
On
a long journey of human life, faith is the best of companions; it is
the best refreshment on the journey; and it is the greatest property ---The Buddha
A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.

Goal-seeking
activity is always the enemy of real peace and contentment. The idea
that what is here and now is less valuable than what’s over there just
past the finish line prevents us from ever being truly content and happy
right where we are. No matter what your ultimate goal is, it’s always
off in the distance. This goes for any goal at all, even the goal of
attaining ultimate inner peace or saving all beings.
|
Armed with a diplomatic passport that granted her immediate access, the future queen jumped on a plane in late October when the employee, who is also a friend, and his husband were unable to travel to care for their newborns. "For me, this is about two babies lying alone in a New Delhi hospital," Mette-Marit said in a statement. "I was able to travel and wanted to do what I could." She did not alert Indian authorities and spent several days with the babies at the Manav Medicare Centre, where staff assumed the wife of Norway's Crown Prince Haakon was a nanny. While the princess was away, her name continued to appear in the official palace calendar and her absence from a parliamentary dinner was not explained. A relative of the two fathers eventually took over from Mette-Marit and the fathers received a visa in November, when they brought the babies back to Norway, the palace added.Norway legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, but the above-linked story notes that paying for surrogacy is a highly controversial topic there. (Tipped by JMG reader Carol)
| Daily Buddhist Wisdom | |||
| |||
When
we give, we need to do so with the awareness that our gift will be both
appropriate and helpful. It is not an act of generosity, for example,
to give money to a wealthy person or alcohol to a child. We also give
what we can afford; we don’t jeopardize our own health or well-being. At
the same time, we can give what is precious to us, what is difficult to
give, because of our attachment to it.
|
Spiritual
realization is relatively easy compared with the much greater
difficulty of actualizing it, integrating it fully into the fabric of
one’s daily life. Realization is the movement from personality to
being, the direct recognition of one’s ultimate nature, leading toward
liberation from the conditioned self, while actualization refers to how we integrate that realization in all the situations of our life.
|