Flower of the Day: 10/31/14

 “There is a sacred aspect to our individual wounds. It is a messenger, a teacher that has come to give us the most delicate of lessons: forgiveness. There are messengers that are received with joy, because they are delivered in the form of happy situations and blessed encounters involving prosperity and achievement. But other messengers come in the form of sadness and challenging situations such as loss, illness, and failures. In these circumstances, our tendency is to close ourselves up to the message. However, certain karmas only get dissolved through difficult situations. Some of these circumstances are even predetermined before birth. They are like sacred agreements made with the objective of preventing the human entity from falling asleep, thus losing the opportunity to learn in this life.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Fearlessness | October 31, 2014

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The fearlessness of the great spiritual teachers like Moses, Jesus, Saint Theresa, Buddha, and Bodhidharma was the fearlessness of the spiritual warrior. Different from stoicism, naïveté, or arrogance, this fearlessness is selfless, generous, and compassionate. Fearlessness is not a matter of ignoring fear, but of really acknowledging it and being empowered by it. 

 

- John Daido Loori Roshi, "Between Two Mountains" 

 

Via JMG: Satan's Favorite City Wins World Series

 

UPDATE: JMG reader Kned sends us a photo from the celebration in the Castro.

 

UPDATE II: Another Kned photo, this time from the Mission.

Labels: baseball, San Francisco, sports, World Series

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Tim Cook: I'm Proud To Be Gay

 

"While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me. Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It’s made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It’s been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It’s also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you’re the CEO of Apple." - Tim Cook, coming out formally at last in an essay published by Business Week.

Labels: Apple, business, coming out, Tim Cook

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Tweet Of The Day

Labels: God, Halloween, religion, Twitter

Reposted from  Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Sen. Ted Cruz: Being Gay Is Tim Cook's Personal Choice But I Love My iPhone

The Hill reports on Sen. Ted Cruz' reaction to today's coming out by Apple CEO Tim Cook:

"Those are his personal choices. I’ll tell you, I love my iPhone," Cruz said. "Listen, Tim Cook makes his personal decisions, and that is his life. My focus is on the constitutional question of who has the authority to make decisions," he later added. Cruz said that marriage is a "question for the states" because of the country's federalist system. "This is something we’ve seen over and over again, which is the federal government and federal courts deciding they don’t trust the people," Cruz said. "They look down on the people, they don’t trust us to make judgments about our own lives, so the federal government and federal courts are going to step in and impose their own policy preferences."

Labels: Apple, assholery, business, coming out, crackpots, GOP, Tea Party, teabaggers, Ted Cruz, Tim Cook

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Bill Clinton Congratulates Tim Cook

Labels: Apple, Bill Clinton, coming out, Tim Cook

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Flower of the Day: 10/30/14

“Sometimes one needs to withdraw. When we are going through a healing process and doing a self-study, we need to sustain a prayer field. If we go out into the world, we may get identified and fall, so we must allow ourselves to be alone for some time. At some point, we must also go back out into the world and relate to others. The key here is being prepared to give of ourselves and wanting others to be happy. The question is whether or not we are able to embark on a higher level of study by being a channel of generosity, sharing our silence and love with others – even if they don’t know it.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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The Right Pitch | October 30, 2014

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Cultivating skillful effort, we learn to distinguish the 'right' amount of effort. Not too little. Not too much. Just right. In tune. When we find the right pitch, our practice flourishes. 

 

- Peter Doobinin, "Skillful Effort" 

 

Via Dialy Dharma

Humanized Once More | October 29, 2014 We must realize that modern civilization is thoroughly oriented towards dehumanizing humanity in every possible way; that is to say, we are fast turning into robots or statues with no human souls. Our task is to get humanized once more.    - D. T. Suzuki, "Humanized Once More"

Flower of the Day: 10/29/14

“You can only renounce what you already have. It is not possible to give up something you don’t have. Renunciation needs to be truthful; otherwise, when you are facing the ocean you may look back and see that you still want to be a river. You don’t want to give up certain things because you are stuck in your need to be recognized and loved. You don’t want to give up your story, your name or your body. This process brings you to the source of the inner split where there are two opposing forces acting inside of you. It is precisely this tug-of-war that causes suffering.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via JMG: Together - We Are Stronger | Moovz

Via press release:

People from all around the world took part in the gay selfie project released by the global gay social network Moovz. This project was meant to show the faces of the global gay community, with people from different cultures, with different colors, appearance and races and that speaks different languages. From South to North America and from Europe to as far as Asia - people uploaded their pictures and agreed to be exposed in order to send a message to the world and prove how united is the global gay community. This is probably the first time that gays from all around the world did something together to send a message that empowers their whole community. Many gay influencers also took part in this project, such as Amanda Lepore, Davey Wavey, Chris Salvatore, Colby Melvin, Matthew Lush, Willam Belli and many other global and local gay leaders from different regions who are following this initiative that gathered the entire gay community into one place.

Apple CEO Tim Cook Speaks at Alabama Academy of Honor induction

Alice in WeHoLand - a public safety announcement

Via JMG: Michael Stipe On 20 Years Of Being Out

"In 1994, most people had a largely binary perception of sexuality – the message was complicated for them. I am thrilled to see how much this has changed in those 20 years. The 21st century has provided all of us, recent generations particularly, with a clearer idea of the breadth of fluidity with which sexuality and identity presents itself in each individual. Gender identification, and the panoply of sexuality and identity are now topics that are more easily and more widely discussed, debated and talked about openly. It’s thrilling to see progressive change shift perceptions so quickly.

"What I feel we have arrived at with all this, is that queerness – as I am happy to call an all-embracing, foundational tenet – is really a state of mind brought about by an understanding: it is understanding difference, accepting your own truth, desire and identity, and lovely, lovely choice. It is the final, completely obvious contemporary acceptance and understanding that this enormous world of beauty, sexuality, identity, lust, feeling, excitement, and love isn’t just black and white, or simple, at all – it is literally every shade and gradation of the rainbow. It doesn’t just lie in one of two camps. It includes accepting and supporting positions that you may not even completely understand; and to arrive at that conviction is so, so beautiful, and to quote my great friend Casey Legler: 'Fierce!'

"These 20 years of publicly speaking my truth have made me a better and easier person to be around. It helped develop the clarity of my voice and establish who I would be as an adult. I am proud to be who I am, and I am happy to have shared that with the world." 

- REM frontman Michael Stipe, in an essay for the Guardian. Next month REM will release an 11-disc vinyl box set collection of its singles, titled 7IN – 83–88, which will include reproductions of all their IRS Records singles from those years, including the original sleeve art. (Tipped by JMG reader Mike)

Labels: coming out, gay artists, Michael Stipe, pop music

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Please Don't Vote - A Message From The Republican Party

Via Qwerty: Church Sends Terrible Letter To Gay Congregant. He Responds Like A Pro.

The Presbyterian Church in America has a clear stance on homosexuality. Basically, it’s a sin. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

But even their tired beliefs don’t explain the way one church treated a member of its congregation after they discovered he is gay.

The churchgoer — Justin — was outed by a trusted church official, and discovered a lengthy and insulting letter sitting in his mailbox one day.

“Regretfully it has come to our attention that you have been engaging in a homosexual lifestyle,” it begins, only continuing downhill from there.

He’s told he must defend himself at a special hearing. Instead, he replied with the perfect rebuttal.

“What was my crime? I loved. I was loved. I am capable of love. It is abundantly and sadly clear that you do not understand this,” he writes in his response.

Here’s the letter he got from the church, followed by his response:





And here’s Justin’s response:




h/t Gay Star News

http://www.queerty.com/church-sends-terrible-letter-to-gay-congregant-he-responds-like-a-pro-20141028

Via Canal Brasil / FB:

A partir do dia 13/11, às 23h30, o jornalista e professor Jean Wyllys reforça o time do Canal Brasil!

No 'Cinema Em Outras Cores' ele propõe uma reflexão sobre a diversidade sexual e a descriminalização das drogas através do cinema, apresentando e discutindo polêmicos curta-metragens.

http://bit.ly/OutrasCores

Via Mystic Medusa / FB:

Flower of the Day: 10/28/14

“Life is cyclical. One moment you are on the crest of the wave, the next you are in the trough. Then you are up on the crest again and soon after you come back down. That’s how it is. There are warm sunny days and there are cold rainy days; there are white clouds and dark clouds, but they always pass by. If you observe the clouds without becoming identified with them, you will find the way out of the labyrinth of suffering and you won’t get caught in it anymore.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

A Guide to Sanity | October 28, 2014 Feeling alarm or devastation can guide us to a deep sanity, reminding us of who we are and what we need. Our power to act, our power to take part in the healing of our world, our power to bring things back into balance, comes from the same source as that devastation. Our pain for the world, and our power to take part in the healing of our world, both come from the same place.    - Joanna Macy, "Allegiance to Life"

STEVE HAYES: Tired Old Queen at the Movies - PSYCHO

Via Daily Dharma

The Brain in Space | October 27, 2014 What’s important is not just what is inside the brain but what the brain is inside of—the larger space of the body and culture. That is where we find mind and meaning.    - Evan Thompson, “The Embodied Mind”

Flower of the Day: 10/27/14

“Deep down everyone on this Earth is looking for peace, prosperity and joy. Even when they are in frantic disputes, fighting for material achievements, they are in fact in search of joy. However, without love this is impossible to achieve. This is why we are dedicated to awakening love. As long as there are still points of hatred and fear inside of us, we are being robbed of our joy. As long as we desperately want to receive love, we will be walking in the wrong direction because this achievement is only possible when we are generously giving the love we long to receive.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Quer Café? / FB:

#DesçaDoMuro

Via Humanity's Team / FB:

Bill Clinton at the 2014 HRC National Dinner

Via JMG: Eric Holder: Federal Government Now Recognizes Married Gays In 32 States

Via White House press release:

In the latest development following the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month to decline to hear any pending cases regarding same-sex marriage, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Saturday that the federal government will now recognize same-sex married couples in six new states: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Last week, the Attorney General made a similar announcement with respect to seven other states: Colorado, Indiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Saturday’s announcement adds to that list and brings the total number of states where same-sex couples are recognized by the federal government to 32, plus the District of Columbia.

The Attorney General’s announcement means couples married in these states will now qualify for a range of federal benefits, including those administered by the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs.

“With each new state where same-sex marriages are legally recognized, our nation moves closer to achieving of full equality for all Americans,” the Attorney General said. “We are acting as quickly as possible with agencies throughout the government to ensure that same-sex married couples in these states receive the fullest array of benefits allowable under federal law.”

In addition, the Attorney General also announced that the Department of Justice has determined it can legally recognize marriages performed in Indiana and Wisconsin this past June. These marriages were performed immediately after federal district courts ruled that those states’ bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, but subsequent developments created confusion about the status of those marriages. Based on the Attorney General’s announcement, however, those couples married during that period will now have their unions recognized by the federal government.

These updates always cause an uproar over on Free Republic.

Labels: Eric Holder, feds, marriage equality

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Flower of the Day: 10/26/14

“Whenever you notice that you are trying to control life, turn your attention within and try to identify your fear, your hatred and desire to take justice into your own hands. This sometimes appears as a need to control, to take over the steering wheel. You can’t relax in the passenger seat. God wants to take you in one direction so that you can see new landscapes, but your controlling self wants to go the other way, be it out of fear, revenge or competition.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

Discipline and Joy | October 26, 2014 Without spiritual discipline we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.    - Joan Gattuso, "The Balancing Buddha"

Via Daily Dharma

The Longer View | October 25, 2014 Mindlessness, however petty, is reckless at its heart. It only postpones; it never takes us anywhere. Mindfulness, by contrast, is patient, careful. It takes a longer view.    - Joan Duncan Oliver, "Do I Mind?"

Flower of the Day: 10/25/14

“Desire adds value to the idea of ‘me.’ When one buys a new car and then drives it, one feels fulfilled and self-satisfied. One identifies with it – one actually becomes the car. But this satisfaction doesn’t last very long. Soon we yearn for something else to add value to the idea of ‘me’ – maybe a house or a partner. So we live our lives seeking and wishing for things that could fill the inner void. This desire becomes compulsive and stimulates comparisons, envy, jealousy and many other negative feelings. But at some point this compulsive desire starts to weaken because you notice that nothing outside you will bring the satisfaction you are seeking.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via JMG: Lisa Kudrow - Gay Men Are Superior

"The people I work with are gay. I don't know who I'm going to offend by leaving them out, but I need to say that I think gay men are superior beings in my mind. I do believe that. It's all so tricky. I studied biology and the brains are anatomically different. They just are. There's a stronger connection with the corpus callosum (in gay men). The two sides of the brain communicate better than a straight man's, and I think that has to be really important. They're not women - they're still men - and women also have thicker corpus callosums, so I think it's the combination of those qualities that makes them like a superhuman to me." - Lisa Kudrow, speaking to Pride Source.

Labels: HBO, Lisa Kudrow, movies, television

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Rest Wherever We Are | October 24, 2014 Through meditation we learn how to work skillfully with thoughts and emotional patterns that interfere with simply being able to rest wherever we are, with full presence.    - Mark Coleman, "A Breath of Fresh Air"

Flower of the Day: 10/24/14

“There is an inner path that leads you to acceptance and gratitude. We begin by recognizing and dissolving the frozen images in our system. Next, we become aware of our desire for negativity and pacts of revenge. We recognize our identification with the victim in the form of the wounded child. Through all this, we go on liberating our denied feelings. We do our part until we break through even just one layer of the veil of illusion that makes us see everything as a threat. Eventually we are able to enter the inner sanctum that allows us to perceive everything as a gift, even challenging situations that bring deep discomfort.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

The Depths of Our Experience | October 23, 2014 The work of Buddhism is to awaken, to come out of the sleepy dreams and notions of reality that we hold to be true and replace them with a direct experience of what is more accurately occurring. To awaken in this way, we need to become conscious of what’s actually going on at the very depths of our experience.    - Will Johnson, "Full Body, Empty Mind"

Flower of the Day: 10/23/14

“I can’t explain what oneness is, I can only show you the path that will lead you to this experience. Silence is needed for this phenomenon to take place, even if you are the only one in silence and the whole world is making noise. If you are in silence, I will be able to guide you towards this experience. Without silence you will find it difficult to absorb the teachings that are being transmitted. Most of what is transmitted is not picked up or received, because of the noise. Great and rare opportunities for healing are being wasted, and this healing is what prepares the field for the experience of oneness.”

Sri Prem Baba

Flower of the Day: 10/21/14

“It is important to commit to becoming aware of your paradoxes, of your lack of integrity. When are you dishonest in life? How do you fake love to sustain the games of your lower nature? A certain kind of courage is needed in order to love, because you need to be whole and integral. To love, you need to be aligned with the truth because love is a fragrance of the truth. I am talking about the truth of the divine self, not the transitory truth of the small self that is sustained by the mask. The mask is not at all committed to the truth: it is merely a pretense.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

The Insight of Impermanence | October 22, 2014   To those whose knowledge is developed, everything within and without oneself, within and without one’s house, within and without one’s village and town, is an object at the sight of which the insight of impermanence may spring up and develop.    - Ledi Sayadaw, "Meditation en Masse"

Flower of the Day: 10/22/14

“It is necessary to have an ego to live in this realm. This is one of the laws of this world, just like gravity. We need to have a mediator between the inner and outer world, and the ego is this mediator. It is formed from the impressions we receive from the outer world which give us an idea about who we are. But it has a very important role within the game, because the ego is the one that makes the journey. The ego identifies the lower self and becomes identified with the divine self.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Give a Damn Campaign: Wyoming!

Flower of the Day: 10/20/14

“I see many spiritual seekers who disregard the possibility of somatization, developing physical symptoms due to spiritual or emotional distress. They believe that everything occurs in the subtle bodies, so they don’t take enough care of their physical bodies. The opposite is also true: some people are so identified with their bodies that they fall into despair when they cannot find the causes of their symptoms. The middle way is of sensibility. When you are on the path to self-realization, you may have transcendental experiences as well as challenging ones, but it all depends on the amount of blockages you carry.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Cultivating Equanimity | October 20, 2014

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Classical mindfulness, unlike popular mindfulness, is all about the cultivation of equanimity. One is able to experience both pleasure and pain without clinging to anything in the world. 

 

- Andrew Olendzki, "The Mindfulness Wedge"

 

Via Daily Dharma

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Wildness of Mind | October 19, 2014

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The wildness of mind that we experience when we sit quietly noticing our body and breathing for five minutes is the result of everything we’ve been doing before those five minutes. 

 

- Gaylon Ferguson, "Fruitless Labor"

 

Flower of the Day: 10/19/14

“The denial of our feelings is our main poison. We can only open up to experiencing all of our feelings once we have understood enough about ourselves. If we have not yet cognitively understood our inner workings, we won’t allow ourselves to dive into this experience of our feelings. We don’t have any control over our feelings because they are completely protected by fear, arrogance and other aspects of our lower nature.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

MRF - Trying (Official Music Video) feat. Lisa Bello, Justin Waithe & Yasko Kubota

Via JMG: Wyoming And Florida: Cerulean Sisters

 

Cerulean is gayer than cyan. Because Miranda Priestly.

Labels: Florida, marriage equality, Wyoming

Reposted from Joe Jervis

JMG HomoQuotable - Matt Stolhandske

"As a gay man, I should hate Melissa and Aaron Klein. They’re the Portland-based Christian bakery owners who, in 2013, refused to make a cake for a lesbian couple’s wedding. And despite their insistence that they’re only morally opposed to gay marriage, not gays, they make their disdain for equality quite clear: 'I didn’t want to be a part of her marriage, which I think is wrong,' Aaron Klein recently said of one of the women he rebuked. I’m also an evangelical Christian. I can’t understand why Klein or any other Christians twist the words of Jesus Christ to justify this behavior. To me, it’s a deeply harmful and embarrassing bastardization of our faith. But I don’t hate the Kleins. In fact, I’m raising money to cover the $150,000 punitive fine they received from Oregon. [snip] To them I say: this is what an olive branch looks like. I am not rewarding their behavior, but rather loving them in spite of it. It is time for these two communities, which both cite genuine love as our motivation, to put aside our prejudices and put down our pitchforks to clear the path for progress." - Matt Stolhandske, writing for the Washington Post.

Labels: Christianists, HomoQuotable, LGBT rights, Matt Stolhandske, Oregon, public accommodations, religion, WaPo

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Flower of the Day: 10/18/14

“Many of the games of our lower nature which cause destruction in our lives and in the lives of those around us come from our inability to feel gratitude. Ingratitude results from a lack of understanding about the game of life. This feeds the victim within us who sees fault in absolutely everything, not just in difficult unpleasant situations, but also in the good things of life. One of the main characteristics of the victim is complaining and lamenting. This turns into an addiction which is oftentimes more powerful than even the addiction to chemical substances.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Listen to the audio>

Via Daily Dharma

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Defining Emptiness | October 18, 2014

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Emptiness simply means an absence of reactivity. When you relate to somebody, there's not you and me and your little mind running its little comparisons and judgments. When those are gone, that is emptiness. 

 

- Charlotte Joko Beck, "Life's Not a Problem"

 

Flower of the Day: 10/17/14

“We see reality subjectively, since we look at it through colored lenses that distort our perception. These lenses are our mistaken ideas and false beliefs. For example, say that your mother was betrayed and therefore became resentful. She might have then transmitted her belief to you that ‘men cannot be trusted because they betray you.’ Consequently, you would end up attracting men who cheat on you, because your energy was vibrating at this frequency and these beliefs acted like magnets. When you look at men you always become suspicious, and this activates the worst in them. That’s how we confirm our beliefs and maintain our limited perception of reality.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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The Principle of Renunciation | October 17, 2014

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The principle of renunciation is not to encourage a state of lack, but to establish as complete a state of simplicity as possible. 

 

- Ajaan Amaro, "Just Another Thing in the Forest"