Flower of the Day - 08/04/14

“Desire and ambition generate unrest. All anxiety and the compulsion to do are symptoms of desire and ambition. One only frees oneself of a symptom by eliminating the cause, which is only eliminated by understanding the cause. Self-investigation generates this comprehension. By investigating the causes, one will discover that one is obsessed with success. But I ask you: what is success for you? Is it reaching a certain level in your life? And once you reach this level, what do you do? You want more. This is the nature of desire.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Self Disappears | August 4, 2014

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When we are freed from the reactive patterns sprung from the boundaries we live by—good and bad; love and hate—we are not the self we were before. And when the boundaries themselves dissolve, self as we understand it disappears.

 

- Anne C. Klein, “The Four Immeasurables”

 

Via Bilerico: Nepal Regressing Dangerously on LGBT Rights

Sunil Babu Pant, the first openly gay politician in the mountainous south Asian nation of Nepal and the head of the country's only LGBT rights group, is warning that the country is at risk of a dangerous backslide on LGBT rights inspired by similar reversals in India, Russia, and some African nations.

In an op-ed for the Nepali Times, Pant writes:

The Law Ministry, under the NC's Narhari Acharya, is trying to enact punitive laws that re-criminalise LGBT relationships, completely overturning previous Supreme Court decisions. After the first Constituent Assembly was dissolved in 2012, there is not a single person from the third gender community in the bureaucracy, ministry, parliament or any other decision-making level...
This new draft provision of civil and criminal codes prepared by the Law Ministry not only defines homosexuality, but also oral and anal sex among heterosexuals, as 'unnatural' acts. The definition of rape is narrowed only to women. The notion that only men can be rapists and only women can be victims comes from a deep-rooted patriarchal mindset. These notions seem to be inspired by conservative reversals in India, some western and African countries...
All Nepalis who believe in equality and tolerance must raise their voices. The right to justice of all marginalised peoples is under threat from a regressive state. They are going to be excluded, margninalised, discriminated against, criminalised and demonized.

Pant tells Gay Star News that the Law Ministry is preparing to push the measures through parliament after an attempt to do so in 2011 failed. The proposed laws would punish gay sex with three years' imprisonment, which is a tougher penalty than the one-year jail sentence attached to gay sex before it was decriminalized in 2007.

"We are really concerned about this attempt of taking Nepal back to draconian era after so much progress we made. Unbelievable that the government is going all against the Supreme Court decisions on LGBTI rights and other minority and marginalized people's rights in Nepal," he said.

Read more at http://www.bilerico.com/2014/08/nepal_regressing_dangerously_on_lgbt_rights.php#DGFS5pAOB6jYbLeu.99

Marriages In California Reach Near Record High w/ Legalization Of Same-Sex Marriages

 

 

Looks like same-sex marriage is actually saving the institution of marriage in California! Marriage had been on the decline in the state and now it's on the rise with the legalization of same-sex marriage. 

The Sacramento Bee reports:

It was looking like another tough year for the California wedding industry. Through June of 2013, the number of new marriages statewide had fallen by almost 4,000, or 3 percent, from 2012.

Then the Supreme Court overturned Proposition 8 and allowed gay marriages in California.

After that decision, from July to December, the number of weddings grew by 27,000, or almost 25 percent, compared to the same period in 2012.

In Sacramento County, the number of weddings increased by 1,150, or 27 percent, during the last six months of 2013 compared to 2012.

Total weddings statewide for 2013 eclipsed all recent years except 2008 - the last prior time that gays were allowed to marry.

NOM's crying in a corner somewhere.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203966223137304&set=a.1168773220877.26138.1274340694&type=1&theater

Via FB:

Via Daily Dharma

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Willing to Look | August 3, 2014

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If we are willing to look long enough in the mirror of zazen [seated meditation], past seeing ourselves as objects, we have the potential to see that we are nature itself—we are born and will die, just as the trees, flowers, and animals in the wild do.

 

- Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “The Hidden Lamp”

 

Flower of the Day: 08/03/14

“The greatest addiction of the human being may be to dream. This addiction is something truly mysterious, since it is an energy that steals away one’s awareness, but there is pleasure in this. One feels pleasure in dreaming, so one wants to continue to dream. But there comes a time when one finds oneself at a crossroads, because one is walking the path of enlightenment, and the only way to continue on this journey is to stop dreaming.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

New Civil Marriage Map

 

http://middlingamerica.blogspot.com.br/2014/07/new-civil-marriage-map.html

Via Occupy Democrats / FB:

Via JMG: HOUSTON: Activists Say Valid Petition Signatures Fall Short Of Number Needed To Place LGBT Rights Repeal On Ballot

From the Houston Chronicle:

City of Houston officials plan to announce Monday whether a petition submitted by opponents of the city's new nondiscrimination ordinance contains enough valid signatures to force a vote on repealing the measure this November. Opponents claimed to have gathered and verified 31,000 names, but City Attorney David Feldman said Friday many of the more than 5,000 pages fall short of legal requirements set out in the city charter. The final tally likely will be closer than many expected to the minimum threshold of 17,269 signatures, Feldman said. "There's an issue there with respect to the validity of pages," Feldman said. "But right now I don't know what the final count is." Feldman provided no numbers, but said his staff had found many invalid pages, most notably because some of the circulators who collected stacks of signatures were not qualified Houston voters, as required by law. In such cases, all the signatures the circulator gathered would be void, Feldman said. Many names on valid pages also did not belong to registered Houston voters, Feldman said, and some signatures were gathered before June 3, when the ordinance was published and the petition drive could begin.

From JMG reader Mike Craig of Out & Equal Houston:

When the Houston Area Pastors Council turned in 7 boxes of petitions to the City on July 3rd, they boasted of gathering more than 31,000 valid signatures. An independent group of concerned citizens has spent the last three weeks independently reviewing each page of that repeal petition in an effort to provide additional accountability to the referendum process. This was a grass-roots effort involving more than 100 volunteers who communicated via social media and participated in a crowd-sourced effort that uncovered fatal flaws with what was turned in. Having finished this exhaustive review, the HERO Petition Review Working Group concluded that the petitioners did not, in fact, turn in enough valid signatures in order to place this issue on the ballot.

The petition rules are really quite simple:
- Petitions must be properly notarized.
- Petitions must have been signed & notarized between June 3rd and July 3rd.
- Petition signers must be registered City of Houston voters.
- Petition circulators must be identifiable and registered City of Houston voters.
- Petition circulators must have signed the petition, not just the notary affirmation, sometime between June 3rd and July 3rd.

Based on these simple criteria, this independent review showed only 16,499 valid signatures were turned in. Additional scrutiny can only lower that number further. A full report detailing these findings has been provided to the City Secretary, City Attorney and Mayor. While it is our hope that the City’s own determination will come to a similar conclusion, we understand that it is ultimately the legal & statutory responsibility of the City Secretary and we will abide by that office’s findings. Should the city come to the same conclusion that our group did, we fully expect the anti-HERO organizers to sue -- and likely drag us to court as well. If the city does certify the petition effort, I believe that it will be by a razor thin margin -- and as I've said before, HERO supporters will work to make sure that this effort is defeated at the ballot box if and when it gets there.

Houston voters rejected similar LGBT rights bills in 1985 and 2001, but local activists are confident that they will prevail should the issue be forced to a public vote for a third time.

Labels: Houston, LGBT rights, Mike Craig, Texas

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Flower of the Day: 08/02/14

“At a certain moment, one’s ability to forgive and love will need to be illuminated. For this to take place, one must renounce the game of accusations, because accusations are what keep our hearts closed. If one’s heart is closed, investigate this, and you will find that there is an accusation.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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The Vow Behind Generosity | August 2, 2014

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Every act of generosity reminds us of the possibility that we might actually live the bodhisattva's vow, the vow to engage in everyday life as though the well-being of others is just as important as our own.

 

- Dale S. Wright, "The Bodhisattva's Gift"

 

[Ensinamentos Budistas 326]

SF Gay Men's Chorus Celebrates the End of Prop 8

A violência invisível - Monja Coen Roshi

Publicado em 05/05/2013

 

Palestra do ciclo "A Banalização do Mal, Ensaios Sobre Fenômenos Líquidos" da Escola Paulista de Psicanálise. Realizada no auditório da Livraria Martins Fontes de São Paulo. Neste encontro a Monja Coen Roshi, missionária da Tradição Zen Sotoshu do Japão, abordou o tema: "A violência invisível".

Flower of the Day: 08/01/14

“At some point, one tires of walking in the circles of ignorance, because one becomes aware that one’s actions generate more and more suffering each time. One sees oneself stuck in the same place, and feels a sincere willingness to go beyond this place and to free oneself of all lies and self-deceit. So one says: ‘I want to know what my responsibility is in this game. Why do I keep repeating the same negative situations? Why am I always falling in the same hole?’ At this moment, one commits oneself to the truth, as much as it may hurt one’s vanity.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Walt Disney - Ferdinand The Bull - 1938

Via Daily Dharma

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Ignorance is King | August 1, 2014

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Ignorance is like the king, and clinging attachment and hostility are his ministers. To rid ourselves of the king's minions we must get rid of the king. And so it is of greatest importance to identify ignorance properly.

 

- Geshe Sonam Rinchen, "Like a Pig In..." 

Via Blue Nation Review / FB: