The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others...
~Gandhi
~Gandhi
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma December 4, 2012
Valuing the Here and Now
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.
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- Brad Warner, "Goalless Practice"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through December 6th, 2012
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Monday, December 3, 2012
JMG HomoQuotable - Frank Mugisha
NOTE: There is a chance that the Ugandan Parliament will recess before hearing the Anti-Homosexuality Act due to a ferocious unrelated battle over a bill regarding oil drilling rights.
Via JMG: NORWAY: Princess Secretly Traveled To India To Care For Gay Staffer's Newborns
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)
Labels: gay families, good work, India, Norway
Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:
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Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma December 3, 2012
Gifting What is Precious
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.
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- Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, “Generosity (and Greed) Introduction"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through December 5th, 2012
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For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma December 2, 2012
Integrating Realization into our Lives
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.
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- John Welwood, "The Psychology of Awakening"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through December 4th, 2012
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Via JMG: West Point Hosts First Gay Wedding
Penelope Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, exchanged vows in the regal church in a ceremony conducted by a senior Army chaplain. The ceremony comes a little more than a year after President Obama ended the military policy banning openly gay people from serving. The two have been together for 17 years. They had a civil commitment ceremony that didn't carry any legal force in 1999 but had longed hoped to formally tie the knot. The brides both live in New Jersey and would have preferred to have the wedding there, but the state doesn't allow gay marriage. "We just couldn't wait any longer," Fulton said. Guests at the wedding posted photos on Twitter while it was underway and afterward. Fulton said Cadet Chapel on the campus at West Point was a fitting venue.Fulton (left) is the communications director for the military LGBT advocacy group OutServe and I've met her at several grassroots events. She's also the head of Knights Out, an organization for West Point's LGBT alumni. Congratulations to the happy couple!
RELATED: All the right people are already pissed off.
Labels: army, DADT, gay weddings, LGBT History, marriage equality, military, New York state, West Point
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni
"Where’s your apology for signing the Defense of Marriage Act? And why,
amid all the battles you’ve joined, and with all the energy
you’ve been able to muster, haven’t you made a more vigorous case for
same-sex marriage, especially in light of your history on this issue?
You fret about your legacy, as any president would. For turning a blind
eye to the butchery in Rwanda, you struggled through a mea culpa of
sorts, and after Barack Obama seemed to lavish higher praise on Ronald
Reagan than on you, you seethed.
"Well, DOMA, which says that the federal government recognizes only
marriages of a man and a woman, is one of the uglier blemishes on your
record, an act of indisputable discrimination that codified unequal
treatment of gay men and lesbians and, in doing so, validated the views
of Americans who see us as lesser people. If our most committed,
heartfelt relationships don’t measure up, then neither do we. If how we
love is suspect, then so is who we are. No two ways to interpret that.
No other conclusion to be drawn." - Frank Bruni, writing for the New York Times.
Via JMG: Matt Barber: People With AIDS Are Sinners Who Deserve Their Gruesome Deaths
Just when you think God's Gentle People™ could not possibly behave more repulsively, Christian leader Matt Barber proves you wrong. Deliberately timed for World AIDS Day, obviously.
Reposted from Joe
Labels: AIDS, Christian Love, disgusting, God's Gentle People, hate groups, horrible, Liberty Counsel, Matt Barber, pigs, religion, Sharia Law, theocracy, World AIDS Day
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma December 1, 2012
The Key to Happiness
Grace
is the key to happiness. When bad things happen, if we have confidence
in grace, then we can remain grounded in that and not be overwhelmed by
the soap opera of life. And grace is a circular blessing. The more grace
enters your life, the more grateful you are. The more grateful you are,
the more easily grace seems to enter.
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- Dharmavidya David Brazier, "Let Grace In"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through December 3rd, 2012
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Friday, November 30, 2012
Via Gay Politics Report:
How religion helped win marriage equality
Marriage equality advocates engaged people of faith and religious leaders in successful campaigns to win ballot initiatives this year, a turnaround from four years ago when social conservatives dominated religious discussions over California's Proposition 8. A Washington state coalition distributed thousands of buttons bearing the message, "Another Person of Faith Approves R. 74," sparking conversations in which proponents were trained to speak about the issue in terms of love and commitment rather than "gay rights." Ross Murray, director of religion, faith and values at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, helped train thousands of "conversationalists" to speak about the issue and their own faith, and to listen intently to those who described their difficulties supporting marriage equality. “All of us like to be listened to," Murray said. CNN/Belief blog
Marriage equality advocates engaged people of faith and religious leaders in successful campaigns to win ballot initiatives this year, a turnaround from four years ago when social conservatives dominated religious discussions over California's Proposition 8. A Washington state coalition distributed thousands of buttons bearing the message, "Another Person of Faith Approves R. 74," sparking conversations in which proponents were trained to speak about the issue in terms of love and commitment rather than "gay rights." Ross Murray, director of religion, faith and values at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, helped train thousands of "conversationalists" to speak about the issue and their own faith, and to listen intently to those who described their difficulties supporting marriage equality. “All of us like to be listened to," Murray said. CNN/Belief blog
JMG Editorial Of The Day:
From Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog:
Reposted from Joe
At their Conference today, the Justices will consider petitions raising federal constitutional issues related to same-sex marriage. These are the most significant cases these nine Justices have ever considered, and probably that they will ever decide.Read the full essay.
I have never before seen cases that I believed would be discussed two hundred years from now. Bush v. Gore and Obamacare were relative pipsqueaks. The government’s assertion of the power to prohibit a loving couple to marry, or to refuse to recognize such a marriage, is profound. So is the opposite claim that five Justices can read the federal Constitution to strip the people of the power to enact the laws governing such a foundational social institution.
The cases present a profound test of the Justices’ judgment. The plaintiffs’ claims are rooted in the fact that these laws rest on an irrational and invidious hatred, enshrined in law. On the other hand, that describes some moral judgments. The Constitution does not forbid every inequality, and the people must correct some injustices (even some grave ones) themselves, legislatively.
The striking feature of these cases – not present in any others I have ever seen – is that that they would have been decided by the Justices’ predecessors one way and would be decided by the Justices’ successors another way.
Labels: LGBT History, LGBT rights, SCOTUS
Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:
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