Revoked: May 31, 2024

Friday, May 31, 2024

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

Sensual misconduct is unhealthy. Refraining from sensual misconduct is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning sensual misconduct, one abstains from misbehaving among sensual pleasures. (MN 41) One practices thus: “Others may engage in sensual misconduct, but I will abstain from sensual misconduct.” (MN 8)

Forms cognizable by the eye are of two kinds: those to be cultivated and those not to be cultivated. Such forms as cause, in one who cultivates them, unhealthy states to increase and healthy states to diminish, such forms are not to be cultivated. But such forms as cause, in one who cultivates them, unhealthy states to diminish and healthy states to increase, such forms are to be cultivated. (MN 114)

Reflection

As humans we use our eyes a lot. Mostly we are free to choose what we gaze on, but in many cases our attention is hijacked by visual images directed at us from a billboard, a magazine page, or a computer screen. Sometimes this provokes craving of various sorts and is thus a way of engaging us in sensual misconduct against our will. Learning to resist being hijacked by images and to abandon it when it happens is a healthy skill.

Daily Practice

Notice the quality of your mind as you take in visual information. The more you look at something, does it increase or decrease your stress? Does it make you more calm and at ease or does it wind you up? What you look at is one thing; how you feel when you do so is something else. Learn to observe the inner state evoked by sensory inputs and to thereby learn what to cultivate and what not to cultivate for your own well-being.

Tomorrow: Developing Unarisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Intoxication

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Via Daily Dharma: Taking Our Practice Seriously

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Taking Our Practice Seriously

When any one of us takes ourselves, and our path, completely seriously, we give other people permission to do the same. In this time and place marked by corrosive doubt, skepticism, and cynicism, that is our medicine. We need the balm of sincerity, forthrightness, and confidence.

Reverend Kaishin Victory Matsui, “Are You Really Present All the Time?”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

The Stream of Our Ancestors
Kaira Jewel Lingo in conversation with James Shaheen and Sharon Salzberg

A dharma teacher reflects on the power of getting out of our way and calling upon the wisdom and strength of our ancestors.

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989

This Day in Gay History

May 31

Born

1819 -

Today is the birth date of WALT WHITMAN (d: 1892) In our humble opinion, this ought to be a national holiday. The prophetic poet, writer of the visionary homoerotic poetry of Calamus, lover of PETER DOYLE, and many others,

Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. Proclaimed the "greatest of all American poets" by many foreign observers a mere four years after his death, he is viewed as the first urban poet.

He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and Realism, incorporating both views in his works. His works have even been translated into more than twenty-five languages and he was an early and profound inspiration to many of the earliest Gay theorists, including Edward Carpenter who carried on a correspondence with him and visited Whitman in his Camden, New Jersey home twice.

For decades after his death historians denied his sexuality, but ironically in the 1950s, when Philadelphia wanted to name a bridge after him, there protests in front of city hall because of his homosexuality.

Today's Gay Wisdom

2018 -

TODAYS GAY WISDOM

Excerpt from

Leaves of Grass

"Recorders ages hence,
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior, I
will tell you what to say of me,
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love
within him, and freely pour'd it forth,
Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless and
dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd might
secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on
hills, he and another wan dering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men,
Who oft as he saunter'd the streets curv'd with his arm the
shoulder of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested upon him also."

Leaves of Grass, 1891

" When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd
with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow'd,
And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,
refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way
coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food
nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came
my friend, and that night while all was still I heard the waters
roll slowly continuously up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me
whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast-and that night I was happy."

"I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions,
But really I am neither for nor against institutions, (What indeed
have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these
States inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large
that dents the water,
Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades."

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson

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

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Via White Crane Institute \\ American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychoanalytic Association in Boston on homosexuality

1903 -

Psychoanalyst DR. A.A. BRILL presented a paper at a joint meeting of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychoanalytic Association in Boston on homosexuality and paranoia. He stressed that homosexuality was part of the normal sexual instinct and plays a useful part in social relationships, and that homosexuality was only pathological when combined with adjustment difficulties. However, he also equated homosexuality with paranoia by saying homosexuals experienced delusions of persecution. (Now why would that be?)

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