Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Via NEB - International Network of Engaged Buddhists
Deer Park Monastery
A holiday letter from Thay Phap Dung, Abbot of Deer Park Monastery:
Dear Beloved Thầy,
Dear Sanghas throughout the World,
Dear Dharma Brothers and Sisters,
Our loving Mother Earth is still there for us, right beneath our two feet. She is a miracle, a jewel in the cosmos, refreshing and healing. She has shown unlimited patience throughout human history and an uncanny ability to transform just about anything with equanimity and acceptance. She is now calling us for help. She is suffering from our human activities based on our craving, discrimination, fear, and despair.
The Gift of Practice - This holiday season, we have a chance to express our love and care for Mother Earth by the way we care for our self, our family and our environment. We can practice mindfulness to care for our inner environment, our feelings and our emotions so that we do not lose ourself in worries about the future or regrets about the past, or lose ourself with our feelings and thinking in the present moment. We practice in such a way that we are peaceful, free and happy right in the here and now. We can practice to be more relaxed in our body and mind as we drive our car to work, or cook for our family, or play with our friends, or even rest when we return home. We can look deeply into our relationships with our loved ones, with our environment, our neighborhood, and our workplace and find skillful ways to care, to renew and to improve them. Care is a priceless gift.
Having Enough – Concretely this Holiday Season, we invite you to make an effort to find ways that you can give a gift that does not require you to spend a lot of money or even any at all. The greatest gift is, of course, our practice, our true presence, our understanding and love. The giving of this gift will require more effort, more creativity, and deeper looking into your beloved. You can make something. You can surprise him or her with a message that has been waiting for so long.
“Dear Father, I know you are there and I am happy.”
“My son, I am here for you completely.”
“My dear, I am sorry; let us begin a new chapter.”
“Dear Mother Earth,I take refuge in you and bow down deeply.”
A reminder, a memory, a simple attention with skillfulness in expression can touch and transform. Understanding and compassion cannot be bought.
This is an invitation to all practitioners throughout the world to join us this Season for a silent resistance – to the mass pressure to consume, to the forces that cause us to run away from ourself in forgetfulness. Let us change the way we spend our Holiday Season this winter. Let us show our care for the planet in concrete ways. Let us say to Mother Earth that She can have trust in us. And please share this with the larger community by writing about your priceless gift: your gift of practice; your gift of transformation, with by messaging us here at the Deer Park Facebook page, or by commenting below.
With trust and confidence,
Brother Pháp Dung for the Plum Village Community
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma December 5, 2012
Generosity of the Heart
Genuine
happiness in relationships comes forth naturally when it’s no longer
blocked by all the conditions that we normally add—our agendas, our
needs, our expectations. When we’re more able to refrain from indulging
our self-centered motivations, we no longer look at our relationship in
terms of what we will get. Instead, as we move toward the generosity of
the heart, we naturally want to give.
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- Ezra Bayda, "Giving Through Relationships"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through December 7th, 2012
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:
| Daily Buddhist Wisdom | |||
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Via JMG: France's First Lady: I Can't Wait To Take Part In My First Same-Sex Wedding
Valerie Trierweiler, the girlfriend of French President Francois Hollande, has given plans to legalise gay marriage with her personal seal of approval by announcing she will be a witness at one of the first ceremonies. While her partner's commitment to proposed legislation allowing same-sex marriages has been questioned in recent weeks, Trierweiler revealed she had accepted an invitation to participate in the wedding of gay friends. "I'm delighted that I'm going to be a witness at one of the very first marriages for all," Trierweiler said. A law providing for same sex couples to wed and adopt children is expected to be on the statute book by the middle of next year. Its passage through parliament is likely to be stormy however given strong opposition from sections of the opposition right, Catholic bishops and other religious leaders.France's national legislature begins debate on the draft version of the bill in three months.
Labels: France, marriage equality, Socialist Party
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
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member
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:
| Daily Buddhist Wisdom | |||
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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
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member
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
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member
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.
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