Dra Yang Project " Namo Buddhaya, namo Dharmaya, namo Sanghaya

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 05/09/2015

“Aquilo que chamamos de ‘problemas’ ou ‘provações’ na realidade são presentes do Universo para que possamos aprender alguma coisa. Neste plano da existência não há outra maneira de se desenvolver se não através de erros e acertos. Através deles vamos tomando consciência daquilo que fecha e daquilo que abre os caminhos para a nossa realização. Seguimos aprendendo até que possamos escolher somente pensamentos, palavras e ações que nos libertam.”

“Lo que llamamos "problemas" o "pruebas" en realidad son regalos del Universo para que podamos aprender algo. En este plano de la existencia no hay otra manera de desarrollarse que no sea a través de errores y aciertos. A través de ellos vamos tomando conciencia de aquello que cierra y de aquello que abre los caminos para nuestra realización. Seguimos aprendiendo hasta que podamos elegir solamente pensamientos, palabras y acciones que nos liberan.”

“What we consider to be problems or challenges are in truth gifts from the universe aimed at teaching us specific lessons. In this realm of existence, there is no other way for us to progress other than through trial and error. Through these challenges, we become aware of what closes or opens up the path towards our own self-realization. We continue to learn until we are able to choose only the thoughts, words and actions that liberate us.”

Buddhism Pushes Back

Buddhism provides us with both the imperative and the tools to challenge the economic structures that are creating and perpetuating suffering. We cannot claim to be Buddhist and simultaneously support structures that are so clearly contrary to Buddha’s teachings, antithetical to life itself. - Helena Norberg-Hodge, "Economics, Engagement, and Exploitation in Ladakh"

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Today's Daily Dharma: Got to Have Faith

Got to Have Faith

Faith in the Buddha’s own awakening is a requisite strength for anyone else who wants to attain awakening. As it fosters persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, this faith can take you all the way to the deathless. - Thanissaro Bhikkhu, "Faith in Awakening"

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Via Leonard Pitts: Jimmy Carter’s faith

 

‘To want what I have, to take what I’m given with grace … for this, I pray.’

— ‘For My Wedding,’ Don Henley

America is a nation of faith. So it is often said.

In faith, a baker refuses to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding. In faith, a minister prays for the president to die. In faith, terrorists plant bombs at the finish line of a marathon. In faith, mosques are vandalized, shot at and burned. In faith, a televangelist asks his followers to buy him a $65 million private jet.

And no one is even surprised anymore.

In America, what we call faith is often loud, often exclusionary, sometimes violent and too frequently enamored of shiny, expensive things. In faith, ill-tempered people mob the shopping malls every year at Christmas to have fistfights and gunfights over hot toys and highend electronics.

You did not hear much about faith last week when Jimmy Carter held a news conference to reveal that he has four spots of cancer on his brain. The 39th president made only a few references to it in the nearly 40 minutes he spoke, and they were all in response to reporter’s questions. Yet, you would be hard-pressed to find a more compelling statement of belief in things not seen. Unsentimental, poised and lit from within by an amazing grace, Carter discussed the fight now looming ahead of him, the radiation treatments he will undergo, the need to finally cut back on his whirlwind schedule.

He smiled often. “I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said, in such a way that you believed him without question. And it was impossible to feel sorry for him.

Partially, that’s because we all die and if — still only an if — cancer is what takes James Earl Carter Jr. away, well, there are worse things than to go having reached 90 years of age, having been president of the United States, having been married to the love of your life for almost seven decades, having sired a large and sprawling family and having done significant work toward the eradication of disease and the spreading of democracy in the developing world.

But here’s the other reason it was impossible to feel sorry for him. Feeling sorry would have felt like an insult, a denial of the virtues he showed and the faith he didn’t need to speak because it was just … there.

For all its loudness, all its exclusion, violence and ubiquity, the faith that is modeled in the public square is often not particularly affecting. It is hard to imagine someone looking on it from outside and musing to herself, “I’d like to have some of that.” What Carter showed the world, though, was different. Who would not want to be able to face the unknown with such perfect equanimity?

Carter presented an image of faith we don’t see nearly as often as we should. Which is sad, because it is also the image truest to what faith is supposed to be — not a magic lamp you rub in hopes of a private jet, not a license for our worse impulses, but, rather, an act of surrender to a force greater than self, a way of being centered enough to tell whatever bleak thing comes your way, “So be it.” Even fearsome death itself: “So be it.”

The heat and hubris of human life are such that that state is difficult to conceive, much less to reach. Our lives are defined by wanting and by lack — more money, new car, new love — and by the ceaseless hustle to fill empty spaces within. Media and advertising conspire to make you feel ever incomplete. So it is hard to feel whole within yourself, at peace with what is, whatever that turns out to be.

But who, gazing upon the former president, can doubt the result is worth the effort?

In faith, terrorists kill the innocent. In faith, televangelists swindle the gullible. In faith, so many of us hate, exclude, hurt, curse and destroy. And in faith, last week, Jimmy Carter told the world he has cancer in his brain.

And smiled as he spoke.

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Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 3511 N.W. 91 Ave., Doral, FL 33172. Readers may write to him via email

at lpitts@miamiherald.com

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Via WGB: Gay Marriage is Legal. Are the Wedding Bells Ringing?

"In June, the Supreme Court of the United States laid down an historic ruling declaring the ban of same-sex marriages at the state level to be unconstitutional, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage across the country. The change had been a long time coming. The 1970s saw the first wave of legal efforts to recognize same-sex marriage, and yet only in 2004 were the first such marriages performed on US soil, in the state of Massachusetts. Over the next decade, the dominoes began to fall in states across the country, culminating in this year’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. But the United States was of course not close to being the first nation to take this step: all the way back in 2001, Netherlands became the first country to allow same-sex marriage, followed in the next several years by Belgium (‘03), Spain (‘05), Canada (‘05) and South Africa (‘06). As of today, 20 nations (and a few jurisdictions in Mexico) permit same-sex marriage.

But after the initial flurry of excitement has died down, and the queues for marriages licenses at city hall have subsided, what happens next? How often are same-sex marriages actually performed in these countries? We dug into the numbers, and discovered that in some nations, like Belgium, same-sex marriages have become remarkably commonplace and are warmly accepted by fellow citizens as part of the cultural fabric of the community. On the other hand, in countries like Portugal and Norway, same-sex marriages remain surprisingly uncommon; for Portugal, this is due in part to the powerful influence of the Roman Catholic church in everyday life, while Norway’s low rate is a result of its longstanding (and popular) civil union laws, as well as the still powerful influence of the country’s Lutheran clergy. As recent court cases in the United States involving Christian wedding bakers and florists suggest, just because same-sex marriage is legal, it doesn’t mean that there is an accepting environment for it." Full story here!

WGB :: This article is worth the full read and what I liked about it, is that it covers an international audience and so does this blog!

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Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 03/09/2015

“Existe um tipo de ceticismo que pode ajudar na ampliação da consciência, porque através dele, você busca as respostas e as encontra através da própria experiência. Eu mesmo já fui um cético. Já fui um cientista da mente humana que queria encontrar Deus através da lógica e da matemática. E essa busca me levou à espiritualidade. Porque, quando você vai fundo na ciência, inevitavelmente ela desemboca na espiritualidade. E quando vai fundo na espiritualidade, ela encontra a ciência. Ambas são extremos da mesma coisa, assim como a meditação e a devoção.” 

“Existe un tipo de escepticismo que puede ayudar en la ampliación de la conciencia, porque a través de él, buscas las respuestas y las encuentras a través de la propia experiencia. Yo mismo ya fui un escéptico. Ya fui un científico de la mente humana que quería encontrar a Dios a través de la lógica y de la matemática. Y esa búsqueda me llevó a la espiritualidad. Porque cuando te adentras en la ciencia, inevitablemente ella termina en la espiritualidad. Y cuando te adentras en la espiritualidad, ella encuentra la ciencia. Ambas son extremos de la misma cosa, así como la meditación y la devoción.”

“There is a certain type of skepticism that helps to increase awareness. This skepticism incites us to seek out answers through what we've experienced ourselves. I was also once a skeptic. I was a scientist of the human mind and I wanted to find God through logic and mathematics. This search led me to spirituality. When we get to the bottom of science, we eventually end up in spirituality. Simultaneously, at the depths of spirituality, we find science. Both are the extreme opposite of the very same thing, just as it is with meditation and devotion.”

Today's Daily Dharma: The Benefit of Awareness

The Benefit of Awareness

The more unified, stable, luminous, and attentive the mind is at this moment, the more profound the experience. - Andrew Olendzki, "Busy Signal"

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Bernie Sanders on the Obama Presidency

Via Huffington: Glitter in the Woods: A Week at 'Camp' Camp

Nestled in the woods alongside a splendid lake, about 45 minutes outside of Portland, Maine, there emerges once a year the most wonderful LGBT space in the country. No, Disney World hasn't set up a new outpost and no, it's not an Indigo Girls theme park. It's called 'Camp' Camp, a LGBT adult summer camp, and for nineteen years, folks from all over the world who identify with some color on the LGBT gender and sexuality rainbow have been flocking to this Brigadoon-like place for a magical summer experience.

I first heard about 'Camp' Camp five years ago after reading Joel Derfner's wonderful memoir Swish, but the stars didn't align themselves for me to go until this summer. I had never been to overnight camp before and I was hesitant, but from the handful of 'Camp' Camp alumni whom I met over the years, they always spoke about the place as if they had drunk some crazy Kool Aid, returning there summer after summer. Could it really be that good? In the end, I realized, there was only one way to find out, and so, with my single bag packed -- I was a light packer compared to many of the gay men who schlepped two or three suitcases, some with just shoes -- I boarded my flight to Portland, not knowing a single soul and a bit petrified. Would this just be like almost every gay bar experience in my life in which I felt myself standing along the sidelines while cliquely gaggles of gays ignored me?

The answer quickly made itself apparent. As I walked into the lodge at 'Camp' Camp, it was like being welcomed in a big warm embrace, at times, literally so. People couldn't wait to greet me, ask me questions and make me feel right at home. There were over two hundred people there this summer from so many walks of life. Men, women and folks who didn't identify with any one gender category. Folks in their 20s up through those in their 60s and 70s. Teachers, pastors, professional opera singers and retirees. Singles and couples (some with and without their partners present). Urban dwellers and individuals who lived in remote outposts. 

As if I had fallen through Alice's looking glass, the week that followed was one of sublime fun and exuberant liberation, coupled with a profound sense of being accepted for who I am as a gay man. 'Camp' Camp has everything you could imagine at a great summer camp: arts and crafts, sports, boating and swimming, plus some delicious food (don't worry, there's no bug juice or chicken nuggets on the menu). But it's at night when 'Camp' Camp really comes into its own. On the night of the first full day, the camp hosts its Barn Dance and campers, many outfitted in cowboy shirts, boots and bandanas, square danced all night to a live band. As I promenaded and dosey-doed around the room to the caller's instructions (all with a handsome boy on my arm), watching the smiling faces of my fellow campers, I felt like I was having a bit of an out-of-body experience. When was the last time I felt so uninhibited and free? Honestly, I couldn't remember. In the evenings that followed with a game show night and karaoke, I found myself laughing and grinning in ways that I hadn't for a long time. 

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Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 02/09/2015

“O medo é um portal. Ele pode te levar para outras dimensões - pessoais e transpessoais - já que existe o aspecto individual e o aspecto coletivo dele. Muitas vezes você canaliza um grande medo, que não sabe de onde vem e não consegue relacionar com a sua vida. Mas, se você sente e se identifica, de alguma maneira isso está conectado a sua história pessoal.”

“El miedo es un portal. Él te puede llevar a otras dimensiones - personales y transpersonales - ya que existe el aspecto individual y el aspecto colectivo de éste. Muchas veces canalizas un gran miedo, que no sabes de dónde viene y no consigues relacionarlo con tu vida. Pero si lo sientes y te identificas, de alguna manera esto está conectado a tu historia personal.”

“Fear acts as a doorway. It can take you to other dimensions, both personal and transpersonal, which stem from the individual and collective aspect of fear. Oftentimes, we act as channels of a fear that comes out of the blue and seems to have nothing to do with our own lives. Still, if we feel this fear and get identified with it, then this fear must be connected to our own personal story in one way or another.”

Today's Daily Dharma: Always a Full Moon.

Always a Full Moon

If one seeks understanding with a vacant mind, the moon seems full each and every moment. - Jiaoran, "A Full Load of Moonlight"

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JMG Quote Of The Day – John Corvino

September 1, 2015 Marriage Equality, Religion

 

“Many have commented on the fact that Davis herself has been divorced several times. As a strategic matter, this makes her a rather poor poster child for ‘traditional Christian marriage’: Jesus himself treats divorce and remarriage as akin to adultery. But the point is not merely ad hominem: Davis’s willingness to impose a standard of marriage on gays that she does not apply to others, herself included, shows that she’s less interested in enforcing a consistent traditional Christian view than in singling out gays for disapproval. In its Obergefell decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rightly rejected such treatment as an affront to dignity and equal treatment under the law. Private citizens are free to express their religious views about homosexuality — however hypocritically and inconsistently — and to practice their faith as they see fit. But religious liberty is not a “get out of your job free” card.” – Wayne University professor John Corvino, writing for the Detroit Free Press.

RELATED: Several years ago Corvino co-authored Debating Same-Sex Marriage with former NOM president Maggie Gallagher.

Make the jump here to read the original on JMG

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 01/09/2015

“O verdadeiro amor só é possível quando nos libertamos do passado. E nos libertamos do passado somente quando nos harmonizamos com ele. Não é fugindo ou fingindo que ele não existe - é olhando de frente e permitindo-se compreender porque as coisas aconteceram como aconteceram. E uma forma de fazer isso é observando e estudando as repetições negativas e fazendo a relação de causa e efeito, ou seja, relacionando o passado com o presente.”

“El verdadero amor solo es posible cuando nos liberamos del pasado. Y nos liberamos del pasado solo cuando nos armonizamos con él. No es huyendo o fingiendo que no existe - es mirándolo de frente y permitiéndose comprender por qué las cosas sucedieron como sucedieron. Y una forma de hacer eso, es observando y estudiando las repeticiones negativas y haciendo la relación de causa y efecto, es decir, relacionando el pasado con el presente.”

“Real love is only possible when we can liberate ourselves from the past. We are only liberated from our past once we have harmonized ourselves with it, which can't happen by running away from it or pretending that it doesn’t exist. We must face our past and allow ourselves to understand why things happened as they did. This understanding dawns as we observe the negative repetitions in our lives, really studying the connection between cause and effect, and thereby relating our past to the present moment.”