Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

 

RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering And what is the way leading to the cessation of suffering? It is just this noble eightfold path: that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. (MN 9)

Reflection Understanding that suffering has a cause and can be cured is one thing, but managing to bring about that cure is a formidable challenge: “Just stop craving, and your suffering will disappear! How hard can that be?” As it turns out, it can be very hard indeed. The way out of suffering, woven from the elements of the eightfold path, needs to be crafted anew by each culture, each generation, each person. Daily Practice The practice of walking the path leading to the cessation of suffering has always been a creative project. Since every moment of every person’s experience is new and unique, the blueprint of the eightfold path has to be interpreted flexibly. Find your own distinctive way of understanding these timeless universal principles and applying them to the many challenges of your life and its unique set of changing circumstances. Tomorrow: Cultivating Equanimity One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Daily Dharma: Understanding Morality

 Ultimately, Buddhist “morality” is a no-morality. It represents a shifting mental structure that we understand only to the degree that we grasp its essential formlessness. 

Bodhin Kjolhede, “Pain, Passion, and the Precepts”

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Via White Crane Institute // PEDRO SEGUNDO MARDONES LEMEBEL

 

Pedro Lemebel

1952 - 

PEDRO SEGUNDO MARDONES LEMEBEL  was an out Gay Chilean essayist, chronicler, novelist, and LGBT activist born on this date (d: 2015); He was known for his cutting critique of authoritarianism and for his humorous depiction of Chilean popular culture, from a queer perspective. Imagine a cross-pollination between RuPaul, Larry Kramer and Antonin Artaud. He was nominated for Chile's National Literature Prize in 2014, and was a 1999 Guggenheim Fellow.

Lemebel attended writing workshops to hone his skills and network with other writers, his first writing recognition was in 1982, when he won an award for his short story, Porque el tiempo está cerca ("Because time is short"). In 1986, he published as his first major work, the book Incontables, a compilation of short stories under the feminist publication label, Ergo Sum. A year later, he co-founded a performance collective that used the tactics of intervention and disruption of events to raise public consciousness about the struggles of minorities in Chile. The disruption and performances of the collective brought Lemebel into public awareness in Chile. In 1986, he disrupted a meeting of Chile's left wing groups opposed to Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, entering the meeting in high heels and in facial makeup depicting an hammer and sickle extending from his mouth to his left eyebrow. At the event, he spoke about his manifesto, ‘Manifest: I Speak for my Difference’ criticizing homophobia in left wing politics. Though widely known to be a communist, he was estranged from the party because of his homosexuality (not unlike Harry Hay.)

Lemebel is beloved for his influence in the fight for homosexual rights, his work as a writer, and his strong political side. Lemebel was much more than a writer; he was a free man, an artist, a political and popular icon, but more than anything a rebel and a voice for the LGBTcommunity.

Lemebel was born Pedro Mardones Lemebel, but  he too k the last name of his mother, as the first big political decision that reaffirmed his commitment towards his Gay side, a side that was extensively incorporated into his literary works. Lemebel was able to envisage a hidden reality of Gay people; he was able to unmask the violence of which Gay people were victims in Chile. The importance of Pedro Lemebel is not only value for his talent as a writer, but also as a person of defiance in a conservative and machista country. Journalist Óscar Contardo described Lemebel as a “popular figure: a figure that is suppose to be disgusted in our society, which is the "loca" (queen), he managed to make that figure as the center, and then transform it into a popular icon."

Some of his works include: La esquina es mi corazón, Loco afán: Crónicas del sidario (chronicles). Santiago: LOM, (1996); De perlas y cicatrices ("Of Pearls and Scars"). Santiago: LOM, (1998); La esquina es mi corazón, Santiago: Seix Barral, (2001.) Tengo miedo torero (novel). Santiago: Grupo Editorial Planeta, (2001) (translated as My Tender Matador, published by Grove)

Lemebel died in 2015 of laryngeal cancer.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

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Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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