Flower of the Day: 10/02/14

"The first glimpse of God is a deep darkness. This darkness is the unknown that inhabits you, and this encounter with God is a portal to this same unknown part of you. What is unknown makes you fragile and vulnerable. A profound meeting between a more superficial center and a much deeper center of consciousness acts as a mirror that reflects the reality of who you are on all levels. So if you are not mature enough for this encounter with yourself, then you tend to run away from it."

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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A Fathomless Foundation | October 2, 2014

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Buddhism is fundamentally a path of inquiry, a practice of looking at the mind’s tendency to cling, to adhere to opinions, beliefs, memories, emotions, moods. This is a remarkable foundation, because it’s fathomless. For as every moment gives way to the next, we come face to face with an infinite freshness of experience—a freshness that, if we have truly surrendered to the practice, cannot be solidified into a doctrine. 

 

- Noelle Oxenhandler, "Glass of Water, Bare Feet" 

 

Via Daily Dharma

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Body as Illusion | October 1, 2014

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There is no 'body' in the limbs,
But from illusion does the idea spring,
To be affixed to a specific shape—
Just as when a scarecrow is mistaken for a man. 

- Shantideva, "What Body?" 

Flower of the Day: 10/01/14

“For a while now I have been speaking about the cycle of time we are currently in. There are many people wanting to commit suicide, many unknown diseases appearing, and our whole system is entering collapse, from economics and politics to the environment. What is actually happening is that the ego is entering collapse. This crisis is most visible and intense within larger urban centers, where one’s patience is constantly tested. This is why it is important that you dedicate at least a few minutes of the day to sadhana, spiritual practice, because this is what makes it possible to keep the flame of connection ignited.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via JMG: New Report On LGBT Poverty

Via the Movement Advancement Project:

A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added financial burdens faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans because of anti-LGBT laws at the national, state and local levels. According to the report, these laws contribute to significantly higher rates of poverty among LGBT Americans and create unfair financial penalties in the form of higher taxes, reduced wages and Social Security income, increased healthcare costs, and more. The momentum of recent court rulings overturning marriage bans across the country has created the impression that LGBT Americans are on the cusp of achieving full equality from coast-to-coast. But the new report, Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for Being LGBT in America, documents how inequitable laws harm the economic well-being of LGBT people in three key ways: by enabling legal discrimination in jobs, housing, credit and other areas; by failing to recognize LGBT families, both in general and across a range of programs and laws designed to help American families; and by creating barriers to safe and affordable education for LGBT students and the children of LGBT parents.

The report documents the often-devastating consequences when the law fails LGBT families. For example, children raised by same-sex parents are almost twice as likely to be poor as children raised by married opposite-sex parents. Additionally, 15 percent of transgender workers have incomes of less than $10,000 per year; among the population as a whole, the comparable figure is just four percent. To demonstrate the connection between anti-LGBT laws and the finances of LGBT Americans and their families, the report outlines how LGBT people living in states with low levels of equality are more likely to be poor, both compared to their non-LGBT neighbors, and compared to their LGBT counterparts in state with high levels of equality. For example, the denial of marriage costs gay and lesbian families money; same-sex couples with children had just $689 less in household income than married opposite-sex couples in states with marriage and relationship recognition for same-sex couples, but had an astounding $8,912 less in household income in states lacking such protections.

Read the full report (PDF).

UPDATE: NBC News reports on the study.

Shortly after her wife died in March, Arlene Goldberg had to give up the beloved South Florida home that the couple shared. Because Goldberg’s 2011 marriage to her partner of 47 years wasn’t recognized as legal in Florida, she was denied her wife’s social security benefits. Without that income, Goldberg, 67, couldn’t pay her mortgage. “I’m trying to figure out how I am going to get through this time,” she said from Fort Myers, Florida. “I really can’t even pay my bills.”

Goldberg is among an untold number of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people nationwide who suffer economic distress and in some cases, poverty, as a result of anti-gay laws such as same-sex marriage bans, or from a lack of legal protections, like non-discrimination ordinances, according to a new report by two think tanks, the progressive Center for American Progress and the pro-LGBT Movement Advancement Project.

Census data and other research over the last decade have shown higher rates of financial hardship and poverty among gays. But the report’s authors make the connection between those difficulties and specific laws and policies by analyzing current incomes and poverty rates for LGBT people and their heterosexual counterparts in states that have protections and those that don’t.

Labels: gay families, gay parenting, LGBT rights, poverty

Reposted from  Joe Jervis

Flower of the Day: 09/30/14

“Some people are focused on educating their children, and others are focused on redefining education. Some people are working to minimize conflict between the world's religions, while others are working to create technology to make life more comfortable and sustainable. Regardless of what your role may be in the divine game, on the deepest level, your work is to anchor loving awareness on the planet.”

Sri Prem Baba

 

Read the complete text>

Via Daily Dharma

Nothing Else to Do | September 30, 2014

The practice is to make the non-arising of grasping and clinging absolute, final, and eternally void, so that no grasping and clinging can ever return. Just that is enough. There is nothing else to do.

- Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, "A Single Handful"

Via JMG: British Survey: 16% Have Had Gay Sex

 

A dwindling number of Brits believe that homosexuality should be made illegal again.

Attitudes to homosexuality are clearly becoming more liberal but there are still pockets of resistance. In total, 16% of Britons continue to believe that homosexuality should be outlawed. Men (19%) are more likely than women (13%) to advocate the banning of gay sex, and rejection of homosexuality peaks in London and the south-east, where more than one in five (21%) feel it should be illegal. However, at a total level, the proportion of Britons who believe gay sex should be illegal has reduced by eight percentage points, from 24%, since 2008.

According to the same survey, same-sex marriage support stands at 63%.

 

Labels: Britain, LGBT rights, sexuality, surveys

Reposted from  Joe Jervis

Flower of the Day: 09/29/14

“Sometimes it’s good to be alone in order to redirect the focus of our willpower, especially when we are very addicted to codependency. Being alone helps us to get an objective perception of reality, and this perception will help us become free from the game of lust. At some point, we will be truly ready to surrender ourselves to a spiritual life, not as an escape from relationships, but because we have learnt what we had to learn through them.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Lifting the Veil | September 29, 2014

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With study and practice, we can move beyond our reductive thinking, lifting the veil to reveal the true nature of reality. 

- Wendy Hasenkamp, "Brain Karma" 

Via Daily Dharma

Internal Revolution | September 28, 2014

There are so many levels to this anti-greed, anti-hatred, anti-delusion teaching that says, in this world that’s filled with confusion, let’s be unconfused. In a world filled with hatred and greed, let’s be generous and loving and forgiving. The teachings are revolutionary on a societal level, but there’s also an internal revolution, because craving that creates addiction comes from inside, from the human survival instinct that craves pleasure and hates pain, and that left to its own devices will turn us into addicts.

- Noah Levine, "The Suffering of Addiction"

Flower of the Day: 09/28/14

“Relationships are crucial for growth, and doing group work helps tremendously. Beyond that, the sangha, or spiritual community, is a sacred jewel, because each person gives strength to the other. Still, the crossing takes place individually, and it’s natural at some point for you to start withdrawing yourself. There comes a moment when some people need this solitude, precisely because the journey is internal. This universe is sustained by lust and attachment, and we spend much of our time on relationships; but even so, at some point it will become necessary to turn within.”

- Sri Prem Baba

"BAD ASS GAYS" film trailer. Premieres on Logo TV/Fall 2014

Flower of the Day: 09/27/14

“This is my prayer: ‘Oh Lord! Come and inhabit my body, inhabit my mind and intellect, inhabit my heart, so that no one may tell us apart. May I be one with you. May every word that comes out of my mouth be an expression of your holy word. May every act that I practice be an expression of your holy will.’ Our prayers should be made towards this direction, because we know there is no other request to be made. Intellectually, we have already understood that we are here to move from a state of separation and isolation to a state of oneness. We are moving from selfishness to altruism, from fear to trust, and from hatred to love.” - Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

It's About Being Connected | September 27, 2014 My path to enlightenment will only come from being connected to the world around me. It’s not just about being centered inside; it’s about being connected to your world. - Njeri Matheu, "People’s Climate March"

Via JMG: IOC: All Future Olympics Host Cities Must Agree To LGBT Discrimination Protections

The International Olympic Committee today announced that future Olympics host cities must sign a contract with an added clause vowing to protect LGBT participants and attendees from discrimination. Via press release from All Out:

“This is a significant step in ensuring the protection of both citizens and athletes around the world and sends a clear message to future host cities that human rights violations, including those against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, will not be tolerated,” said Andre Banks, co-founder and executive director of All Out, the global movement for love and equality. “This is a particularly important moment for the world’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens who face discrimination and persecution not only in Russia but in countries all over the world. We will continue working to make sure this change is powerfully enforced - these new rules must prevent a replay of Sochi.”

According to IOC Sports Director, Christopher Dubi, the new clause will include “the prohibition of any form of discrimination, using the wording of Fundamental Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter." This clause will ensure that future host cities must abide by international human rights standards in order to host the games, including the protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens and athletes. “By adopting a non-discrimination clause into its host city contracts, the IOC is showcasing its own realization that we must protect the rights of every athlete to live free and openly,” said Hudson Taylor, Executive Director of Athlete Ally. “The Principle 6 campaign sought to shed light on the responsibility of host countries to uphold the olympic values, and this action validates all of the hard work by organizations and individuals across the world who’ve engaged in the fight for LGBT equality.”

RELATED: The 2016 Summer Games will be held in Rio De Janeiro, where robust LGBT protections already exist. The 2018 Winter Games will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where homosexuality is legal, but anti-discrimination laws do not exist.

Labels: IOC, Olympics, Sochi Olympics, sports

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: HRC Head Chad Griffin: Obama Should Consider LGBT Successor To Eric Holder

"Some Attorneys General wait for history, others make history happen. Attorney General Holder made history for the LGBT community. He was our Robert F. Kennedy, lightening the burden of every American who faces legal discrimination and social oppression. We owe him a profound debt of gratitude for his legacy of advocacy and service. President Obama faces a historic opportunity in light of Attorney General Holder's departure. The President has expressed a commitment to appointing a cabinet that reflects the full diversity of the American people, and there are many richly-qualified candidates available to serve as the first openly-LGBT cabinet secretary. It would be a natural extension of this administration's enduring commitment to equality to send a message of visibility and inclusion by nominating such a candidate to serve in this historic role." - Human Rights Campaign Chad Griffin, via email.

Labels: Barack Obama, Chad Griffin, DOJ, Eric Holder, HRC, LGBT rights, Obama administration, Obama cabinet

Reposted from Joe Jervis

JMG Headline Of The Day

The Daily Beast today published a lengthy accounting of the The Gathering, a secretive meeting of anti-gay right wing activists that starts in Orlando today. An excerpt:

The Gathering is an annual event at which many of the wealthiest conservative to hard-right evangelical philanthropists in America—representatives of the families DeVos, Coors, Prince, Green, Maclellan, Ahmanson, Friess, plus top leaders of the National Christian Foundation—meet with evangelical innovators with fresh ideas on how to evangelize the globe. The Gathering promotes “family values” agenda: opposition to gay rights and reproductive rights, for example, and also a global vision that involves the eventual eradication of all competing belief systems that might compete with The Gathering’s hard-right version of Christianity. Last year, for example, The Gathering 2013 brought together key funders, litigants, and plaintiffs of the Hobby Lobby case, including three generations of the Green family. The evangelical right financial dynasties and foundations that meet each year at The Gathering dispense upwards of $1 billion a year in grants. But even that is overshadowed by the bigger sums that The Family and The Gathering have managed to route from the federal and state government to fund their movement via the Faith-Based Initiative program, USAID, PEPFAR and other multibillion-dollar programs.

Many of the anti-gay hate groups involved will be familiar to you. Definitely hit that link.

Labels: Alliance Defending Freedom, Christianists, Daily Beast, Family Research Council, Focus On The Family, hate groups, religion, The Gathering, Tony Perkins, Truth Wins Out

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Christian Group: Homosexuals And Gossips Both Deserve The Death Penalty

 

"We aren't just defending marriage - whether we call it natural marriage or traditional marriage or Biblical marriage - because it's the way we've always done things. We have a much more firm foundation than tradition. We affirm marriage in the way that God himself intended it. The church is not a Christian congress or Supreme Court. The laws of God cannot be overruled or deemed unconstitutional. Of course, we ALL break those laws and being a homosexual doesn't make a man a sinner any more or less than being a gossip. Both crimes deserve the death penalty, and only the one who relies on the righteousness of Christ can escape it." - Chris Johnson, writing for the American Decency Association, which notes on its Facebook page that it is the former Michigan chapter for the American Family Association.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: The American Decency Association declares that while they totally hate that homosexual Michael Sam, they are not the group by the same name that called for protesting Dallas Cowboys games. The American Decency Association calls for a boycott of Target and for Christians to mail their destroyed charge cards to company headquarters. The American Decency Association says the DOMA ruling was as bad as the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Labels: American Decency Association, Christian Love, religion

Reposted from Joe Jervis