Via Triccycle / Never Again An Interview with Duncan Ryuken Williams by Ashoka Mukpo

Duncan Williams, a Soto priest, Buddhist scholar, and leader of a Japanese-American activist group that has been protesting mass incarceration at the border envisions an American identity built on diversity and interdependence.

Make the jump here to read the full article and more

Via Daily Dharma: Investigating Feelings with Loving Attention

When we are willing to investigate, with loving attention, the difficult feelings that come up in relationship to others, our happiness or unhappiness is less conditioned by how others behave.

—Narayan Helen Liebenson, “Questioning the Question”

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Via Daily Dharma: Undertake a Vital Task

The great spiritual masters believe that the capacity to love our enemies is one of the vital tasks of human evolution.

—Kevin Griffin, “May All Beings Be Happy”

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Via White Crane Institute / ROGER REES

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Roger Rees

1944 -

ROGER REES, British-born actor, born (d: 2015); A Welsh born American actor, Rees created the title role in the original production of the play The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, winning both an Olivier and Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1982 for it.

He also starred in the original production of The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard in London in 1984. Rees became an American citizen in 1989, and in the 1990s, continued his work in the theatre, both as an actor and a director. He did some television work in the 1970s and began his film career in the 1980s.

From 1989 to 1993, he appeared intermittently on the long-running American TV series Cheers as the dashing, feckless English tycoon “Robin Colcord." He then played an antagonist to a different Robin as the Sheriff of Rottingham, in Mel Brooks’ 1993 film, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Later television appearances include My So Called Life as substitute teacher "Mr. Racine" and British Ambassador Lord John Marbury on The West Wing. He was awarded an OBIA for his 1992 performance in the off-Broadway play The End of the Day, and in 1995, he was nominated for a Tony for Best Actor in a Play for his role in Indiscretions.

In November 2004, Rees was named artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts, only the fourth person to hold the post in its half century.

Rees married his partner of thirty-three years, playwright Rick Elice, in 2011. Rees and Elice also collaborated professionally, including as co-playwrights of the comedic thriller Double Double. Elice co-wrote (with Marshall Brickman) the libretto for The Addams Family musical, the cast of which Rees had joined in March 2011. In 2012, Elice and Rees received Tony Award nominations for Elice's stage adaptation and Rees' co-direction of Peter and The Starcatcher.

After a diagnosis of brain cancer in October 2014, Rees focused his energy on his commitment to playing opposite Chita Rivera on Broadway in The Visit, the final musical written by John Kander and Fred Ebb. While undergoing two brain surgeries, two courses of radiation and ongoing chemotherapy, Rees managed to rehearse, preview and open in The Visit in April 2015. By the middle of May, it had become too difficult for him to speak, and he left the show. Rees died of brain cancer at age 71 at his home in New York on July 10, 2015. On Wednesday, July 15, 2015, the marquee lights at all the theatres on Broadway were dimmed in his honor.

Via Daily Dharma: Anchoring in a Web of Connection

Religious traditions—at least ones that are vital—anchor individuals in a meaningful collective life. They provide a framework that links individual spiritual aspirations to communities extending deep into the past, far into the future, and outward into the long present.

—Andrew Cooper, “The Lotus of the Wonderful Law”

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Sati Center for Buddhist Studies

The Sati Center for Buddhist Studies supports the study of Buddhist teachings through:

• Daylong Meditation and Study Classes
• Online Sutta Study Courses
• Buddhist Chaplaincy Training

Make the jump here to visit

Via White Crane Institute / STEVE SANDO

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Bean grower, Steve Sando

1960 -

STEVE SANDO, culinary entrepreneur was born on this date; Actually this is just a guess because no record of his actual birthday has been found, yet. So I will assume someone who, in a few short years, has taken the lowly bean from a neglected legume to superstar-status ingredient has a Taurean epicurean nature and was born in May.

Sando’s company, Rancho Gordo, grows, imports, and promotes heirloom and heritage varieties while working directly with consumers and chefs like Thomas Keller, Deborah Madison, Paula Wolfert, and David Kinch. Thomas Keller discovered Sando and serves his beans at his world-renowned French Laundry in Napa.

Sando's seed saving, bean production, and marketing efforts provide professional and home chefs with heirloom beans that would otherwise have been lost to history. The beans, along with corn, chiles, and tomatoes, have become key ingredients in the new American food revolution centered in Sando’s native San Francisco Bay Area, as well as hot sauces and various cooking tools and utensils.

Sando and Rancho Gordo were named number two on Saveur Magazine’s “The Saveur 100 list for 2008.” Bon Appetit magazine declared Sando one of the Hot 10 in the food world of 2009. Food + Wine magazine placed Steve “at the forefront of the current seed-saving movement.” Steve’s previous book, with Vanessa Barrington, was Heirloom Beans (Chronicle, 2008).

Steve Sando came to agriculture not from the 4H club but from the grocery store. As a frustrated home cook, he decided to grow the ingredients he wanted in his kitchen. At the forefront of neglected ingredients were beans. Although they are an indigenous product of the Americas, the only beans available commercially to most home cooks were pintos, navies, and kidneys. Discovering heirloom beans to be as rich and varied as heirloom tomatoes, Sando almost single-handedly created the market for these unique and worthwhile legumes. He now grows more than twenty-five varieties in California and works with small indigenous farmers in Mexico to import their heirloom beans for the U.S. market. He lives in Napa and travels frequently throughout the Americas collecting beans, friends, and adventures. His discovery and revivifying of old ways is deeply consistent with the archetypal "cultural interpreter" and "culture saver" of same-sex people.

Sando is a former web designer, Jazz radio disc jockey, and wholesaler of clothing who now runs Rancho Gordo. After burning out in his former career, Sando decided to grow heirloom tomatoes, despite having no experience in agriculture. When another farmer asked for help marketing beans, he decided to grow beans instead; Sando gathered bean seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, and found new varieties of beans in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Bean production under Rancho Gordo rose from 300 pounds (140 kg) in 2001 to 150,000 pounds (68,000 kg) in 2007, and to 250,000 pounds (110,000 kg) in 2008. Beans and other products are sourced from local growers in California's Central Valley, Oregon, and Washington, as well as Mexico, Peru, Poland, and Bolivia. Most of the dried beans produced are sold in specially labeled packages through Rancho Gordo's website, at the company's store in Napa, or directly at farmer's markets.

Sando recently made the decision to cut ties with shipping provider FedEx, due to its support of the National Rifle Association. He says that in 2017 his business spent more than $500,000 on shipping with the company but will now find another carrier.

If you are a cook, you may also be interested in his Web site, www.ranchogordo.com.

CBeebies Bedtime Stories - Tom Hardy - Odd Dog Out by Rob Bidduph 15/05/2017

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - May 3, 2020 💌

"The left hand is caught and the right-hand pulls it out. The left-hand turns to the right and says ‘thank you.’ It doesn’t work because they are both parts of the same body. Who are you thanking? You’re thanking yourself. So on that plane, you realize it’s not her suffering, his suffering, or their suffering.
You go up one level, it’s our suffering. You go up another level, it’s my suffering. Then as it gets de-personalized, it’s the suffering. Out of the identity with the suffering comes compassion. It arises in relation to the suffering. It’s part and parcel of the whole package. There is nothing personal in this at all.
In that sense, you have become compassion instead of doing compassionate acts. Instead of being compassionate, you are compassion."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Realizing Our Ever-Present Connection

No matter how despairing or cut off we can feel at any given time, we are not actually severed from the essential flow of life or from one another. If we get quiet for a while and pay careful attention, this is what we realize.

—Sharon Salzberg, “Forever Connected”

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Lama Surya Das – Awakening Now – Ep. 91 – The Golden Eternity

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Via FB // Mensagem de Dra Paula Loureiro - 28/04/2020

Amigos...

Pelo que os especialistas afirmam a partir de amanhã teremos no mínimo 30 dias difíceis, de muita dor para muitos... de muitas perdas e só temos um remédio para tentar diminuir tudo isso... realizando de forma séria e muito cuidadosa o isolamento social... conversem com os amigos... os familiares... com os mais jovens, o contágio é gigantesco... pode vir no ar.... na tosse... espirro... sola dos sapatos... em sacos de supermercado... embalagens etc... vamos juntos vencer esse vírus... vai passar... mas precisamos fazer que passe sem tantas perdas e sofrimento. Vamos fazer uma grande campanha a partir de hoje...envie sua mensagens para todos os amigos e familiares... vamos ter nos próximos dias a maior taxa de isolamento social do Brasil... juntos somos mais fortes... não esqueça envie agora mesmo sua mensagem em todas as redes sociais... cuidem da higiene pessoal... lavem as mãos sempre e evitem tocar no rosto. Fé em Deus! Esperamos que depois disso tudo passar... possamos voltar melhores... muita coisa precisa mudar dentro de nós e no mundo!

Mensagem de Dra Paula Loureiro - 28/04/2020

Via White Crane Institute / This Day in Gay History - BENJAMIN SPOCK

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Dr. Benjamin Spock and a child who will, no doubt, Live Long and Prosper

1903 -

The go-to pediatrician BENJAMIN SPOCK was born (d: 1998). Before there was Vulcan "Spock" there was Dr. Spock. His book, Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. Its revolutionary message to mothers was that "you know more than you think you do."

Spock was an early advocate for the rights of LGBT people. He was also the People's Party candidate in the 1972 United States presidential election on a platform which called for free medical care, the repeal of "victimless crime" laws, including the legalization of abortion, homosexuality, and marijuana, a guaranteed minimum income for families and the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from foreign countries. He died in 1998.

Via Daily Dharma: An Antidote to Fear

[One] way to think about lovingkindness is as the absence of fear, because when we think of times when lovingkindness is not our first impulse… usually fear is present.

—Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, “The Four Immeasurables: A Science of Compassion”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE FULL TALK

Via Daily Dharma: Learning to Be Happy Right Now

We cannot enjoy life if we spend our time and energy worrying about what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow. If we’re afraid all the time, we miss out on the wonderful fact that we’re alive and can be happy right now.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “Free from Fear”

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Tibetan Healing Sounds: Cleans the Aura and Space. Removes all negative energy

70 minute~7 Chakra Continuous Meditation with 21 Antique Tibetan Singing Bowls

Quick 11 min. Chakra Tune-up with Himalayan Singing Bowls HD

A Simple, Powerful Prayer in Challenging Times

#Mooji #satsang #spirituality