Sunday, January 31, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Build the Foundation of Compassion
Generosity is the ground of compassion; it is a prerequisite to the realization of liberation.
—Marcia Rose, “The Gift That Cannot Be Given”
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Via White Crane Institute // HOWARD OVERING STURGIS
1855 -
HOWARD OVERING STURGIS, the novelist and eccentric was born on this date. A millionaire American expatriate, Sturgis passed his life in England knitting, embroidering and writing novels. He is best known for two: Tim: A Story of Eton and Belchamber. Affable and witty, Sturgis was a favorite with Henry James, Edith Wharton, and A. C. Benson, and the subject of a memorable sketch by E. M. Forster. Sturgis maintained a lifelong relationship with a much younger man, William Haynes-Smith, familiarly known as "the Babe", to whom his novel "Belchamber" is dedicated.
The scion of a wealthy New England family, his parents sent him to be educated at Eton College. He went on to study at Cambridge where he became a friend of the novelists henry James and Edith Wharton.
After the death of his mother in 1888 he moved, with his lover William Haynes-Smith, into a country house named Queen's Acre, near Windsor Great Park. Sturgis's first novel, Tim: A Story of School Life (1891), was published anonymously and was dedicated to the "love that surpasses the love of women." It describes the love of two youths at boarding-school.
He died on February 7, 1920. After his death appreciations of him were published by A.C. Benson, Edith Wharton, E.M. Forster and George Santayana, his cousin.
Via BrainPickings // D.T. Suzuki on What Freedom Really Means and How Zen Can Help Us Cultivate Our Character
D.T. Suzuki on What Freedom Really Means and How Zen Can Help Us Cultivate Our Character
“The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow.”
By Maria Popova
Alan Watts may be credited with popularizing Eastern philosophy in the West, but he owes the entire trajectory of his life and legacy to a single encounter with the Zen Buddhist sage D.T. Suzuki (October 18, 1870–July 12, 1966) — one of humanity’s greatest and most influential stewards of Zen philosophy. At the age of twenty-one, Watts attended a lecture by Suzuki in London, which so enthralled the young man that he spent the remainder of his life studying, propagating, and building upon Suzuki’s teachings. Legendary composer John Cage had a similar encounter with Suzuki, which profoundly shaped his life and music.
In the early 1920s, spurred by the concern that Zen masters are “unable to present their understanding in the light of modern thought,” Suzuki undertook “a tentative experiment to present Zen from our common-sense point of view” — a rather humble formulation of what he actually accomplished, which was nothing less than giving ancient Eastern philosophy a second life in the West and planting the seed for a new culture of secularized spirituality.
But by 1940, all of his books had gone out of print in war-torn England, and all remaining copies in Japan were destroyed in the great fire of 1945, which consumed three quarters of Tokyo. In 1946, Christmas Humphreys, president of London’s Buddhist Society, set out to undo the damage and traveled to Tokyo, where he began working with Suzuki on translating his new manuscripts and reprinting what remained of the old. The result was the timeless classic Essays in Zen Buddhism (public library), originally published in 1927 — a collection of Suzuki’s foundational texts introducing the principles of Zen into secular life as a discipline concerned first and foremost with what he called “the reconstruction of character.” As Suzuki observed, “Our ordinary life only touches the fringe of personality, it does not cause a commotion in the deepest parts of the soul.” His essays became, and remain, a moral toolkit for modern living, delivered through a grounding yet elevating perspective on secular spirituality.
Via Comic Sands // The Walking Dead' Shuts Down Homophobic Backlash
'The Walking Dead' Shuts Down Homophobic Backlash To Show's Gay Storyline With Powerful Post
Zombie thriller franchise The Walking Dead just clapped back at homophobic internet trolls in a concise but oh-so-satisfying tweet.
The show's non-negotiable commitment to showcasing LGBTQ+ characters and relationships has already won praise in the past. The recent tweet only solidified the franchise's solid footing as an ally.
The homophobic hullabaloo all began when actor Jelani Alladin appeared on the podcast Talk Dead to Me.
He discussed how proud he was to play his character in the show who—among many heroic attributes—just so happens to be one half of a same-sex couple.
"There was no kind of need to explain anything further and I love that The Walking Dead is kind of putting that forward, that LGBTQ relationships are nothing different than any other kind of relationship."
"They have the same struggles, they have the same complexities, they get mad at each other, they love each other just as hard."
The onscreen couple is made up of Alladin and fellow actor Nico Tortorella, who identifies as gender fluid.
Via Daily Dharma: Train Your Mind How to Respond
The
quality of our life is determined by our mind’s response to the
circumstances of our life. It is not determined directly by the
circumstances.
—Yoshin David Radin, “Brief Teachings”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - January 31, 2021 💌
"It’s amazing how the nature of your relationships change when it’s coming out of love instead of trying to get love."
- Ram Dass -
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