The
essence of spiritual practice is remembrance, whether it’s remembering
to come back to the present moment or recalling the truth of
impermanence.
—Andrew Holecek, “The Supreme Contemplation”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Monday, May 31, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: The Essence of Spiritual Practice
Sunday, May 30, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Transforming the World
By transforming ourselves, we transform the world, making it a saner, more compassionate place.
—Pema Düddul, “Practicing in Hell”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 30, 2021 💌
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Saturday, May 29, 2021
Listen to the vintage 1969 Ram Dass talk 'The Way of Harmony' 🌊
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Listen Here
Via Daily Dharma: The Dynamics of Life
Every
moment is a moment of birth. Every moment is a moment of death. Birth
and death are the two dynamics of life. Life itself is still.
—Sojun Mel Weitsman Roshi, “A Matter of Life and Death”
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Friday, May 28, 2021
Planetary
Directed by Guy Reid
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Via Daily Dharma: Recognize Your Motives
When
we recognize, without any doubt, that if we act from unwholesome
thoughts or motives we will experience suffering, it really helps us to
live a life more beneficial not only to ourselves but to everybody
around us.
—Zenkei Blanche Hartman, “Brief Teachings”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via White Crane Institute // Today's Gay Wisdom
2018 -
TODAY'S GAY WISDOM
More From Oscar Wilde’s DE PROFUNDIS
The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we are. In their eyes prison is a tragedy in a man's life, a misfortune, a casuality, something that calls for sympathy in others. They speak of one who is in prison as of one who is 'in trouble' simply. It is the phrase they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love in it. With people of our own rank it is different.
With us, prison makes a man a pariah. I, and such as I am, have hardly any right to air and sun. Our presence taints the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome when we reappear. To revisit the glimpses of the moon is not for us. Our very children are taken away. Those lovely links with humanity are broken. We are doomed to be solitary, while our sons still live. We are denied the one thing that might heal us and keep us, that might bring balm to the bruised heart, and peace to the soul in pain. . . .
I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment. This pitiless indictment I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.
I was a man who stood in symbolic relations to the art and culture of my age. I had realised this for myself at the very dawn of my manhood, and had forced my age to realise it afterwards. Few men hold such a position in their own lifetime, and have it so acknowledged. It is usually discerned, if discerned at all, by the historian, or the critic, long after both the man and his age have passed away. With me it was different. I felt it myself, and made others feel it. Byron was a symbolic figure, but his relations were to the passion of his age and its weariness of passion. Mine were to something more noble, more permanent, of more vital issue, of larger scope.
The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a FLANEUR, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility.
I have lain in prison for nearly two years. Out of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and scorn; anguish that wept aloud; misery that could find no voice; sorrow that was dumb. I have passed through every possible mood of suffering. Better than Wordsworth himself I know what Wordsworth meant when he said –
'Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark And has the nature of infinity.'
Thursday, May 27, 2021
Via Lion's Roar:
5 Things to Do When Life Gets ToughFind wisdom for navigating difficult times in these featured teachings: |
Smile At Fear
If you can smile at your fear, says Pema Chödrön, the things that make you feel anxious and inadequate lose their power over you.
Discover the Joy of Doing Nothing
Zen teacher Pat Enkyo O’hara teaches
us the practice of Shikantaza. Doing nothing but sitting and breathing,
we rest in flowing awareness beyond the ups and downs of life.
Heal in Community
Come together with others, says Ariska Razak, to grieve, heal, and fight for a better world.
Rest in Your Buddhanature
Your true nature is like the sky, says Mingyur Rinpoche, its love and wisdom unaffected by the clouds of life. You can access it with this awareness meditation.
Practice Self Caring
Caring for yourself isn’t a one-shot deal, says Cyndi Lee. Here’s how you can make it a lifelong practice.
Via Daily Dharma: Allowing Relationships to Change
The
role of the enemy isn’t a permanent one. The person hurting you now
might be a best friend later... By contemplating again and again in
this way, we learn to respond to aggression with compassion and answer
anger with kindness.
—Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, “Putting Down the Arrow”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
—Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, “Putting Down the Arrow”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via White Crane Institute // WILD BILL HICKOK
This Day in Gay History
May 27
Born
1837 -
WILD BILL HICKOK is born in Troy Grove, Illinois. His real name was James Butler Hickok. Like many men in the wild west, Wild Bill really was wild with the men on the frontier and used his Lesbian buddy, Calamity Jane as a blind.
Few people ever knew the pair's secret, and in the movies about their lives, not a mention was made by either Doris Day or Howard Keel. The American West of the nineteenth century was a world of freedom and adventure for men of every stripe—not least also those who admired and desired other men.
Among these sojourners was William Drummond Stewart, a flamboyant Scottish nobleman who found in American culture of the 1830s and 1840s a cultural milieu of openness in which men could pursue same-sex relationships.
William Benemann’s recent book, Men In Eden traces Stewart’s travels from his arrival in America in 1832 to his return to Murthly Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, with his French Canadian–Cree Indian companion, Antoine Clement, one of the most skilled hunters in the Rockies. Benemann chronicles Stewart’s friendships with such notables as Kit Carson, William Sublette, Marcus Whitman, and Jim Bridger. He describes the wild Renaissance-costume party held by Stewart and Clement upon their return to America—a journey that ended in scandal.
Through Stewart’s
letters and novels, Benemann shows that Stewart was one of many men
drawn to the sexual freedom offered by the West. His book provides a
tantalizing new perspective on the Rocky Mountain fur trade and the role
of homosexuality in shaping the American West. For more: http://www.goodreads.com/book/
Via White Crane Institute // RACHEL CARSON
1907 -
Marine biologist RACHEL CARSON was born on this date. She was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania and spent the majority of her life outside of Washington, DC with summers in Maine. She is best known as the author of Silent Spring, which is considered one of the foundational documents for the modern environmental movement.
Silent Spring, published in 1962, awakened society to its responsibility to other forms of life. Carson had long been aware of the dangers of chemical pesticides and also the controversy within the agricultural community. She had long hoped someone else would publish an expose' on DDT but eventually realized that only she had the background as well as the economic freedom to do it.
Silent Spring provoked a firestorm of controversy as well as attacks on Carson's professional integrity. The pesticide industry mounted a massive campaign to discredit Carson even though she did not urge the complete banning of pesticides but called for research to ensure pesticides were used safely and to find alternatives to dangerous chemicals such as DDT.
The federal government, however, ordered a complete review of pesticide policy and Carson was asked to testify before a Congressional committee. As a direct result of that review, DDT was banned. With the publication of Silent Spring, Carson is credited with launching the contemporary environmental movement and awakening concern by Americans about the environment.
She died from cancer in 1964 at the age of 57. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service named one of its refuges near Carson's summer home on the coast of Maine as "the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge" in 1969 to honor the memory of this extraordinary woman.
In the early 1950s Carson moved with her mother to Southport Island, Maine and subsequently began a extremely close relationship with a neighbor Dorothy Freeman. The relationship would last the rest of Carson's life. The two women had a number of common interests, nature chief among them, and began exchanging letters regularly while apart. They would continue to share every summer for the remainder of Carson's life, and meet whenever else their schedules permitted. Carson and Freeman knew that their letters could be interpreted as lesbian.
Freeman shared parts of Carson's letters with her husband to help him understand the relationship, but much of their correspondence was carefully guarded. Shortly before Carson's death, she and Freeman destroyed hundreds of letters. The surviving correspondence was published in 1995 as Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964: An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship, edited by Freeman's granddaughter.
Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Finding Ease Exactly as You Are
Awareness is not about trying to be someone else: it’s about finding a sense of ease with you as you are, right now.
—Andy Puddicombe, “10 Tips for Living More Mindfully”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 26, 2021 💌
Since we’re not starting other than from our humanity, all we can do is
use the situations in which we close down as exercises to work on
ourselves, to watch how we lose it again and again. We must be very
compassionate with ourselves, and each time just center again, quiet
again, and begin again.
- Ram Dass -
Lama Foundation, 1983
Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Via Lion's Roar // Celebrating Vesak, or “Buddha Day” Vesak falls on May 26th this year. What makes this day special?
Via White Crane : This Day in Gay History // RALPH WALDO EMERSON
This Day in Gay History
May 25
Born
1803 -
On this date RALPH WALDO EMERSON the poet & essayist was born. Emerson had a wild crush on a classmate at Harvard. Martin Gay, the subject of Emerson's growing infatuation, was the subject of numerous entries in Emerson's journals which modern editors have been able to reconstruct. As the scholar Martin Greif has written, "they provide a rare view of the future philosopher in the thrall of same-sex love." With an unembarrassed frankness he wrote in his journal about the disturbing power of the glances he and Gay exchanged.
Emerson wrote of Martin Gay in his notebook, “Why do you look after me? I cannot help looking out as you pass.” Emerson heavily crossed out the Martin Gay journal notes at some later time. He would later tell Walt Whitman to cross out the homoerotic portions of the Calamus cluster of poems in Leaves of Grass. Fortunately for us and for posterity Whitman did not take the "advice." In Emerson's mature life "his craving for friendship and love seldom found adequate satisfaction," as his biographer Stephen Whicher put it.
To experience emptiness is not a descent into an abyss of nothingness but a recovery of freedom.
—Stephen Batchelor, “Nagarjuna’s Verses from the Center”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Monday, May 24, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Practice Seeing a Broader Perspective
It
is very important to see your life not only from the narrow view of
your egoistic telescope but also from the broad view of the universal
telescope called egolessness. This is why we have to practice.
—Dainin Katagiri Roshi, “Time Revisited”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Developing Compassionate Boundaries
In
the process of developing compassion, we need to become skillful at
knowing when to apply boundaries and when to relax or release them.
—Lorne Ladner, “Taking a Stand”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 23, 2021 💌
When I perform a wedding ceremony, the image I invoke is of a triangle
formed by the two partners and this third force, which is the shared
love that unites and surrounds them both. In the yoga of relationship,
two people come together to find that shared love but continue to dance
as two. In that union, both people are separate and yet not separate.
Their relationship feeds both their unique individuality and their unity
of consciousness.
Love can open the way to surrendering into oneness. It gets extraordinarily beautiful when there’s no more “me” and “you,” and it becomes just “us.” Taken to a deeper level, when compassion is fully developed, you are not looking at others as “them.” You’re listening and experiencing and letting that intuitive part of you merge with the other person, and you’re feeling their pain or joy or hope or fear in yourself. Then it’s no longer “us” and “them”; it’s just “us.” Practice this in your relationships with others.
At a certain point, you realize that you see only the projections of your own mind. The play of phenomena is a projection of the spirit. The projections are your karma, your curriculum for this incarnation. Everything that’s happening to you is a teaching designed to burn out your stuff, your attachments. Your humanity and all your desires are not some kind of error. They’re integral parts of the journey.
Love can open the way to surrendering into oneness. It gets extraordinarily beautiful when there’s no more “me” and “you,” and it becomes just “us.” Taken to a deeper level, when compassion is fully developed, you are not looking at others as “them.” You’re listening and experiencing and letting that intuitive part of you merge with the other person, and you’re feeling their pain or joy or hope or fear in yourself. Then it’s no longer “us” and “them”; it’s just “us.” Practice this in your relationships with others.
At a certain point, you realize that you see only the projections of your own mind. The play of phenomena is a projection of the spirit. The projections are your karma, your curriculum for this incarnation. Everything that’s happening to you is a teaching designed to burn out your stuff, your attachments. Your humanity and all your desires are not some kind of error. They’re integral parts of the journey.
- Ram Dass -
Saturday, May 22, 2021
Via White Crane Institute / HARVEY MILK
1930 -
Gay rights pioneer, martyr and San Francisco city supervisor HARVEY MILK was born on this date. Milk was an American politician and Gay Rights activist and the first openly Gay city supervisor of San Francisco, California. He was often called, "the first openly Gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet," though this slights others who were elected before him in cities not so associated with Gay life.
What is not as well-remembered was his amazing ability to bring communities and neighborhoods together for progressive ends.
The U.S. Postal Service officially revealed the Harvey Milk Forever Stamp in 2015. The stamp’s official first-day-of-issue ceremony took place at the White House. The public was invited to attend the May 28 Harvey Milk Forever Stamp special dedication ceremony in San Francisco. Customers may order the Harvey Milk stamp now through this link for delivery following the May 22 stamp issuance.
The stamp image is based on a circa 1977 black and white photograph of Milk in front of his Castro Street Camera store in San Francisco taken by Danny Nicoletta of Grants Pass, OR. Antonio Alcalá of Alexandria, VA, was art director for the stamp.
Via Lion's Roar //
Mindfulness and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path
To understand how to practice mindfulness in daily life, says Gaylon Ferguson, we have to look at all eight steps of the Buddha’s noble eightfold path.
In his first teaching at Deer Park, the Buddha praised mindfulness: “The Noble Eightfold Path is nourished by living mindfully.”
From the beginning, the path of awakening includes all aspects of our human lives: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and social. The aim is a mindful life. This means that our relationship to our sexuality and our consumerist economic system, our parenting, and our politics are all part of the path.
This approach to living fully is outlined in the eightfold path. “Right mindfulness” is one aspect of this path, alongside right view, right intention, right effort, right meditative engagement, right speech, right livelihood, and right action. The Sanskrit word samyak—often translated as “right” or “perfect”—can also mean “complete.” Engaging mindfulness encourages complete engagement with life.
Let’s walk through these aspects of the Buddhist spiritual path, returning mindfulness to her rightful place among her seven less famous but equally important sisters and brothers.
Via Tricycle // Chanting in the Time of COVID-19
 Chanting in the Time of COVID-19
Interview with Kanho Yakushiji by Koshin Paley Ellison |
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Via Daily Dharma: Cultivating a Generous Spirit
Through generosity, we cultivate a generous spirit. Generosity of spirit will usually lead to generosity of action.
—Gil Fronsdal,“The Joy of Giving”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Friday, May 21, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Being Present for Our Own Pain
After
recognizing our suffering, we must respond to it with love. This takes
courage and commitment. It means not looking away, not seeking
distractions when offered the opportunity to be present for our own
pain.
—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: Leaning into Suffering”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Thursday, May 20, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Just Being Here
Meditation is just to be here. Not over there. Not longing for something else.
—Steve Hagen, “Looking For Meaning”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Via White Crane Institute // Today's Gay Wisdom
2007 -
TODAY'S GAY WISDOM
From Lorraine Hansberry:
"The oppressed are by their nature ... forever in ferment and agitation against their condition and what they understand to be their oppressors. If not by overt rebellion or revolution, then in the thousand and one ways they will devise with and without consciousness to alter their condition." Lorraine Hansberry
"I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them to be reason enough and—I wish to live. Moreover, because this is so, I wish others to live for generations and generations and generations."
"We only revert back to mystical ideas - which includes most contemporary orthodox religious views, in my opinion - because we simply are confronted with some things we don't yet understand."
"There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him; what he's been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most; when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning -- because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so. When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is. [from Raisin in the Sun]"
Via GBF // René Rivera - HEARTS
HEARTS –
· Here (present and connected)
· Expressed delight
· Attunement
· Rituals and routines
· Turning towards after conflict
· Secure attachment with self
Thank you, René
Rivera!
Via Daily Dharma: Sensations that Arise and Pass Away
If
the mind labels a pain, saying, “I hurt,” you have to examine the label
carefully, contemplate it until you see that it’s wrong: the pain isn’t
really yours. It’s simply a sensation that arises and passes away,
that’s all.
—Upasika Kee Nanayon, “Tough Teachings to Ease the Mind”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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