Thursday, January 9, 2014
Via HimalayaCrafts / FB:
"Silence is an empty space, space is the home of the awakened mind." - Buddha
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 9, 2014
How Ignorance Causes Suffering
This
is what we call ignorance: not recognizing the void nature of phenomena
and assuming that phenomena possess the attribute of true existence
although in fact they are devoid of it. With ignorance comes attachment
to all that is pleasant to the ego as well as hatred and repulsion for
all that is unpleasant. In that way the three poisons—ignorance,
attachment, and hatred—come into being. Under the influence of these
three poisons, the mind becomes like a servant running here and there.
This is how the suffering of samsara is built up. It all derives from a
lack of discernment and a distorted perception of the nature of
phenomena.
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- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, “An Investigation of the Mind”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 10, 2014
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Via JMG: German Soccer Star Comes Out
Former Aston Villa midfielder Thomas Hitzlsperger has revealed he is gay. The 31-year-old, who won 52 caps for Germany and also played for West Ham and Everton, made the announcement in newspaper Die Zeit. He is the most prominent footballer to publicly reveal his homosexuality and said it was "a good time" to do so. "I'm coming out about my homosexuality because I want to move the discussion about homosexuality among professional sportspeople forwards," he added. The midfielder said he has only realised "in the past few years" that he would "prefer to live together with another man", adding: "I've never been ashamed of the way I am."Hitzlsperger retired last year due to injuries. (Tipped by JMG reader John)
Labels: coming out, gay athletes, Germany, sports
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 8, 2014
The Self’s Misconception
In Pali, the language of the oldest written Buddhist teachings, the belief in some core notion of self is called sakkaya-ditthi;
this is sometimes translated as ‘personality belief.’ It’s said to be
the most dangerous of all the defilements, more dangerous than greed or
even hatred, because these are rooted in this mistaken belief. This
wrong view of self is central to how we go about in the world, and all
kinds of unskillful actions come out of it. The aim of the practice,
central to everything we’re doing, is to free the mind from this
misconception.
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- Joseph Goldstein, “Everyday Meditation”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 9, 2014
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Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Via HimalayaCrafts / FB:
"The man who conquers himself is superior to him who conquers a thousand men in battle." - Buddha
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 7, 2014
Dualistic Divisions
We
divide our world into me/you, friend/enemy, desirable/ undesirable,
fulfilling/frustrating, and so on. It’s a natural process, but a very
arbitrary, utterly subjective one. Somehow we’re able to ignore
this last fact. We’re in dualistic division mode, and we act on that;
all sorts of emotions come into play, and we act on them. We reinforce
the tendencies—Buddhists might say, we create or compound karma—that
make the illusion thicker, stickier, more solid. And the further we are
from truth, the more elusive happiness becomes.
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- Pamela Gayle White, “The Pursuit of Happiness”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 8, 2014
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Monday, January 6, 2014
JMG Editorial Of The Day
From the editors of the Salt Lake Tribune:
Same-sex attraction, far from being unnatural, has been around since the dawn of time, and in recent decades mainstream America has come to accept it as something other than deviant. The American Psychiatric Association has considered homosexuality a normal sexual variation, not a mental disorder, since 1973. The Supreme Court in 2003 made same-sex sexual activity legal in every state, and then last June the court took that step of saying same-sex couples have a due-process right to marry. Younger people by and large take a more libertarian view of same-sex relationships, and that is what has fueled the nation’s shift since Utah passed its ban in 2004.(Tipped by JMG reader Matthew)
There are 32 states with laws still in effect banning gay marriage, but only one state has passed such a law since 2006. Since that time seven state legislatures have passed laws to allow same-sex marriage, and three more states did so through popular vote. Court decisions have struck down the laws in another seven states, including Utah. One of those states is California, where state officials stopped defending their same-sex marriage ban when it became obvious where the future lies. Utah’s ban passed with 66 percent of voters approving it, but it’s a legitimate question whether it would pass today if another election were held. Even the LDS Church has gone from actively participating in the marriage wars to simply explaining its own beliefs and practices.
The tide has turned. It’s time for Utah to turn with it.
Labels: marriage equality, Salt Lake City, Utah
Via JMG: The Friendly Atheist Reviews Linda Harvey
Harvey says that “hundreds” of organizations in the U.S. can help gay people work through their feelings and turn straight, and that plenty of “converted homosexuals” will tell you that it really works. Never mind that the most prominent ex-gay organization Exodus International shut its doors and its president said homosexuality is unchangeable — Harvey says he’s not a good representative of the ex-gay movement because “there seems to be a lot of confusion going on in his life.” If you insist…Hit the link and read the full review.
Later, she defends parents who kick their gay children out of their homes. She suggests that children whose parents don’t try to shield them from homosexuality will commit suicide. She says that it’s the responsibility of churches to try to warn people about homosexuality. She suggests that gay teenagers are the victims of broken homes or sexual abuse. She waxes poetic on Sodom and Gomorrah. And finally, she says that God is the answer to a troubled life of homosexuality.
Labels: Amazon, assholery, bigotry, brainwashing, crackpots, evil, ex-gay, hate groups, LGBT youth, Linda Harvey, religion, torture
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 6, 2014
The Four Reminders
We
all know that we’re going to die, but we don’t know it in our guts. If
we did, we would practice as if our hair were on fire. One way to
swallow the bitter truth of mortality and impermanence—and get it into
our guts—is to chew on the four reminders.
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- Andrew Holecek, “The Supreme Contemplation”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 7, 2014
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Sunday, January 5, 2014
Via JMG: The Man Who Invented San Francisco
Quentin Crisp once introduced him with the boast: "This is Mr Maupin. He invented San Francisco." More importantly, Maupin virtually invented the mainstreaming of gay life and helped the world see that "the gay experience" was nothing lesser or greater than human experience. Maupin came to a realisation of his homosexuality relatively late. He was 30 when he came out, the same year he began writing. Taking stock of himself the way he would one of his characters, he once observed: "He had kept his heart (and his libido) under wraps for most of his life, only to discover that the thing he feared the most had actually become a source of great comfort and inspiration." At the time he began writing, he saw gay fiction as both bleak and myopic. This was an era when Truman Capote still equated his homosexuality with his alcoholism and a climate in which Gore Vidal could claim: "There were homosexual acts, but not homosexual people." Maupin, however, had discovered a joyful fraternity and welcoming community in the bath houses and nightclubs of the city and decided, as he put it, to "[allow] a little air into the situation by actually placing gay people in the context of the world at large".Read the full article. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon.
Labels: Armistead Maupin, gay writers, LGBT History, San Francisco
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 4, 2014
Language in Practice
The
first three practices of the eightfold path are right view, right
intention, and right speech. These make right conduct possible, and when
there is right conduct, there can be meditation practice and
mindfulness, which lead to wisdom, thereby reinforcing right view. So
from the first, the Buddha saw that our language conditions our
spirituality through our views, intentions, and uttered words, and that
training in an increased awareness of this process has to be the
starting point for spiritual practice.
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- Zoketsu Norman Fischer, “Beyond Language”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 5, 2014
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Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 5, 2014
Walk Like A Buddha
Walking
is an important form of Buddhist meditation. It can be a very deep
spiritual practice. But when the Buddha walked, he walked without
effort. He just enjoyed walking. He didn’t have to strain, because when
you walk in the practice mindfulness, you are in touch with the all the
wonders of life within you and around you. This is the best way to
practice, with the appearance of nonpractice. You don’t make any effort,
you don’t struggle, you just enjoy walking, but it’s very deep. ‘My
practice,’ the Buddha said, ‘is the nonpractice, the attainment of
nonattainment.’
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- Thich Nhat Hanh, “Walk Like A Buddha”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 6, 2014
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Friday, January 3, 2014
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 3, 2014
The Cleaning
The
very distinguished abbot of a huge Zen monastery wrote this little
article that said, ‘In Zen, there are only three things. First,
cleaning. Second, chanting. And third, devotion. That’s all.’ Many
Americans go to Zen hoping to get enlightened, but they don’t want to do
the cleaning.
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- Taitetsu Unno, “Even Dewdrops Fall”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 4, 2014
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