothers and sisters from the same family. Suppose we are a family of five. If you remember that if one person suffers, you all suffer, you have the wisdom of nondiscrimination. If the other person is happy, you are also happy. Happiness is not an individual matter.

Our goal in practicing mindfulness and the deepest gift it can bring us is the wisdom of nondiscrimination. We are not noble by birth. We are noble only by virtue of the way we think, speak, and act. The person who practices true love has the wisdom of nondiscrimination and it informs all his actions. He doesn’t discriminate between himself and his partner or between his partner and all people. This person’s heart has grown large and his love knows no obstacles.


Excerpted from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Introduction to “Love’s Garden: A Guide to Mindful Relationships,” by Peggy Rowe Ward and Larry Ward. © 2008 by Peggy Rowe Ward and Larry Ward. Introduction © 2008 by Unified Buddhist Church. With permission from Parallax Press, www.parallax.org.

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 17/02/2016

“Nosso maior compromisso é remover do nosso sistema qualquer vestígio de violência e crueldade. A maldade nada mais é do que um conjunto de mecanismos de defesa. Eu não julgo a maldade, apenas digo que ela (e a ignorância sobre ela) é o que te impede de amar e ascender. E você se liberta dessa ignorância conhecendo, compreendendo, e tendo a coragem de renunciá-la, mesmo que, no primeiro momento, seja necessário fazer uma austeridade inteligente, um sacrifício. Ao compreender, é preciso tomar uma atitude, pois somente assim você se fortalece.”

“Nuestro mayor compromiso es remover de nuestro sistema cualquier vestigio de violencia y crueldad. La maldad no es nada más que un conjunto de mecanismos de defensa. No juzgo a la maldad, solo digo que ella (y la ignorancia sobre ella) es lo que te impide amar y ascender. Te liberas de esta ignorancia conociendo, comprendiendo y teniendo el coraje de renunciar a ella, aunque en un primer momento sea necesario hacer una austeridad inteligente, un sacrificio. Al comprender, es necesario tomar una actitud, porque solamente así te fortaleces.” 

"Our biggest commitment is to remove from our system any trace of violence and cruelty. Evil is nothing more than a set of defense mechanisms. I do not judge evil, I simply say that evil, as well as the ignorance around it, is what keeps us from loving and ascending. We free ourselves from this ignorance by getting to know this evil, understanding it, and having the courage to renounce it, even if at first we need to make an intelligent austerity or asacrifice. Once we understand it, we must take action, for only action gives us the strength we need to carry through.”

Via Daily Dharma: A Wider View of Ethics

I get the impression that when people are not much interested in religion they also neglect values like compassion, a sense of sharing, a sense of caring—all the things that people consider to be a religious message and reject. That's a mistake.

—The Dalai Lama, "Ethics for a Secular Millennium"
 

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Via Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented / FB:


An evening meditation from the prominent rabbi, author and activist Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972.)

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia -Flor del día - Flower of the day 16/02/2016

“Quando falo do ‘caminho da autorrealização’, em outras palavras, estou me referindo ao processo de desvendar do Amor. Esse processo envolve, inevitavelmente, o perdão. Isso significa que precisamos nos libertar de toda discórdia, ódio e pactos de vingança. Por isso tenho te inspirado a identificar e encarar as suas contas abertas com o passado, pois são elas que te mantém com o coração fechado, sem poder manifestar sua verdadeira natureza: o Amor.”

“Cuando hablo del ‘camino de la autorrealización‘, en otras palabras, me estoy refiriendo al proceso de revelar el Amor. Este proceso implica, inevitablemente, el perdón. Eso significa que necesitamos liberarnos de toda discordia, odio y pactos de venganza. Por eso te inspiro a identificar y encarar tus cuentas abiertas con el pasado, porque son las que te mantienen con el corazón cerrado, sin poder manifestar tu verdadera naturaleza: el Amor.”

"When I speak of the path of self-realization, I am referring to the process of unveiling love. Inevitably, this process involves forgiveness. We need to free ourselves of all discord, hatred and pacts of revenge. We must identify and address our open accounts with the past, for they make us keep our hearts closed and unable to express our true nature, which is love."

Via Daily Dharma: Great Determination

When the great root of faith and the great ball of doubt are present, great determination will arise. Great determination is a strong resolve that wells up from the bottom of our gut and spurs us on.

—Koun Yamada, "Great Faith, Great Doubt, Great Determination"
 

Monday, February 15, 2016

Via Quotes Gate / FB:


Via Upworthy: Sir Ian McKellen has been out and proud as a gay man for quite some time.

 



In that time, the actor has said and done a lot of cool things for the LGBTQ community. He's fought discrimination in the U.K., for example, and has been a voice of encouragement to young folks still in the closet. More recently, he pointed out that the Oscars don't just have a racial diversity problem — they lack queer representation, too. 


Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia -Flor del día - Flower of the day 15/02/2016

“Toda a reação, ou seja, toda a ação compulsiva está a serviço de suprir uma carência. Você acredita que recebendo atenção do outro essa carência será suprida, mas isso é uma grande ilusão, isso não existe! Compreenda que a sua felicidade não pode depender do outro. Você acredita não ter amor e por isso acha que precisa receber de fora. Essa crença é o que te mantém preso ao outro, agindo como um mendigo. Faz-se necessário mudar a direção da sua atenção – você precisa se voltar para dentro.”

“Toda la reacción, es decir, toda la acción compulsiva está al servicio de suplir una carencia. Crees que recibiendo atención del otro esa carencia será suplida, pero eso es una gran ilusión, ¡eso no existe! Comprende que tu felicidad no puede depender del otro. Crees no tener amor y por ello piensas que necesitas recibirlo de afuera. Esta creencia es lo que te mantiene preso al otro, actuando como un mendigo. Es necesario cambiar la dirección de tu atención - necesitas volverte hacia adentro.”

"All reactions or compulsive actions are at the service of feeding a neediness. We believe that by getting the other's attention this neediness will finally be satisfied, but that's all a great illusion – it can't be done. We must realize that our happiness cannot depend on the other. We believe that we don’t have love so we need to receive it from the outside. This belief is what keeps us imprisoned to each other, acting like beggars. We need to change the direction of our attention – we must go back within ourselves.”

Via Dialy Dharma: Melting Away Defilements

The highest expression of our human nature is to purify our minds. To clear away the clouds, the sheets of snow, the ice that we’re encased in.

—Ayya Medhanandi Bhikkhuni, "The Dharma of Snow"
 

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom:

February 14, 2016

There is a being on another plane that guides, protects, and helps you. That loves you so incredibly. Does your sense of unworthiness prevent you from being loved as much as this being loves you? Unworthiness has to go. You have to be able to say, "Christ, God, Baba, let me feel your love. Let me fill up with your love, let me be absorbed into your love." Breathe in and out of your heart; with each in breath, you take in that love a little more. With each out breath, you get rid of that which keeps you from acknowledging that you are love.

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia -Flor del día - Flower of the day 14/02/2016

“Costumo chamar os comandos do coração de ‘sim’ e tudo o que vem da mente condicionada de ‘não’. O sim é a ação que nasce da presença; é o amor em movimento. O não nasce do passado, da agitação interna. Ele é uma forma de se defender e se proteger das possíveis ameaças da vida. O não é, portanto, uma reação. E sempre que estamos reagindo criamos um sintoma muito fácil de ser identificado: as situações negativas e destrutivas que se repetem nas nossas vidas.”

“Acostumbro nombrar a los comandos del corazón 'sí' y todo lo que viene de la mente condicionada 'no'. El sí es la acción que nace de la presencia; es el amor en movimiento. El no nace del pasado, de la agitación interna. Es una manera de defenderse y protegerse de las posibles amenazas de la vida. El no es, por lo tanto, una reacción. Y siempre que estamos reaccionando creamos un síntoma muy fácil de ser identificado: las situaciones negativas y destructivas que se repiten en nuestras vidas.”

"I refer to the commands of the heart as a 'yes' and everything that comes from the conditioned mind as a 'no.' The yes is an action that is born of presence; it is love in motion. The no is born from the past, from inner agitation. The no is a reaction, a way to defend and protect ourselves from life’s potential threats. Whenever we are reacting, we generate easily identifiable symptoms, which are all the negative and destructive situations that repeat in our lives.”

Via Daily Dharma: How to Notice Love

Our society provides no curriculum or schooling on how to notice love or to recognize the many people who have transmitted its life-giving power. Most of us haven’t been taught that to receive love deeply and transmit it wholeheartedly is a real human possibility, that it can be learned, and that to do so is the key to our deepest well-being, our spiritual life, and our capacity to bring more goodness into this world.

—John Makransky, "Love Is All Around"
 

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Via We Are LGBT. No need to be Afraid / FB:


Honey Maid | Love Day


Via FB:


Via GayBahai.net: To the Universal House of Justice and the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States of America


Letter to the UHJ and NSA of the USA


To the Universal House of Justice and the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States of America,

Last time I wrote you I was writing to ask permission to travel to Iran in order to pursue my study of Persian and Baha'i history. It was my hope to become a scholar of the Faith. That letter marked, in many ways, the pinnacle of my immersion in the Baha'i community. Growing up, Baha'i children's classes were held at my house every weekend, and feasts, holy days, firesides, and potlucks joyfully paraded through my home with comforting regularity. I remember crawling out of bed and dangling my legs over the second floor banister to listen surreptitiously to the late night consultations and deliberations of the Local Spiritual Assembly, which included both of my parents. One day I hoped to join their ranks.

My father founded one of the first theater companies in the world to dedicate itself to themes and stories from Baha'i history, and when I was fifteen I began touring with him across the USA, UK, and Canada – enacting plays about the beloved heroes and heroines of the Faith. When I was eighteen I served at the Lotus Temple in New Delhi and later at my university plunged headlong into what could have been subtitled a degree in Baha'i Culture (Persian, Arabic, and Middle Eastern Studies). My marriage vows were Baha'i vows, my daily prayers Baha'i prayers, and my hopes for humanity and myself — those hopes outlined in the sacred writings of the Faith. I write all this, not to brag about my Baha'i pedigree, or to prove a legitimate degree of devotion, but to illustrate how fundamentally rooted I have been in the Faith and to contextualize my profound grief that this is a letter of resignation.

There was a time when the Faith was everything to me and the Baha'i community a family like no other, but for the last ten years I have had difficulty feeling that I belong to it or want to belong to it. 

There are perhaps several issues at play, but the most fundamental of them has been the official position espoused by the Universal House of Justice on homosexuality. I am a heterosexual woman and I am married to a man, but many of my dearest friends and colleagues belong to the LGBTQ community. You advise that I should consider their sexual orientation to be a kind of "handicap" which they should "pray to overcome", but I find this position impossible to maintain.

As a child and young adult, I prided myself in belonging to a religion that was not weighed down by outdated social laws, not caught up in untangling and interpreting archaic customs to fit the modern age. In comparison to other religions, the principles of gender and racial equality which the Baha'i Faith upheld often felt revolutionary and refreshingly modern. Even in 1914, Abdu'l- Bahá encouraged the marriage of people of different races in America! It felt good to be ahead of the curve and on the right side of history. But when it comes to the civil rights issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community, Baha'is are so woefully behind the curve, that I have for many years been embarrassed to be associated with the community. Current attempts to legitimize the LGBTQ community, such as legalizing gay marriage, do not only represent "changing trends in popular thought" (which to my ear sounds like characterizing significant changes as a superficial fad) but the emancipation of a community that has existed in human society as long as men and women have existed.

Some years ago, when people asked me about my religious affiliation, I started answering that "I was raised as a Baha'i" instead of saying "I am a Baha'i." After the birth of my first child a few months ago, I fell into a deep depression in regards to my ambiguous relationship to my own faith community. It grieves me deeply that I will not raise my daughter within the embrace of the Baha'i Faith, which has meant so much to me. But it disturbs me further that she would be raised to believe that to be loyal to Bahá'u'lláh means to categorize a substantial and precious portion of the human race as "self-indulgent", "shameful", "aberrant", "abhorrent", "immoral", "disgraceful", "handicapped", or "afflicted". When my daughter was born I plunged into a studious and thorough interrogation of the writings on the subject of homosexuality, hoping I would be able to justify a way to return. When I found your letter – dated 9 May 2014 – I realized instead that I would prefer to officially resign.

My father has pleaded with me in the past to stay — to remain in a state of questioning while maintaining my role in the community. 

He tells me that the Baha'i community needs ardent seekers to ask difficult questions, or it has no chance of evolving and meeting the needs and ailments of the current age. "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water," he has said – a metaphor that rings more profoundly in my ears now that I have a baby of my own! But when I read this sentence from your May 9th letter — "It would be a profound contradiction for someone to profess to be a Bahá'í, yet reject, disregard, or contend with aspects of belief or practice He ordained" — it feels as if the Universal House of Justice is calling me a hypocrite rather than encouraging those believers who struggle with aspects of the Faith to persevere. Regardless, I no longer want to live in a constant state of schizophrenia and contradiction. For a long time I maintained that the writings of Bahá'u'lláh are in fact not clear on the issue of homosexuality, and therefore the retrograde attitudes towards homosexuality in the Baha'i community might shift. In regards to the passage often quoted from the Kitab-i-Aqdas ...

We shrink for very shame, from treating the subject of boys.

I was under the impression that "the subject of boys" implied the practice of pederasty, and did not extend to homosexuality in general. Why should it, when sex between an adult and a child (boy or girl) is so very different than sex between two consenting adults? The other passage which is often quoted...

Ye are forbidden to commit adultery, sodomy and lechery.

might seem more explicit, but in fact sodomy (if defined as "anal sex") is anatomically impossible between two women and not strictly a necessity between two men who wish to bring each other to a sexual climax. It feels foolish to delve into the nitty-gritty particulars of the sex act, when it is our immaterial souls that religion should occupy itself with. As you write in your letter dated the 9th of May 2014, it is the role of religion "to cultivate spiritual qualities and virtues – the attributes of the soul which constitute one's true and abiding identity." And yet you have involved yourself in tracing clear prohibitions against the sexual acts of people of the same gender in the Baha'i community. So I feel it is important to be equally explicit that sodomy and pederasty are NOT synonymous with homosexuality. Even if this was not your opinion, you would be amiss to say that two women or two men cannot be part of the "the bedrock of the whole structure of human society" which supports and nurtures the next generation because they cannot issue forth children. I've witnessed many healthy households headed by same-sex parents. Surrogate motherhood, sperm and egg donation, not to mention adoption, has redefined the family structure in the contemporary world.

You write "if such statements are considered by some to be unclear, the unambiguous interpretations provided by Shoghi Effendi constitute a binding exposition of His intent." I agree that the writings of Shoghi Effendi are less ambiguous than those enshrined within the Kitab-i- Aqdas, but are you not an infallible institution, capable of redefining his interpretations in a more enlightened manner without negating the divine covenant that has linked the series of institutions and individuals shepherding the Baha'i community towards its true potential? Do you not exist, not only to interpret and uphold what has already been written, but so that the Faith does not become calcified and intransigent — so that the Faith continues to be a living, thinking entity, able to adapt and respond to the needs and challenges of the age? As I write this letter, I realize I am writing it more for myself and my own sense of clarity than to enact any kind of response or change. I know a single letter cannot change the culture of a worldwide religion, and yet I would feel cowardly to leave the community without some clear act of protest or an attempt to communicate my grief. I wonder if you realize the emotional pain that you are inflicting upon the ardent believers of your community; radiant souls who want more than anything to be able to call themselves Baha'is.

Perhaps I am too rigid when I insist that this is a letter of resignation. The fact that I have decided that I can not be a part of the Baha'i community without being entirely a part of it, and so I must take myself entirely out of it, might, in itself, express a divisive breed of orthodoxy. Still, after much deliberation, I have concluded that this is the route I want to take.

I hereby relinquish my voting rights, and I ask that you strike me from the rosters.

I have no doubt that I will continue to love and respect the founders of the Faith, and to turn to their writings for guidance. I desperately hope that the official position of the Baha'i community in regards to LGBTQ individuals will change one day. If that day should come in my lifetime, I will be your valiant ensign once more.

Sincerely, Anisa George Philadelphia, PA

Read the original here

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia -Flor del día - Flower of the day 13/02/2016

“Proponho um trabalho de harmonização com o fluxo da vida e de resgate do estado de desprendimento e naturalidade original. Então, para aquele que está iniciando esse caminho comigo, eu sugiro que identifique tudo aquilo que o impede de ser natural e desprendido, ou seja, trabalhe para identificar os condicionamentos mentais, as crenças e as imagens que sabotam a sua felicidade. Identifique os aspectos da personalidade que estão trancados em negação e que o fazem ir na direção oposta daquela determinada pelo coração. Pois somente ao identificar esses aspectos será possível desbloquear o fluxo.”

“Propongo un trabajo de armonización con el flujo de la vida y de rescate del estado de desprendimiento y naturalidad original. Entonces, para aquél que está iniciando este camino conmigo, sugiero que identifique todo aquello que le impide ser natural y desprendido, es decir, que trabaje para identificar los condicionamientos mentales, las creencias y las imágenes que sabotean su felicidad. Que identifique los aspectos de la personalidad que están atascados en negación y que lo hacen ir en la dirección opuesta de aquella determinada por el corazón. Porque solamente al identificar estos aspectos será posible desbloquear el flujo.”

"I propose that we harmonize ourselves with the flow of life and rescue our original state of detachment and naturalness. For those who are just beginning on this path with me, I suggest that you identify everything that prevents you from being natural and unattached. Work towards identifying the mental conditioning, beliefs and images that sabotage your own happiness. Identify aspects of your personality that are locked up in denial and that make you move away from the heart's calling. Only by identifying these aspects can you unblock the flow.”

Via Dauly Dharma: Suffering World, Suffering Mind

Most of the suffering in the world is happening because of manifestations of people’s minds. But normally it’s not seen in that way. We are focused, and rightfully so, on the actual events and what we can do about them. But it’s also helpful to see where it’s all coming from.

—Joseph Goldstein, "Who Knows?"