Via Daily Dharma

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The Pleasure of Foolishness | May 5, 2014

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Being the fool is not the same as acting the fool: you can’t decide to be playful, or foolish, for an hour a day, as if it were yet another task to add to your campaign of self-improvement. It’s rather the result of a relaxation of the rules and goals that you normally run your life by. The pleasure of foolishness lies in large part in the absence of self-consciousness; in the self-forgetting that comes in a moment of abandon. 

 

—Roger Housden, “A Fool’s Bargain”

Via Daily Dharma

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Nothing to Protect | May 4, 2014

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Our fundamental problems are our ignorance and ego-grasping. We grasp at our identity as being our personality, memories, opinions, judgments, hopes, fears, chattering away—all revolving around this me me me me. This creates the idea of an unchanging permanent self at the center of our being, which we have to satisfy and protect. This is an illusion.

—Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, “No Excuses”

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Via Dialy Dharma

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Accept Discomfort, Prevent Torment | May 3, 2014

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You eliminate an enormous amount of suffering by concentrating on the suffering that is actually present instead of creating more with your thinking. It is the difference between discomfort and torment.

—Larry Rosenberg, “When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Bites”

 

Via Daily Dharma

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Entering the Lotus | May 1, 2014

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Truly entering the gate—truly connecting to the Buddha's teaching—is to directly experience that there is no inside and outside. This is not just an idea: you can't understand it from the outside. Having entered, though, don't think you are inside and others are still outside. Everyone enters with you. 

 

—Michael Wenger, “Entering the Lotus”

 

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One Sees Deathlessness | April 30, 2014

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Nothing exists except in relation to another thing. In the relation, and not in the things, or illusory definiteness of things, one sees deathlessness. 

 

—Leonard Michaels, “The Wheel”

 

Via Daily Dharma

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Live in Joy | April 29, 2014

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When we are not attached to who we think we are, life can move through us, playing us like an instrument. Understanding how everything is in continual transformation, we release our futile attempts to control circumstances. When we live in this easy connection with life, we live in joy. 

 

—James Baraz, “Lighten Up!”

 

Via Daily Dharma

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Balancing Act | April 28, 2014

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We’ve all got some balancing act going. Maybe we juggle clarity and criticism; or it could be devotion and credulity, warmth and vagueness, energy and rivalry, precision and a need to control. We may struggle to cultivate one and suppress the other, but sometimes all it takes is a willingness to let go of our patterns as soon as we recognize them, and to stay open to whatever comes next. 

 

—Pamela Gayle White, “Walking the Walk”

 

JMG HomoQuotable - John Aravosis

"It was only a few weeks ago that America was lecturing the gay community about its intolerance for intolerance, for objecting to a bigot (in fact, an anti-gay activist, Brendan Eich) running a major American corporation (in this case, the Mozilla Foundation). Republicans, including gay conservatives, were particularly upset that anyone would judge a man’s job performance, especially the man running a company, by his personal animus towards minorities, many of whom would be his own employees. So long as he didn’t discriminate against his own employees, he was free to be a bigot, they told us. Now, they’re all eating crow. Today, even conservatives are saying (on CNN) that the NBA simply must investigate whether the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, Donald Sterling, made racist remarks to his girlfriend, who is black and Mexican. Apparently, Donald Sterling made the mistake of buying a basketball team rather than taking over a high-tech company." - John Aravosis, writing for AmericaBlog.

Labels: Brendan Eich, Donald Sterling, LGBT rights, Los Angeles, Mozilla, NBA, Proposition 8, racism, sports

Reposted from Joe Jervis

NOM's Latest Failure - April 28 MNW

How Should Gay People Engage With Bigots? A Straight Man Explains.

Pluralism fetishist Conor Friedersdorf has been on a tear over at the Atlantic in recent days, inveighing his heart out about why we shouldn’t “punish” people like Brendan Eich, the former CEO of Mozilla, who have actively hurt other people through their at this point ridiculous opposition to same-sex marriage and full civil equality for gay folks more generally. Instead, he and similarly minded members of the high-school debate team suggest, we should “try [our] best to criticize [our] interlocutor's position, not their person,” in order to “preserve the possibility of dialogue, and change hearts rather than shutting mouths.” Since I recently suggested that folks like Eich “simply shut up” in recognition of the fact that, while they are constitutionally entitled to their unique and special anti-gay feelings, they are no longer welcome to express them in the public sphere with the expectation of being taken seriously (or allowed high-profile jobs), it goes without saying that Friedersdorf and I don’t quite see eye-to-eye on this issue. 

However, since I know that he is a gay ally (he is sure to assert his ally-ship at least once in each paragraph he writes), I do not want Friedersdorf to shut up. I do, though, wish he would think a bit more about whether his idealistic “hearts and minds” model of social change makes sense beyond the scale of personal relationships—and more important, for whom. As a starting point, let’s take on the question of what distinguishes gross bigotry, which I think Friedersdorf would agree we should treat with some amount of social stigma, from a reasonable political disagreement in which we should want to persuade the other side of the merits of our position. To be specific, in the Eich case, Friedersdorf has indicated that he would have had no qualms with the ouster if the former CEO had, say, sent out a company memo with the subject line “Attn: Faggots. Stop being so gay with each other”—that would be unquestionably bigoted. But a quiet donation of $1,000 to the Prop 8 campaign (ostensibly) in the name of defending some arbitrary, procreation-based definition of marriage doesn’t cross the line; that’s a person we should try to engage. To summarize: Directly saying that you don’t like the idea of two dudes loving on each other is bigoted, but using your checkbook to try to keep them from doing so as honest men is, if unsavory, rational enough. What are the special qualities of making a campaign contribution or voting for a marriage ban that makes those acts any less bigoted than punching me in my faggot face? Is it that they are quiet and semi-private, such that if I’m not looking over your shoulder I might not even notice? Is it that your intentions are supposedly based on ideological principles or traditional understandings and so you can’t be accused of personal malice? Or is it that, in a fit of altruism, you feel compelled to help prevent the sinner from further enjoying his sin? Even if I believed that any of these justifications could exist without the taint of homophobia (I sincerely doubt it), their function in the realm of laws and social conventions is still homophobic. Indeed, there’s something here of Chief Justice John Roberts’ fantastical thinking that only a direct bribe counts as political corruption—if he hasn’t committed a clear hate crime, Friedersdorf doesn’t think we should “punish” with “stigma” a person who is nonetheless hurting gay people. To the contrary, he is resolute in his view that it is possible to oppose gay marriage without actually harboring anti-gay animus and that in this fancy mental footwork, opposition to gay marriage is distinguished from opposition to something like miscegenation, its most obvious historical analog. In a consideration of the comparison, Friedersdorf argues that while the resistance to interracial marriage was based solely on white supremacy (bad), objectors to gay marriage are capable of taking their stand purely in the realm of religion-based, “traditional” definitions of marriage without rejecting gay people or gay sex at all (tolerable). However, even a cursory look at the history of miscegenation belies this distinction. 

Court documents from the period regularly cite religious definitions of marriage as the primary justification for keeping the races separate, and President Harry Truman, a strong advocate for integration otherwise, objected to miscegenation because it “ran counter to the teaching of the Bible.” (For more on the supreme aptness of the comparison, check out James M. Oleske Jr.’s paper on the legal academy’s response to each issue.) Of course, Friedersdorf is right to say that these arguments simply gave cover to plain old basic white supremacy—so why can’t he see that “traditional marriage” arguments are functioning the exact same way with regard to heterosexual/procreative supremacy? As Oleske puts it, “though there may be some religious people in the pro-gay-sex/anti-gay-marriage category … the primary religious argument against gay rights in America has been rooted in biblical passages concerning sex, not marriage.” The logic just doesn’t hold.

Make the jump here to read the full article
 

Slate's Lowder Has Had Enough of Straight-Splaining

"[W]hat Friedersdorf's privilege as a heterosexual leads him to miss is the fact that actual gay people--people who have been sexually and emotionally traumatized since childhood, who have had to listen to people like him civilly debate their worth as human beings for decades, who have more often been made to account for themselves than been able to demand an accounting of the violations committed against them--may very well be just a little too exhausted with bigotry of all stripes to engage in well-mannered chit-chat. "Indeed, it seems the height of privilege blindness to schoolmarm gays about how to engage their aggressors when Friedersdorf, in point of fact, has no idea what omnipresent psychological torture feels like. If he did, he might better understand why many of us can't really get too exercised about a rich straight dude losing a gig because his company found him a mismatch with its culture; why, in the grand scheme of things, that truly minor incident might not seem like such an Issue of Vital Importance to the Republic. "If he did, he might get how maddening it is to see your life reduced to another in a list of issues that are acceptable cocktail chatter this weekend." -- Slate writer J. Bryan Lowder, slamming (straight) Atlantic writer Conor Friedersdorf for his assertion that society shouldn't "punish" homophobes like Brendan Eich, but should instead treat them with "tolerance." (*cough* bullshit *cough*) Lowder's piece is a must-read. Click here to read it in full. 

Read more at http://www.bilerico.com/2014/04/slates_lowder_has_had_enough_of_straight-splaining.php#7BdrfXOZTQqzq2UK.99

Via Daily Dharma

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Live in Awareness | April 27, 2014

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Although all phenomena are going through the various appearances of birth, abiding, changing, and dying, the true person doesn’t become a victim of sadness, happiness, love, or hate. She lives in awareness as an ordinary person, whether standing, walking, lying down, or sitting. 

 

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “Simply Stop”

 

Via JMG: HRC Unveils Southern Initiative

Via press release:

Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) announced Project One America (POA), a comprehensive campaign to dramatically expand LGBT equality in the South through permanent campaigns in Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. This substantial and lasting initiative—with a three year budget of $8.5 million and a dedicated staff of 20—is the largest coordinated campaign for LGBT equality in the history of the South.

“Right now, this country is deeply divided into two Americas—one where LGBT equality is nearly a reality and the other where LGBT people lack the most fundamental measures of equal citizenship. Project One America is an unparalleled effort to close that gap, and it opens up a bold, new chapter in the LGBT civil rights movement of this generation. In this grand struggle for equality, we can’t write off anyone, anywhere,” said HRC President and Arkansas native Chad Griffin.

Project One America is the very first campaign of its kind to work exclusively on LGBT equality in Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas—where there are no non-discrimination protections for LGBT people at the state or local level in employment, housing or public accommodations, and where each state’s constitution expressly prohibits marriage equality.

“Despite the legal landscape, it’s long past time that the country stopped treating the South like the ‘finish line’ for equality. HRC has more than 57,000 members and supporters in these states, and there are millions more fair-mined people ready to stand on the right side of history,” Griffin said.

The Associated Press has more:

A national organization is launching a three-year, $8.5 million campaign to promote LGBT equality and push for new legal protections in three Southern states dominated by conservative politics and religion and known for resistance to change: Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi.

Decades after groups used boycotts, marches, sit-ins, pickets and mass rallies to end legalized racial segregation and push for equal protection for blacks, the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign is planning a new kind of civil rights movement. It's one based on using chats and front-porch visits between relatives and friends to foster an environment more welcoming toward people of all sexual orientations.

The idea is simple, and it's borne out in polls: People are less likely to oppose expanded rights and acceptance if they know and care for someone who's gay. Activists hope that's particularly true in a region that values hospitality.

Labels: activism, Alabama, Arkansas, HRC, LGBT rights, marriage equality, Mississippi, the South

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via Daily Dharma

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Don’t Strive for Escape | April 26, 2014

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The world of worries we wish to escape from in the beginning of Buddhist practice is found to be enlightenment itself in the end. We don't understand this, of course, and so we keep striving for a distant, idealized kind of Buddhahood, only to reach its threshold and be turned back the way we came.

 

—Clark Strand, “Worry Beads”

Via The Bilerico Project:

While a growing number of states are recognizing same-sex marriages, in some jurisdictions blatant homophobia remains enshrined in the laws of the land. Even basic freedoms cherished by all Americans, such as the right to assembly and free speech, are challenged -- all under the guise of protecting "traditional values."

 

Surprisingly Strident Anti-LGBT Laws Still In Force in America

Putin's Russia takes a lot of heat for its regressive, homophobic laws, but anti-gay laws similar to those in Russia remain in force in...

 

bilerico.com|By Guest Blogger - The Bilerico Project

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