Via WGB: Vatican Reportedly Irked by LGBT Guest List at Pope’s White House Ceremony

"Several guests invited to the White House for the welcoming ceremony for Pope Francis are reportedly troubling the Vatican including openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, Mateo Williamson, is a former co-leader of Dignity USA Transgender Caucus, and Sister Simone Campbell, the pro-choice nun who is executive director of NETWORK, a 44-year-old national social justice lobbying group. Williamson is the guest of Vivian Taylor, a trans woman who formerly served as executive director of Integrity USA, an Episcopal LBGT advocacy group.

The WSJ reports:

According to a senior Vatican official, the Holy See worries that any photos of the pope with these guests at the White House welcoming ceremony next Wednesday could be interpreted as an endorsement of their activities.

The tension exemplifies concerns among conservative Catholics, including many bishops, that the White House will use the pope’s visit to play down its differences with church leaders on such contentious issues as same-sex marriage and the contraception mandate in the health care law." Full story here via Towleroad!

WGB :: Yet another reason (reason #3,871) why I love the Obama Whitehouse!

Via The Master Shift / FB:

Via Sri Prem BabaFlor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 20/09/201

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
12.CONSUMO RESPONSÁVEL
“Para que possamos salvar o planeta, o consumo compulsivo precisa dar lugar ao consumo responsável. E isso só é possível se o ser humano se libertar da carência afetiva que cria a necessidade de agregar valor à falsa ideia de eu. A carência é a maior doença do ser humano. Ela nos faz acreditar que, através do acúmulo de bens materiais, seremos felizes.”

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
12. CONSUMO RESPONSABLE
“Para que podamos salvar el planeta, el consumo compulsivo necesita dar lugar al consumo responsable. Y esto solo es posible si el ser humano se libera de la carencia afectiva que crea la necesidad de agregar valor a la falsa idea de yo. La carencia es la mayor enfermedad del ser humano. Nos hace creer que, a través de la acumulación de bienes materiales, seremos felices.”

Project Everyone - Global Goals
12.RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION & PRODUCTION
“In order to save the planet, compulsive consumption must give way to responsible consumption. This will only be possible if human beings can become free of the emotional neediness that makes us strive to add value to the false idea of self. Neediness is the greatest disease of mankind, and makes us believe that we can only be happy by accumulating material goods."

Today's Daily Dharma: Awakening from Without.

Awakening from Without

“One is not capable of achieving one’s salvation by one’s own conscious effort. In fact, it is the very realization that one is so incapable that leads to the transformation that constitutes real Buddhist wisdom: namely, the awakening to non-self.”

—David Brazier, "Other-Power"

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Via Truth Teller / FB:

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 19/09/201

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
11.CIDADES E COMUNIDADES SUSTENTÁVEIS
"A vida nas grandes cidades se tornou insustentável. A poluição, a violência, o excesso de pessoas por metro quadrado, a desconexão com a natureza... Tudo isso tem gerado uma tremenda perturbação em nossos corpos e mentes. Por isso, a vida em ecovilas têm apontado boas soluções. Mas, o ponto de equilíbrio só virá quando pudermos unir matéria e espírito, e quando tivermos coragem de olhar com seriedade para o tema do controle da natalidade".

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
11. CIUDADES Y COMUNIDADES SOSTENIBLES
“La vida en las grandes ciudades se volvió insustentable. La polución, la violencia, el exceso de personas por metro cuadrado, la desconexión con la naturaleza…Todo esto ha generado una tremenda perturbación en nuestros cuerpos y mentes. Por eso, la vida en eco-villas viene registrando buenas soluciones. Pero el punto de equilibrio solo vendrá cuando podamos unir materia y espíritu, y cuando tengamos coraje para ver con seriedad el tema del control en la natalidad.”

Project Everyone - Global Goals
11. SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES
"Life in big cities has become unsustainable. The pollution, violence, overcrowding, and disconnection with nature have generated tremendous agitation in our bodies and minds. Life in ecovillages shows us good solutions, but the turning point will only come about when we can unite matter and spirit. With such a huge global population, it is also essential that we have the courage to look seriously at the issue of birth control."

Today's Daily Dharma: See Yourself Clearly

See Yourself Clearly

“In meditation we have the opportunity to meet ourselves, to see ourselves clearly for the first time. We have never met ourselves properly or spent this kind of time with ourselves before. . . . We cook, we talk, we take a walk, or we swim. We never just sit with ourselves.”

—Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, "Cool Boredom"

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Not A Sin

NSFW - Best Rant ever: Gay Marriage Is Legal

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 18/09/201

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
10.REDUÇÃO DE DESIGUALDADES
“Não é possível haver igualdade sem caridade e sem humildade. A igualdade é a mãe da caridade e filha da humildade."

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
10.REDUCCIÓN DE LA DESIGUALDAD
“No es posible que haya igualdad sin caridad y sin humildad. La igualdad es la madre de la caridad y la hija de la humildad.”

Project Everyone - Global Goals
10. REDUCED INEQUALITIES
“There can be no equality bereft of charity and humility. Equality is the mother of charity, and the daughter of humility."

Today's Daily Dharma: The Aspiration Is What Counts

The Aspiration Is What Counts

“Beginning students commonly ask how they can honestly vow to save all beings. It sounds like missionary arrogance. [7th-century Chan monk] Hui-neng offers a response: "You are saving them in your own mind." It is bodhicitta that you are cultivating—your own aspiration for wisdom and compassion, and your determination to practice it in the world as best you can.”

—Robert Aitken, "The Bodhisattva Vows"

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Via WP: How to communicate like a Buddhist — mindfully and without judgment

(iStock)

There’s a lot that used to frustrate me about communicating. Well, if I’m honest, it was that I didn’t know how to do it. I knew how to speak and string words together, but no one ever sat me down and taught me the purpose of communication or how to effectively express myself so I was heard and how to listen so I could understand. A lot of times it seemed that because I knew how to talk, that automatically meant I should know how to communicate.

Let’s be honest, communicating effectively is hard to do, especially in heated situations. It’s difficult because rarely do we stop to pay attention to what we’re saying or the purpose of our communication.

What I’ve found to help guide me on my quest is the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, specifically mindful communication.

Read the full article here

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 17/09/201

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
9.INOVAÇÃO E INFRAESTRUTURA
"Intuição e razão precisam se unir para encontrar criativas e inovadoras soluções para as necessidades de infraestrutura e urbanismo. Por mais que a mente possa engendrar soluções geniais, somente a sabedoria interna, que nasce do coração, pode indicar a melhor direção a seguir. "

Project Everyone - Global Goals
9. INDUSTRY, INNOVATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
"Intuition and reason need to come together to find creative and innovative solutions for the demands of infrastructure and urban planning. As much as the mind can devise ingenious solutions, only inner wisdom that comes from the heart can indicate the best path to follow."

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
9. INDUSTRIA, INNOVACIÓN E INFRAESTRUCTURA
"Intuición y razón precisan unirse para encontrar creativas e innovadoras soluciones para las necesidades de infraestructura y urbanismo. Por más que la mente pueda concebir soluciones geniales, solamente la sabiduría interna, que nace del corazón, puede indicar la mejor dirección a seguir."

Today's Daily Dharma: The Testing Ground for Practice

The Testing Ground for Practice

“Experimental Buddhism returns us not to the meditation hall but to the messy conditions of contemporary social orders. . . . Society, and not the temple or monastery, is becoming the ultimate testing ground and arbiter for what constitutes the viability and effectiveness of a Buddhist practice that 'works.'”

—John Nelson, "Experimental Buddhism"

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Via Advocate: Why Mr. Leather Went to Uganda

When Mr. Los Angeles Leather 2015, Patrick Smith, gave his 90-second speech at the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago this year, he spoke on something he cared deeply about. 

"The speech celebrated the progress we have made in the Western world, but it also called attention to the fact that things are very difficult for LGBT people in many other areas," Smith tells The Advocate.
The 90-second speech comes on the final day of the contest, which has taken place every year since 1979. At 91 seconds, the microphone shuts off. The speech is followed by a physique show where contestants strut onstage in leather jockstraps and harnesses.

When Smith won, he knew he had to do something important with the platform the title offers. "I wanted to actually walk the walk and not just pay lip service to these issues," he says. "Uganda was a natural choice given all of the attention it's been getting for its recent legislative actions against LGBT people." 

Uganda has a dark history regarding its LGBT citizens. In early 2014, antigay President Yoweri Museveni signed into law the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Act, dubbed the "jail the gays" bill, which was struck down six months later by the nation's high court (because of a procedural issue, not its content). But homophobia still runs rampant in the east African nation. A glaring example of the animus came when Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone published the names of Ugandan LGBT activists with the headline, "Hang Them." Homosexuality remains criminalized in Uganda.

In many ways, Uganda is the antithesis of Smith's leather culture, which celebrates sexuality in open, public ways. "I was actually encouraged not to go [to Uganda] by a good number of people," Smith says. "They were concerned for my safety, which is understandable, but I felt this was something very important for me to do."

Smith, who financed his own trip, met with some of Uganda's most prominent activists to learn about the daily lives of LGBT people there and figure out what more could be done to help. He interviewed Frank Mugisha, who won the JFK Human Rights Award in 2011. 

"He's very warm, open, and candid," Smith says. Mugisha told him about his experience with a suicidal boy who reached out to him. Risking a possible entrapment situation, Mugisha counseled the child.  

"This boy had been told by his friends, in church, and in the media that same-sex attraction was wrong and sinful, and felt he had no other choice than to take his life," Smith says. "Dr. Mugisha talked with him for hours, and over the next several days and weeks, and he didn't kill himself." 

Smith also met Rev. Mark Kiyimba, a Ugandan LGBT activist who leads the Unitarian Universalist Church in the capital city of Kampala. Kiyimba preaches that homosexuality is compatible with Christianity — a bold campaign in a country like Uganda. As The New York Times and others have reported, the fierce wave of antigay sentiment and legislation in Uganda is partly due to the work of American Christian right activists. Some of them spoke at a 2009 Kampala conference that, according to Stephen Langa, the Ugandan organizer of the event, was about "the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda."

While Smith's interviews and meetings were impactful, what affected him the most was seeing Uganda's antigay laws carried out. "The day I was leaving, news broke that Ugandan football manager Chris Mubiru was convicted under the country's sodomy law, which carries with it an 18-year prison sentence. Actually being there in that country when the story broke felt much different than reading it from afar."

According to Ugandan newspaper The Observer, the state prosecutor asked the court to give Mubiru a sentence of life imprisonment because his actions were "against the cultural norms." Smith says, "It really hit home that this is the reality for thousands of LGBT people in Africa, and it could happen to any one of them." 

Smith isn't the first Mr. L.A. Leather to use the platform for good. One of Smith's best friends, Eric Paul Leue, won Mr. L.A. Leather 2014. Leue has spent the past year educating gay and bi men across the United States and Europe on pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.

Leue is the director of sexual health and advocacy at Kink.com, a leather, fetish, and BDSM porn studio based in San Francisco. Leue estimates that he has been to over 70 cities and held more than 55 PrEP panels so far.

"Fighting HIV and AIDS has always come naturally to us, because when you're into stuff like bondage, flogging, extended bondage, S&M, fisting, you have to be comfortable talking about the body and about your limits," Leue says. "So talking about HIV even in the early days of the epidemic came naturally to us."  

Smith agrees, saying the title of International Mr. Leather has "been a service-oriented title for quite some time now. In the beginning — 37 years ago — it was mostly about sex appeal. But once the AIDS crisis hit, you saw a new wave of titleholders who were more dedicated to community service." 
But Marlon Morales, chair of Los Angeles Leather Pride, said the focus on community service is not a feature of the organizations that choose the winners. "We [the L.A. Leather Coalition] never ask the winners to do anything specific," Morales says. "To win, you just have to be approachable, charistmatic, and sexy — we don't shy away from that, we're a very sex-positive community." Morales says that the trend of titleholders giving back is because "that's the people that win. If you go back and see past winners, both of Mr. L.A. Leather and International Mr. Leather, a lot of them come from backgrounds of activism. Some of the greatest activists have come out of the leather and fetish communities." 

Now that he's back in the States, Smith will continue to use his title as International Mr. Leather to raise awareness about the situation of LGBT people in Africa. "I really think we need to become more internationally focused," he says. "While there is always still work to do at home, we have it pretty good in the U.S., and it's time to help the sexual minorities overseas who are really struggling." 

Tags: Love and Sex, Uganda, World

 

Read the original and more here 

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 16/09/201

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
8.BOM TRABALHO E CRESCIMENTO ECONÔMICO
“Ao colocar seus dons e talentos a serviço do bem maior, você se torna um elo na corrente da felicidade. A alegria, a prosperidade e o amor passam por você para chegar ao outro. Você começa a se sentir guiado e levado por algo maior do que você. Mas, enquanto estiver isolado, querendo fazer tudo do seu jeito, isso não é possível. É preciso se colocar na corrente. E você faz isso quando pergunta: “Como posso servir?”. Assim você se torna um canal da felicidade.”

Project Everyone - Metas Globais
8.EMPLEO DIGNO Y CRECIMIENTO ECONÓMICO
“Al colocar tus dones y talentos al servicio del bien mayor, te conviertes en un eslabón en la cadena de la felicidad. La alegría, la prosperidad y el amor pasan por ti para llegar al otro. Comienzas a sentirte guiado y llevado por algo más grande que tú. Pero mientras estés aislado, queriendo hacer todo a tu manera, esto no es posible. Es preciso colocarse en la corriente. Y haces esto cuando preguntas: "¿Cómo puedo servir?". Así, te conviertes en un canal de la felicidad.”

Project Everyone - Global Goals
8.DECENT WORK & ECONOMIC GROWTH
"By placing your gifts and talents at service of the greater good, you become a link in the chain of happiness. Joy, prosperity and love pass through you to reach the other. You begin to feel guided and led by something greater than you. But that’s not possible if you remain isolated, wanting to do everything your way. You have to make yourself into a link in the chain, which you do by asking: ‘How can I serve?’ That’s how you become a channel of happiness."
‪#‎FlordoDia‬ ‪#‎GlobalGoals‬ ‪#‎MetasdoMilênio‬ ‪#‎SriPremBaba‬

Today's Daily Dharma: Sticking with Fear

“When I walk into my fear, practice there, sit upright in the middle of it, completely open to the experience, with no expectation of the outcome, anything is possible.”

—Judith Randall, "The Hidden Lamp"

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Thich Nhat Hanh speaks first words after Stroke

The monks and nuns of Thich Nhat Hanh‘s Plum Village community have issued a new statement regarding the Vietnamese Zen master’s ongoing post-stroke therapy. As reported here, Nhat Hanh recently arrived in California’s Bay Area for various forms of treatment. In their letter, the monks and nuns highlight different aspects of said treatment and how Thay, as Nhat Hanh is affectionately called, is responding. He’s even spoken his first post-stroke words, thanks to speech therapy. From the letter:

It has been two months now since Thay arrived in America, with the hope of getting more intensive treatment to recover from his stroke. Thanks to the incredible support of our Beloved Community we have been able to obtain the very best doctors and therapists for Thay, across all treatment modalities. We are happy to be able to share that Thay is benefitting from the best of Western, Eastern, conventional, and alternative medical approaches. Thay is receiving acupuncture every day, as well as physical therapy, speech therapy, osteopathy, and neurofeedback, with the support and oversight of a phenomenal team of doctors at UCSF.

With Thay’s advanced age, the severity of the hemorrhage, as well as various complex health issues, recovery is extremely challenging. When Thay first started physical therapy, Thay was very engaged and enthusiastic with his therapists and the program that they had created for him. Preparing for Thay’s sessions of physical therapy, we could all feel the joyful determination in his body language. We would tell him, “Thay, let’s get ready for physical therapy” and Thay would raise his fist in the air and smile, as if to say “Let’s go!”

However, the level of fatigue and physical discomfort that Thay was experiencing when we first arrived in the US limited his ability to participate in the sessions. With the help of the whole team of doctors and therapists we have been able create an integrated program of treatment which allows Thay to have restful sleep, and more alertness, ease and peace in his body, enabling him to more fully participate in the sessions of therapy.
A recent breakthrough has been that whilst using a partial weight support walking frame, Thay’s right leg has started to make small movements, initiating the stepping motion.
Thay has received training from three different speech therapists over the last two months, one of whom was able to help Thay speak his first words since the stroke. It was a legendary day. We are happy to be able to share his very first words:

In, out (several times)
Happy (several times)
Thank you (several times)
and “Vui quá” (meaning, “So happy,” in Vietnamese)
It was like a guided meditation. Everyone was crying and laughing at the same time, including Thay.

Unfortunately, as the speech therapist who helped him to achieve this breakthrough lives far from San Francisco, she had to go back home after three days and Thay lost some momentum. We have tried a number of other speech therapists but have not been able to maintain Thay’s initial rapid progress. We are still looking for a local speech therapist, ideally fluent in Vietnamese, who would be able to work with Thay several times per week.

The letter goes on to tell more about Nhat Hanh’s time in the Bay Area, as well as the community’s plans for the fall, which include a tour by the monks and nuns. 

Read the complete posting here

Read the whole letter here.

Via Acariya Mahā Boowa

"Instead of trying to rely on ourselves we always put our hopes in other things, other people. We can't stand on own two feet. This is because the heart isn't wise enough to check whether the objects it grasps hold of are right or wrong, good or bad. It doesn't know how to care for itself, how to help itself, because there's no one to teach it. There's nobody to advise on how to know which things are dangerous and which are beneficial, which things should be held on to and which things shouldn't. The heart therefore continues indiscriminately to grasp hold of anything, whether good or bad, as long as it likes the look of it. Even if it isn't gratifying, the heart's characteristic trait is still to keep on grasping and clinging. Why should it be like this?"

-'To the Last Breath Dhamma Talks on Living and Dying'