Via Daily Dharma

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Whose Buddhism? | September 7, 2014

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As America’s middle class withers, fewer will be left to carry on Buddhist practice here. The well-to-do have had no problem making Buddhism work for them. What kind of collective mind this cultivates remains to be seen. Now the most important question regarding the future of Buddhism in America might well be: whose? 

- Brent R. Oliver, "White Trash Buddhist"

Flower of the Day - 09/07/14

“The main characteristic that signifies that God has awakened, that love has awakened in a human being, is selfless giving. Just as a flower spreads its fragrance and beauty, and as the sun gives off heat and light, just as rain moistens the earth and water quenches thirst, so is the essence of human beings to love.”

 
- Sri Prem Baba

Read the complete text >

Flower of the Day: 09/06/14

“On this journey, we easily become enchanted with our minds’ creations and we forget about the power that inhabits us. We forget that life is a mystery. What is this power that gives us life, that inhabits us, that gives us a body to feel through and grants us the adventure of experiencing the world of matter? When we ask ourselves these questions, we can start to smell the fragrance of the mystery. However, we will never understand this mystery through our minds. These answers can only be found in the heart. When human beings begin to ask themselves about the great mystery, they start to transition from the mind to the heart.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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The Basic Irrelevance of Humans | September 6, 2014

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Are monastics and hippies and poets relevant? No, we’re deliberately irrelevant. We live with an ingrained irrelevance which is proper to every human being. The marginal person accepts the basic irrelevance of the human condition, an irrelevance which is manifested above all by the fact of death.

 

- Thomas Merton, “Clouds and Water”

 

Barbra Streisand - Partners Trailer

Via JMG: NPH Has A New Book

From the Amazon description of Neil Patrick Harris' new book:

Sick of deeply personal accounts written in the first person? Seeking an exciting, interactive read that puts the “u” back in “aUtobiography”? Then look no further than Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography! In this revolutionary, Joycean experiment in light celebrity narrative, actor/personality/carbon-based-life-form Neil Patrick Harris lets you, the reader, live his life. You will be born to New Mexico. You will get your big break at an acting camp. You will get into a bizarre confrontation outside a nightclub with actor Scott Caan. Even better, at each critical juncture of your life you will choose how to proceed. You will decide whether to try out for Doogie Howser, M.D. You will decide whether to spend years struggling with your sexuality. You will decide what kind of caviar you want to eat on board Elton John’s yacht. Choose correctly and you’ll find fame, fortune, and true love. Choose incorrectly and you’ll find misery, heartbreak, and a hideous death by piranhas. All this, plus magic tricks, cocktail recipes, embarrassing pictures from your time as a child actor, and even a closing song. Yes, if you buy one book this year, congratulations on being above the American average, and make that book Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography!

Labels: books, gay artists, Neil Patrick Harris

Reposted from Joe Jervis

La Gioconda, adaptando se ao que for requerido...

LA   GIOCONDA

Na véspera da Parada, Igreja Católica lança nota em apoio à comunidade gay

1 de maio de 2014 às 11:13 

A Comissão Justiça e Paz da Arquidiocese de São Paulo publicou nesta quarta-feira (30), uma nota em "defesa da dignidade, da cidadania e da segurança" dos homossexuais. O texto foi publicado às vésperas da 18.ª Parada do Orgulho de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais de São Paulo, que vai acontecer neste domingo (4), na Avenida Paulista.

"Não podemos nos calar diante da realidade vivenciada por esta população, que é alvo do preconceito e vítima da violação sistemática de seus direitos fundamentais, tais como a saúde, a educação, o trabalho, a moradia, a cultura, entre outros", afirma, em nota, a entidade da Igreja Católica.

A comissão diz também que LGBTs "enfrentam diariamente insuportável violência verbal e física, culminando em assassinatos, que são verdadeiros crimes de ódio".

A entidade convida "pessoas de boa vontade e, em particular todos os cristãos, a refletirem sobre essa realidade profundamente injusta das pessoas LGBT e a se empenharem ativamente na sua superação, guiados pelo supremo princípio da dignidade humana".

Ainda de acordo com a nota, o posicionamento da entidade, "fiel à sua missão de anunciar e defender os valores evangélicos e civilizatórios dos direitos humanos, fundamenta-se na Constituição Pastoral Gaudium et Spes, aprovada no Concílio Vaticano II: "As alegrias e esperanças, as tristezas e angústias dos homens de hoje, sobretudo dos pobres e de todos aqueles que sofrem, são também as alegrais e as esperanças, as tristezas e as angústias dos discípulos de Cristo", diz o documento.

O diretor da Comissão Justiça e Paz da arquidiocese, Geraldo Magela Tardelli, afirmou que esta é a primeira vez que a comissão escreve "formalmente" a favor dos homossexuais. "A comissão tem uma missão, segundo D. Paulo Evaristo Ars: 'temos que dar voz aqueles que não tem voz'. Neste momento, o que estamos percebendo é que há um crescimento de violência contra homossexuais, então a gente não pode se omitir em relação a essa violação dos direitos humanos", afirmou o diretor.

Segundo ele, a realização da Parada Gay determinou a divulgação da nota. "Nós achamos que esse era o momento correto de colocar essa nota em circulação. Nós da Igreja estamos engajados na defesa dos direitos humanos e não compactuamos com nenhuma violação, independentemente da cor e da orientação sexual das pessoas", disse Tardelli.

http://www.superpride.com.br/2014/05/na-vespera-da-parada-igreja-catolica-lanca-nota-em-apoio-a-comunidade-gay.html

Via Daily Dharma

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Links of a Chain | September 5, 2014

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When we are young, we should look at and reflect on old people. This is karma, isn’t it? I tried to explain this to the Westerners, that if you discard people, you will also be discarded. When we are old, we should think about young people. When we see old people, we should think about young people. They are connected, like links of a chain. 

 

- Ajahn Chah, "The Gift of Gratitude"

 

Flower of the Day: 09/05/14

“The human race is undergoing a profound change. It is often difficult to know what is personal and what is collective, especially since separation is only an illusion. Some people are already able to see the changes without getting identified with them, since they have already given up control. Suffering is generated by control, which is an instrument of fear. Fear comes from a lack of faith in existence.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via The Advocate Magazine / FB:

JMG Quote Of The Day - Carl Siciliano

"I feel like the LGBT movement has been asleep at the wheel when it comes to this. We've been so focused on laws – changing the laws around marriage equality, changing 'don't ask, don't tell,' getting adoption rights – that we haven't been fighting for economic resources. How many tax dollars do gay people contribute? What percentage of tax dollars comes back to our gay kids? We haven't matured enough as a movement yet that we're looking at the economics of things. There is a psychological reality that when you're an oppressed group whose very existence is under attack, you need to create this narrative about how great it is to be what you are. It's like, 'Leave the repression and the fear behind and be embraced by this accepting community, and suddenly everyone is beautiful and has good bodies and great sex and beautiful furniture, and rah-rah-rah.' And, from day one of the Stonewall Riots, homeless kids were not what people wanted to see. No one wanted to see young people coming out and being cast into destitution. It didn't fit the narrative." - Ali Forney Center founder Carl Siciliano, in a Rolling Stone article on the epidemic of homeless LGBT youth.

Labels: Carl Siciliano, homelessness, LGBT youth

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via Jean Wyllys ; FBÇ

Jean Wyllys's photo.

A partir de hoje, o PSOL 50 - Partido Socialismo e Liberdade começa a divulgar o programa de governo de Luciana Genro, candidata à presidência da República. O programa foi construído coletivamente a partir das diretrizes programáticas lançadas no dia do anúncio da candidatura da Luciana, e será divulgado por eixos.

A Luciana pediu especialmente que o primeiro eixo a ser divulgado fosse o capítulo sobre cidadania e direitos da população LGBT. Esse eixo é apenas um dos vários aspectos, em diferentes temáticas, que estão presentes no plano de governo da Luciana e que vão ser divulgados por ela ao longo dos próximos dias; o fato de eu estar divulgando esteja divulgando este eixo não significa eu me importe apenas com esse aspecto dos programas de governo dos candidatos e das candidatas à presidência..

Eu tenho muito orgulho de ter participado da elaboração desse texto e poder dizer a todos e todas vocês, com absoluta certeza, que o programa de governo da Luciana é o que melhor responde às demandas e necessidades de lésbicas, gays, bissexuais e trans e o que melhor entende a importância da luta contra todas as formas de preconceito, contra o fundamentalismo e pelo estado laico e a igualdade de direitos.
Para Luciana, os direitos humanos não se negociam!

Não deixem de ler o texto completo aqui: http://lucianagenro.com.br/programa/lgbt/
‪#‎LucianaPresidenta50‬
‪#‎JeanWyllys5005‬

Via Daily Dharma

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Present to Rage | September 4, 2014

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Meditation is recommended here not as a way to eradicate our rage but as a way to become fully present to its energies. When you become uncomfortable or frightened, remember that difficult emotions are your most profound teachers. The more we can witness our experiences without judgment, the less suffering we will experience in our lives. 

 

- Ruth King, "Soothing the Hot Coals of Rage"

 

Flower of the Day: 09/04/14

“At some point along your journey, you will need to turn within. In the beginning, you will face many challenges, just as you did when you first made the move to go out into the world. The main challenge during this phase is dealing with loneliness. This can be quite challenging. Still, just like Siddhartha Gautama got frustrated with life in the palace with all of his wealth and left everything behind, when you become frustrated enough with the world, you will find that you are already moving towards the truth.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Quebrando o Tabu FB:

Via Daily Dharma:

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Stinking Bones | September 3, 2014

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To stop the mind and contemplate stillness is a sickness, not Chan meditation. Constant sitting restricts the body—how could it help towards discovering truth? Listen to my verse:

You can sit without lying down from the moment you're born,
But when you die, you'll lie down, never again to sit.
How could you build a solid practice
On a set of stinking bones?! 

- Master Huineng, "Direct and Gradual"

Flower of the Day: 09/03/14

“Every time you create one thing to run away from another, sooner or later what you created will have to undergo some form of transformation. If you generated wealth to flee from poverty, you might need to lose this wealth to free yourself from the fear of being poor, so that you may become truly rich. True wealth comes from trust and plenitude – not from fear. When this transformation knocks on your door, you will start being tested greatly, until you succeed in developing the virtue of trust and move towards surrender.”

Sri Prem Baba

Read the complete satsang from Jun 17, 2011 >>

Via Begin with Yes / FB:

If there was ever a time when the world needed the light of good, kind, compassionate, and loving people, it’s right this very moment. Those around you need your comforting touch, your kind smile of understanding, and your willingness to share what you have with those who have less. The world needs your compassion, your kindness and even your hope. Now is not the time to hold back. Tell the people you love that you love them and do whatever you can to make the world a little less hostile and a little kinder. It’s not just the least we can do; it’s probably all we can do. 

- Paul Boynton "Begin with Yes"

(Photo credit Tod Stevenson)

https://www.facebook.com/beginwithyes/photos/a.328446556646.154561.328440176646/10152438955071647/?type=1&theater