Friday, January 7, 2022

Via White Crane Institute // ROBERT DUNCAN

 

Robert Duncan
1919 - 

ROBERT DUNCAN, American poet, born (d: 1988); An American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the New American Poetry and Black Mountain Poets.

Duncan's mature work emerged in the 1950s from within the literary context of Beat culture and today he is also identified as a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance. Duncan’s name figures prominently in the history of pre-Stonewall Gay culture, particularly with the publication of The Homosexual in Society. While in Philadelphia, Duncan had a relationship with a male instructor he had first met in Berkeley. In 1941 he was drafted and declared his homosexuality to get discharged.

In 1943, he had his first heterosexual relationship. This ended in a short, disastrous marriage. In 1944, he published The Homosexual in Society, an essay in which he compared the plight of homosexuals with that of African Americans and Jews. The immediate consequence of this brave essay was that John Crowe Ransom refused to publish a previously accepted poem of Duncan's in Kenyon Review, thus initiating Duncan's exclusion from the mainstream of American poetry.

From 1951 until his death, he lived with the artist Jess Collins. Before then, Duncan began a relationship with Robert De Niro Sr., the father of famed actor Robert De Niro, Jr., shortly before DeNiro Sr. broke up with his wife, artist Virginia Admiral.

Duncan was the first poet to use the word “cocksucker” in print, and the first to strip to the buff during a reading. Nevertheless, he is in spirit, if not in fact, a modern romantic whose best work is instantly engaging by the standards of the purest lyrical traditions.

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Via Dhamma Wheel // Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Taking What is Not Given

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Taking What is Not Given
Taking what is not given is unhealthy. Refraining from taking what is not given is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the taking of what is not given, one abstains from taking what is not given; one does not take by way of theft the wealth and property of others. (MN 41) One practices thus: "Others may take what is not given, but I will abstain from taking what is not given." (MN 8)

A person reflects thus: "If someone were to take from me what I have not given, that is, to commit theft, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to me. Now if I were to take from another what he has not given, that is, to commit theft, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to the other either. How can I inflict on another what is displeasing and disagreeable to me?" Having reflected thus, one abstains from taking what is not given, exhorts others to abstain from it, and speaks in praise of abstinence from it. (SN 55.7)
Reflection
Another way of stating the Golden Rule, this text is simply pointing out the natural argument against misappropriating the property of others. It is not just that it is wrong and invites retribution but in an important way it is actually unhealthy. That is to say, theft damages the quality of our own character, thus contributing to our own suffering, as well as causing suffering in others.

Daily Practice
This precept against taking what is not given is a rich ground for practice, because it raises the bar for what is to be considered theft. How many things do we take that may not have been freely given? More than you might think. Look into this matter today and see if you notice how many things are coerced from others or taken without returning adequate compensation, and how often you assume you are entitled to something others have overlooked.

Tomorrow: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

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Questions?
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Via Daily Dharma: What Is Beginner’s Mind?

Beginner’s mind is Zen practice in action. It is the mind that is innocent of preconceptions and expectations, judgments and prejudices.


Blanche Hartman, “The Zen of Not Knowing”


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