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Bill Clinton at the 2014 HRC National Dinner

Via JMG: Eric Holder: Federal Government Now Recognizes Married Gays In 32 States

Via White House press release:

In the latest development following the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this month to decline to hear any pending cases regarding same-sex marriage, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Saturday that the federal government will now recognize same-sex married couples in six new states: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Last week, the Attorney General made a similar announcement with respect to seven other states: Colorado, Indiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Saturday’s announcement adds to that list and brings the total number of states where same-sex couples are recognized by the federal government to 32, plus the District of Columbia.

The Attorney General’s announcement means couples married in these states will now qualify for a range of federal benefits, including those administered by the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs.

“With each new state where same-sex marriages are legally recognized, our nation moves closer to achieving of full equality for all Americans,” the Attorney General said. “We are acting as quickly as possible with agencies throughout the government to ensure that same-sex married couples in these states receive the fullest array of benefits allowable under federal law.”

In addition, the Attorney General also announced that the Department of Justice has determined it can legally recognize marriages performed in Indiana and Wisconsin this past June. These marriages were performed immediately after federal district courts ruled that those states’ bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, but subsequent developments created confusion about the status of those marriages. Based on the Attorney General’s announcement, however, those couples married during that period will now have their unions recognized by the federal government.

These updates always cause an uproar over on Free Republic.

Labels: Eric Holder, feds, marriage equality

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Flower of the Day: 10/26/14

“Whenever you notice that you are trying to control life, turn your attention within and try to identify your fear, your hatred and desire to take justice into your own hands. This sometimes appears as a need to control, to take over the steering wheel. You can’t relax in the passenger seat. God wants to take you in one direction so that you can see new landscapes, but your controlling self wants to go the other way, be it out of fear, revenge or competition.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

Discipline and Joy | October 26, 2014 Without spiritual discipline we are never going to wake up or advance on our journey through this life. But our discipline must be wedded to joy, and we must find pleasure in the myriad wonders that this life offers.    - Joan Gattuso, "The Balancing Buddha"

Via Daily Dharma

The Longer View | October 25, 2014 Mindlessness, however petty, is reckless at its heart. It only postpones; it never takes us anywhere. Mindfulness, by contrast, is patient, careful. It takes a longer view.    - Joan Duncan Oliver, "Do I Mind?"

Flower of the Day: 10/25/14

“Desire adds value to the idea of ‘me.’ When one buys a new car and then drives it, one feels fulfilled and self-satisfied. One identifies with it – one actually becomes the car. But this satisfaction doesn’t last very long. Soon we yearn for something else to add value to the idea of ‘me’ – maybe a house or a partner. So we live our lives seeking and wishing for things that could fill the inner void. This desire becomes compulsive and stimulates comparisons, envy, jealousy and many other negative feelings. But at some point this compulsive desire starts to weaken because you notice that nothing outside you will bring the satisfaction you are seeking.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via JMG: Lisa Kudrow - Gay Men Are Superior

"The people I work with are gay. I don't know who I'm going to offend by leaving them out, but I need to say that I think gay men are superior beings in my mind. I do believe that. It's all so tricky. I studied biology and the brains are anatomically different. They just are. There's a stronger connection with the corpus callosum (in gay men). The two sides of the brain communicate better than a straight man's, and I think that has to be really important. They're not women - they're still men - and women also have thicker corpus callosums, so I think it's the combination of those qualities that makes them like a superhuman to me." - Lisa Kudrow, speaking to Pride Source.

Labels: HBO, Lisa Kudrow, movies, television

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Rest Wherever We Are | October 24, 2014 Through meditation we learn how to work skillfully with thoughts and emotional patterns that interfere with simply being able to rest wherever we are, with full presence.    - Mark Coleman, "A Breath of Fresh Air"

Flower of the Day: 10/24/14

“There is an inner path that leads you to acceptance and gratitude. We begin by recognizing and dissolving the frozen images in our system. Next, we become aware of our desire for negativity and pacts of revenge. We recognize our identification with the victim in the form of the wounded child. Through all this, we go on liberating our denied feelings. We do our part until we break through even just one layer of the veil of illusion that makes us see everything as a threat. Eventually we are able to enter the inner sanctum that allows us to perceive everything as a gift, even challenging situations that bring deep discomfort.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

The Depths of Our Experience | October 23, 2014 The work of Buddhism is to awaken, to come out of the sleepy dreams and notions of reality that we hold to be true and replace them with a direct experience of what is more accurately occurring. To awaken in this way, we need to become conscious of what’s actually going on at the very depths of our experience.    - Will Johnson, "Full Body, Empty Mind"

Flower of the Day: 10/23/14

“I can’t explain what oneness is, I can only show you the path that will lead you to this experience. Silence is needed for this phenomenon to take place, even if you are the only one in silence and the whole world is making noise. If you are in silence, I will be able to guide you towards this experience. Without silence you will find it difficult to absorb the teachings that are being transmitted. Most of what is transmitted is not picked up or received, because of the noise. Great and rare opportunities for healing are being wasted, and this healing is what prepares the field for the experience of oneness.”

Sri Prem Baba

Flower of the Day: 10/21/14

“It is important to commit to becoming aware of your paradoxes, of your lack of integrity. When are you dishonest in life? How do you fake love to sustain the games of your lower nature? A certain kind of courage is needed in order to love, because you need to be whole and integral. To love, you need to be aligned with the truth because love is a fragrance of the truth. I am talking about the truth of the divine self, not the transitory truth of the small self that is sustained by the mask. The mask is not at all committed to the truth: it is merely a pretense.”

 

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

The Insight of Impermanence | October 22, 2014   To those whose knowledge is developed, everything within and without oneself, within and without one’s house, within and without one’s village and town, is an object at the sight of which the insight of impermanence may spring up and develop.    - Ledi Sayadaw, "Meditation en Masse"

Flower of the Day: 10/22/14

“It is necessary to have an ego to live in this realm. This is one of the laws of this world, just like gravity. We need to have a mediator between the inner and outer world, and the ego is this mediator. It is formed from the impressions we receive from the outer world which give us an idea about who we are. But it has a very important role within the game, because the ego is the one that makes the journey. The ego identifies the lower self and becomes identified with the divine self.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Give a Damn Campaign: Wyoming!

Flower of the Day: 10/20/14

“I see many spiritual seekers who disregard the possibility of somatization, developing physical symptoms due to spiritual or emotional distress. They believe that everything occurs in the subtle bodies, so they don’t take enough care of their physical bodies. The opposite is also true: some people are so identified with their bodies that they fall into despair when they cannot find the causes of their symptoms. The middle way is of sensibility. When you are on the path to self-realization, you may have transcendental experiences as well as challenging ones, but it all depends on the amount of blockages you carry.”

Sri Prem Baba

Via Daily Dharma

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Cultivating Equanimity | October 20, 2014

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Classical mindfulness, unlike popular mindfulness, is all about the cultivation of equanimity. One is able to experience both pleasure and pain without clinging to anything in the world. 

 

- Andrew Olendzki, "The Mindfulness Wedge"

 

Via Daily Dharma

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Wildness of Mind | October 19, 2014

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The wildness of mind that we experience when we sit quietly noticing our body and breathing for five minutes is the result of everything we’ve been doing before those five minutes. 

 

- Gaylon Ferguson, "Fruitless Labor"