Flower of the Day: 09/23/14

“I know that many people who are with me are praying for others who are ready, that they may wake up. This is a spiritual current for awakening. It is a vigil happening around the globe. This vigil is made up of current of souls that are mature enough to understand that they need to pray for their brothers and sisters.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

Touch the Core of Time | September 23, 2014 Through spiritual practice we can go beyond our egoistic point of view. We can touch the core of time, see the whole world in a moment, and understand time in deep relationship with all beings. Then we cannot be isolated and cold people. We become beautiful and warm people, appreciating and helping all beings. - Dainin Katagiri, "Time Revisited"

Flower of the Day: 09/22/14

“The remedy for all wounds is understanding why you had to go through a particular situation that hurt you. Emotional wounds are like thorns stuck in the flesh, and sometimes they get infected. This infection is when bitterness and skepticism develop regarding the possibility of being happy. This bitterness can sometimes turn into revenge, and can activate vicious circles that act in different ways, but always generate suffering and destruction. However, the wound should be seen as a teacher, because it is always teaching you about the mystery of life: it is teaching you to forgive.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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A Never-departing Shadow | September 22, 2014

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All experience is preceded by mind,
Led by mind,
Made by mind.
Speak or act with a peaceful mind,
And happiness follows,
Like a never-departing shadow. 

 

- The Buddha, "'We are what we think." 

 

Via Daily Dharma

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A Tree Needs Roots | September 21, 2014

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In Buddhism, we study and reflect on the dharma; and then, fully blending what we have understood with our mind, we practice resting evenly in meditation. In the beginning, a tree needs strong roots. Similarly, what is most important for meditation is calm abiding. 

- Ogyen Trinley Dorje, "Calm Abiding"

Via Daily Dharma

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If We Could Let Go| September 20, 2014

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The very act of clinging causes mental distress—have you ever noticed that longing hurts? Moreover, the exertions are futile since grasping cannot extend the life of pleasure, not even by a nanosecond. As for unpleasant sensations—in truth, they disappear in a moment, too. But when you feel averse to them, the pain doubles. It’s like trying to remove a thorn in your foot by piercing the skin with a second thorn. If we could let go, the mind wouldn't suffer. 

 

- Cynthia Hatcher, "What's So Great About Now?"

 

Flower of the Day: 09/19/14

“Absolutely everything that happens has a spiritual significance, because life is a spiritual adventure. But of course there are more meaningful moments and less meaningful ones. The greater the change that life brings you, the greater the spiritual significance you will unveil. For example, even if you were satisfied with your job and end up losing it, take this as a gift from existence that is helping you to align yourself with your dharma, your greater purpose.”

Sri Prem Baba

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No Thought of Self | September 19, 2014

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Bow not for something—to get something for yourself. Bow to empty yourself, to repent and clean out your mind. With no thought of self, all benefit. With a thought of self, all suffer. 

 

- Heng Sure, "Bowing" 

 

Flower of the Day: 09/18/14

“Some people are stuck in the game of accusations, but are not the slightest bit aware of it. Their lives are a disaster, but they cannot see where they are putting themselves. The person may believe they are a saint, or at least a really good person, but doesn’t stop complaining and speaking ill of others. This negative energy turns against them and this becomes a vicious circle that can only be broken if there is space for friendship, cooperation, union and most importantly self-responsibility.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

Compassion Isn’t Incidental | September 18, 2014 When there isn’t enough compassion being generated (either for ourselves as individuals or in the world in general), we become unbalanced; we suffer from it as we would from a lack of fresh air and clean water. It is not an incidental element, it is mandatory. We will not survive without it.    - Patricia Anderson, "Real or Pretend?"

Flower of the Day: 09/17/14

“As you evolve along the journey, you start to see beyond the veil of illusion and to perceive that everything is part of the divine game. Everything that happens is a chance for you to free yourself of karmas. Even negative situations are the manifestation of divine mercy, because they are opportunities that teach you to overcome attachments and your identification with the ego. They’re an opportunity for you to fulfill the objective of life, which is to experience unity within multiplicity.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

The Secret of Zen | September 17, 2014 "The secret of Zen is just two words: not always so." - Shunryu Suzuki, "Mindfulness at Moonshine Hollow"

Via Daily Dharma

Opening to Vulnerability | September 16, 2014 Relationships work to open us up to ourselves. But first we have to admit how much we don’t want that to happen, because that means opening ourselves to vulnerability. Only then will we begin the true practice of letting ourselves experience all those feelings of vulnerability that we first came to practice to escape.    - Barry Magid, “No Gain”

Flower of the Day: 09/15/14

“Don’t expect the violence out there to cease: that is an illusion. The world will always invite you to enter into warfare. The question is whether or not you will accept the invitation. It isn’t always possible to be out there in the world relating to others without getting identified with something. When this happens, allow yourself to withdraw from the world; but know that at some point you will have to go back out there. The key is to be willing to give of yourself, really wanting to see others happy. It starts with this higher-level study of acting as a channel for generosity and sharing your silence and love with others, even if they don’t know that you are doing it, or if they consciously don’t want you to – or even worse: if they get angry about it.”

Sri Prem Baba

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For Whom Do We Practice? | September 15, 2014

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We must ask: for whom do we practice? We see the paradox of the self in the world, focusing inwardly in order to manifest outwardly. The inward look is the outward view. Ultimately we practice for others as our inward polishing manifests itself as good action in our activities. 

 

- Eido Frances Carney, "The Way of Ryokan" 

 

Via Daily Dharma

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More Than Heartfelt | September 14, 2014

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The bodhisattva approaches the work of relieving others’ difficulties with as much ardency as we might pursue or protect the things that we value most highly and desire most strongly. His motivation is more than heartfelt; it is urgent, passionate. 

 

- Manjusra, "An Everyday Aspiration" 

 

Flower of the Day: 09/14/14

“Suffering catches hold of us through comparison and desire, which drag down our consciousness. With the slightest lack of care, we begin to compare and desire things, which places us in the labyrinth of psychological time. We go from the past to the future, and from the future to the past, but we are never in the present. When we compare ourselves to others, we start wanting to be what they are or to have what they have. This is one of the roots of human misery. When we can observe all that is transitory without getting identified with it through desire or comparison, we will have discovered the way out of the labyrinth.” 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Pure and Bright | September 13, 2014

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If you [only] keep away from samsara and dwell in real permanence, your eternal Light will appear, thereby causing your organs, sense data, consciousness and [mad] mind to vanish simultaneously. The objects of your thinking process are [polluting] dust and the feelings that arise from your consciousness are impurities; if both are kept away, your Dharma eye will appear pure and bright instantly. 

 

- The Buddha, "When Rahula Rang the Bell" 

 

International Law and the Uncertainty of Rights for LGBT People

For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people the law is a paradox. The law can operate as an instrument of repression and control, but also as a tool for resistance and liberation. We find fragments of our collective histories in court records. Here we find a sorry history of people in countries across the world convicted of loitering, sodomy, cross-dressing or so-called "crimes against nature."

For a vulnerable minority, and an unpopular one, domestic and international law has proven to be an indispensable tool, sometimes the only tool, for LGBT people to claim a space in the world. Two decades ago in a 1994 case, the UN Human Rights Committee in Toonen v. Australia asserted the right to privacy for same-sex consenting adults under international law. In 1998, South African courts repealed the Immorality Act and five years later, in 2003, Lawrence v. Texas saw the remaining sodomy laws in the US declared unconstitutional.

Yet some 76 countries around the world maintain discriminatory LGBT laws. Britain exported its sodomy laws to the empire, where many remain in force. These laws not only hold the threat of arrest and prosecution, but have other profound implications for LGBT people as well. Even in the many countries where sodomy laws are seldom enforced, such as India and Uganda, they still symbolize national discrimination against LGBT people.

Human Rights Watch has reported these laws are routinely used for blackmail and extortion, in settings as diverse as Kyrgyzstan, Jamaica and Uganda. Such laws contribute to a climate of prejudice and hostility in which violence occurs with impunity. The passage of the anti-propaganda laws in Russia led to a peak in violence against LGBT people. In Nigeria, the immediate effect following the enactment of draconian legislation was mob violence against gay men. The law in these places means that LGBT people must live a shadow existence under the threat of violence.

What seldom gets talked about is the psychological impact on individuals. The archaic language of these laws; "the abominable crime of buggery" as the Jamaican law reads, the more delicate language of "the love that dare not speak its name" or vague reference to "carnal knowledge against the order of nature," casts a shadow over desire and the most personal expression of human intimacy. Read through the judgment of the Indian Supreme Court ruling that upheld the sodomy law: the language of family and kinship is reserved for heterosexual marriage, while for homosexuals the language is one of body parts engaged in sexual acts.

A Nigerian activist in Abuja recently told me a story about how, when she visited London, someone had asked her about the situation back home. She said she instinctively withdrew to a corner and spoke in hushed tones, before thinking, "What am I doing?" She had already internalized a fear of being noticed. What cumulative effect does this have on self-esteem and self-worth?

Sodomy laws have historically been used for political purposes. In France in 1307, King Philip IV brought sodomy accusations against the Order of the Knights Templar and dissolved it. The reason - he was heavily indebted to the Knights at the time. In England, King Henry VIII promulgated the Buggery Act in 1533 then promptly accused Roman Catholic monks of sodomy and used that as an excuse to confiscate their monastic lands. He also disposed of his opponent Lord Hungerford by executing him for sodomy in 1540.

Such tactics are still in use. The progress, passage and fate of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Act has as much to do with political intrigue within the ruling party and President Yoweri Museveni's fluctuating popularity as it has to do with homosexuality. Vladimir Putin wears a mantle of traditional and family values as political armor that works for him domestically, and also internationally as he takes the stage on an anti-Western ticket. In Malaysia, the political opposition is kept in check by recurrent accusations of sodomy against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. And in Zimbabwe we can tell an election is coming just by monitoring the level of homophobic rhetoric emanating from the ruling party.

Anti-gay laws are seldom just about homosexuality. Homophobia is both a reality and a ruse. Increasingly it is being used as an instrument of political repression. Laws that ban "propaganda," "promotion," or support of LGBT groups are so vague and sweeping that they threaten fundamental freedoms of association and expression. And it is not only LGBT groups that are at risk. The recent wave of anti-LGBT legislation that seeks to outlaw not only sexual practice but also public expression of identity is almost invariably accompanied by broader attacks on activism, on political opposition and on the ability of local organizations to receive foreign funding.

This is playing itself out at a national level, but it is also evident internationally. At the UN, Russia is leading an aggressive charge against the rights of LGBT people under the rubric of "traditional values." Speaking on the crisis in Ukraine at the UN Human Rights Council in March, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov caricatured recent advances in basic human rights for marginalized people as resulting from "[s]upporters of ultraliberal approaches, supporting all-permissiveness and hedonism, requesting a revision of moral values."

Similarly with a push for more limited language on "the family" and an emphasis on the rights of the family as an entity, rather than the individuals who make up the family, the Russian government and its allies are pushing for a concept of human rights that protects the group over the individual. This rhetoric and practice creates a false dichotomy and pits "tradition" against human rights. LGBT rights are the wedge issue, but at stake are the basic principles of international human rights law: that human rights are universal, inalienable and indivisible.

So we should not fool ourselves into thinking that this is only about the rights claims of a vulnerable minority. The well-known adage that the way a society treats its minorities is a good measure of its democracy rings particularly true. What seems distinct about this particular time in our history is the way in which the rights of LGBT people have become a lightning rod for competing visions of the world.

Using homophobia for political ends is as old as the law itself. What has changed is that this is playing itself out on an international level and is becoming the language for articulating two very different visions of the world, one in which human rights are seen as a value to be cherished and upheld, the other in which human rights are seen as a profound threat.

This article was adapted from a speech at a Wilton Park conference.

Make the jump here to read the originial at HRC.org