Sunday, January 20, 2013
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 20, 2013
Abandoning Futile Endeavors
To
look for total satisfaction in oneself is a futile endeavor. Since
everything changes from moment to moment, where can self and where can
satisfaction be found? Yet these are two things that the whole world is
looking for and it sounds quite reasonable, doesn’t it? But since these
are impossible to find, everybody is unhappy. Not necessarily because of
tragedies, poverty, sickness, or death: simply because of unfilled
desire. Everybody is looking for something that isn’t available.
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- Ayya Khema, “No Satisfaction”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 21st, 2013
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Saturday, January 19, 2013
Via JMG: NEW MEXICO: Democratic State Rep Proposes Ballot Measure On Marriage
“It’s time to recognize all the families in New Mexico who are headed by same-sex couples,” Egolf said Thursday. The proposal probably won’t have an easy time in the Legislature. Lawmakers in recent years haven’t even been able to pass legislation calling for state-recognized domestic partnership agreements. Egolf’s House Joint Resolution 3 says, “The issuance of a marriage license shall not be denied on the basis that the sex of both applicants is the same. No church or religious institution shall be required to perform a marriage ceremony or recognize a marriage for religious purposes that conflicts with the church’s or religious institution’s beliefs.” The measure, whose co-sponsors include Rep. Stephen Easley, D-Santa Fe, will first be heard in the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.
Labels: LGBT rights, marriage equality, New Mexico
Me: "VIVA NEW MEXICO!"
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 19, 2013
The Reward of Practice
As
you bring alignment, relaxation, and resilience into your daily life,
your breath automatically becomes fuller and starts moving through your
entire body, just as the Buddha suggested in his description of
meditation. Without forcing a thing, let your breath breathe you:
breathe into your entire body, and breathe out just as effortlessly.
This condition, nothing more, nothing less, is really the reward and
benefit of the practice.
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- Will Johnson, “Full Body, Empty Mind”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 20th, 2013
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Friday, January 18, 2013
Via Gay Politics Report:
- European court rules faith doesn't trump LGBT laws
- The
European Court of Human Rights, ruling in several cases testing the
rights of people of faith, said religious objections are not sufficient
to absolve certain individuals from complying with LGBT
non-discrimination laws. "The court showed conclusively that the
principle of equality and equal treatment cannot be circumvented with a
simple reference to religion," said Sophie in ‘t Veld, vice-president of
the European Parliament’s LGBT Intergroup. GlobalPost.com
(1/15), Washington Blade (Washington, D.C.)
(1/16)
Via JMG: Dear Abby Dies At 94
Phillips’ column competed for decades with the advice column of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer. Their relationship was stormy in their early adult years, but later they regained the close relationship they had growing up in Sioux City, Iowa. The two columns differed in style. Ann Landers responded to questioners with homey, detailed advice. Abby’s replies were often flippant one-liners. She willingly expressed views that she realized would bring protests. In a 1998 interview she remarked: “Whenever I say a kind word about gays, I hear from people, and some of them are damn mad. People throw Leviticus, Deuteronomy and other parts of the Bible to me. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve always been compassionate toward gay people.”Ann Landers died in 2002. Dear Abby is written today Phillips' daughter, Jeanne.
Labels: newspapers, obituary, writers
Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:
| Daily Buddhist Wisdom | |||
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Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 18, 2013
Body in Practice
In
a sense, all of Buddhist practice takes place here, in this most
intimate realm: here, in the family, shoulder to shoulder with fellow
workers, beside each other on the cushion. Even alone in a cave, there
is no way out of the sense object we call the body. We meet each other
face to face, and so have all our teachers and ancestors met each other.
In this way have all the Buddhas taught. Hand to sweating hand.
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- Sallie Tisdale, "Washing Out Emptiness"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 19th, 2013
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Thursday, January 17, 2013
Via 2012 Healing the Planet 2012 / FB:
2012 Healing the Planet 2012 shared a photo:
"To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~
With Bows of Gratefulness to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States:
Once again
on Facebook and other venues, there have been a number of interesting
discussions about GLBT people and their incorporation in the Bahá’í Faith.
Unfortunately nothing is new – the conservatives continue to point out to those of us who already know that the writings say this or that, and appear to have free reign to spew their nonsense (essentially reminding us that we are not welcome). Though they will never really say so, because hiding their disgraceful homophobia behind a wall of the Sacred Writings, appears to give them power and weight. Instead they increasingly engage readers in the same tired discourse related to why the Faith cannot change (which I interpret why they do not want it to change). Meanwhile most of us GLBT folks, friends and family try to engage in other possibilities, trying to show that many other religious communities have found a way to ignore the very same teachings, and are welcoming GLBT people. But alas…
Unfortunately nothing is new – the conservatives continue to point out to those of us who already know that the writings say this or that, and appear to have free reign to spew their nonsense (essentially reminding us that we are not welcome). Though they will never really say so, because hiding their disgraceful homophobia behind a wall of the Sacred Writings, appears to give them power and weight. Instead they increasingly engage readers in the same tired discourse related to why the Faith cannot change (which I interpret why they do not want it to change). Meanwhile most of us GLBT folks, friends and family try to engage in other possibilities, trying to show that many other religious communities have found a way to ignore the very same teachings, and are welcoming GLBT people. But alas…
All of this
has allowed me to recognize the “wisdom” of the National Spiritual Assembly of
the United States in removing
my rights as a Bahá’í. In some unintended way, they have given me the opportunity
to speak out fearlessly (what do I have to loose now?); investigate alternative
truths and embrace Buddhism; to really come to question the need for organized religion
at all; and even for the first time in my life question the actual existence of
god him/herself…
This officially
sanctioned homophobia by the Bahá’í leadership and majority of the Bahá’ís
themselves, was for me, the final nail in the coffin --no women on the UHJ was a major one, birth control,
length of your hair, and some other weird and funky rules the Aqdas appears to
be ready to implement -- that until then I was willing to forgo, and I like
others accepted the official answer for etc… but now seeing that the shunning of
science, reason and any sense of compassion for GLBT people is official, my concerns
for all sorts of other oddities in the Faith opened up. And the Faith looks like a cult or at best, silly,
irrelevant and terribly sad…
To be honest,
before having been defrocked, I was probably headed this way anyway… I had pretty much
had it with the Bahá’ís in my community. I had made a couple of visits to the
Shrines in Israel to pray and reflect
and was treated coldly. Their officially sanctioned homophobia accelerated
a process that I rather think was underway within anyway. So ian a funny way, their disgraceful
act of showing me the door only allowed me to escape their cage. A Fulbright research trip to Nepal and encounter with the
Sacramento Buddhist Mediation Group confirmed what I was looking for -- a home,
a refuge a sangha, that no Bahá’í Community has ever offered me.
Removing my
status as a member of the Bahá’í community unless I undergo some sort of treatment
and divorce my husband, I think was intended to be a form of punishment for being
a happy, open, and honest gay man. But I
rather think it has had the opposite effect, it has liberated me, made hundreds
of people I know and love turn away from a religion that once held such promise,
that once was held up to be progressive, loving and tolerant, and has shown the
world that the Faith actually is no better than many of the other homophobic religions
or cults it seeks to compete with.
So it is I
offer bows of gratefulness to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of
the United States;
may they liberate more and more people as time goes on!
Namaste!
Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:
| Daily Buddhist Wisdom | |||
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Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma January 17, 2013
Our Highest Intentions
No
matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can always set our
compass to our highest intentions in the present moment. Perhaps it is
nothing more than being in a heated conversation with another person and
stopping to take a breath and ask yourself, 'What is my highest
intention in this moment?' If you can have enough awareness to take this
small step, your heart will give you an answer that will take the
conversation in a different, more positive direction.
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- Jack Kornfield, "Set the Compass of Your Heart"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 18th, 2013
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