Authentic Voices of Pride I Presented by Chevrolet at NewFest Pride.

Via Daily Dharma: Connect with the Resource of Pleasure

 Underneath our neuroses and all our pushing and pulling, most deeply, we’re glad to be here. Connect to the pleasure of relaxation, the pleasure of the fact that you’re able to breathe.

Martin Aylward, “Coming Back to Embodiment”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining 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) On hearing a sound with the ear, one does not grasp at its signs and features. Since if one left the ear faculty unguarded, unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might intrude, one practices the way of its restraint, one guards the ear faculty, one undertakes the restraint of the ear faculty. (MN 51)

Reflection

This is another encouragement to be with what is happening without going beyond the experience and taking more than is given in the moment. The image of guarding the sense doors, as a watchman might guard the gate to a city, suggests the ability to choose what gets into the mind and what is turned away. It is a way of gaining some power and claiming some freedom over what happens to you.

Daily Practice

Practice along these lines: “In what is heard, there will be only what is heard.” As we work with each of the sense modalities in turn, we learn to be fully present with what is occurring without embellishing it or projecting our desires onto it. Can we hear without grasping? What does this feel like? Mindfulness practice involves being fully aware of what is presenting at the sense doors without getting swept away by it or swept beyond it.

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via White Crane Institute // ELIZABETH EDWARDS

 

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The late Elizabeth Edwards

2004 -

"I don't know why somebody else's marriage has anything to do with me. I'm completely comfortable with Gay marriage. If he's pleasant to me on the street, if his children don't throw things in my yard, then I'm happy. It seems to me we're making issues of things that honestly don't matter." – The late ELIZABETH EDWARDS, ex-wife of Democratic presidential candidate (and narcissistic cad) John Edwards, speaking to reporters after her keynote speech to San Francisco's Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club. Her philandering husband responded by saying that he loves the way his wife always speaks her mind, but that he continued to only support civil unions for Gay couples all while having a child with another woman outside of his marriage and while his wife was fighting the cancer that would eventually take her life. Yeah...bye Felicia. Elizabeth Edwards deserved so much better.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

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Via Lama Rod Owens // Tending to the summer of apocalypse

 

 

Dear Friends, 

As we enter the summer months, we are entering yet another uncertain season of a continued pandemic, war, inflation, political instability, and much more. 

Yes, this is overwhelming. 

However, as I prepare to transition into summer, I remain grateful for being alive in this body and on this earth because I want to be here to help and facilitate a new age of awakening. 

Contrary to secular understandings of apocalypse being the end of life, a sacred view understands apocalypse as rebirth through truthtelling. As the truth disrupts, we are called to hold space for the discomfort of this disruption, letting it go when we need to, and then turning our energy and attention to rebuilding a world centered on the truth. 

Considering all this, we must understand that summer is a continuation of the work to get free. We remember that a new world is arising, and we continue loving, caring, and dreaming this new world into existence. This is how you tend to the summer of apocalypse.

With love,
Lama Rod