Today's Daily Dharma: The Fruits of Solitude

The Fruits of Solitude

We can't kid ourselves: if we never take a break from our busy lives, it's going to be extremely difficult to tame our minds. This is why it's recommended to take time every day to meditate. Even short periods of sitting silently with ourselves allow the mind to settle down.

—Pema Chödrön, "Cutting Ties: The Fruits of Solitude"

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Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 28/10/2015

“A água nos oferece muitos ensinamentos. Se você observá-la, verá que ela jamais impõe a sua cor a nada ou a ninguém. Ela está sempre recebendo todas as cores. Assim ela nos ensina sobre a aceitação e a humildade; sobre a liberdade de fluir sem se apegar a nada. Ela nos mostra caminhos para atravessarmos os grandes desafios dessa tão desafiadora etapa da nossa jornada evolutiva.

“El agua nos ofrece muchas enseñanzas. Si la observas, verás que ella jamás impone su color a nada o a nadie. Está siempre recibiendo todos los colores. Así nos enseña sobre la aceptación y la humildad, sobre la libertad de fluir sin apegarse a nada. Nos muestra caminos para atravesar los grandes desafíos de esta tan desafiante etapa de nuestro camino evolutivo.”

"Water offers us many lessons. If you observe water, you’ll see that it never imposes its color on anything or anyone. Water is always receiving the colors of the world. It teaches us about acceptance and humility; about the freedom of flowing without clinging to anything. It shows us ways to cross the great challenges that come in this extremely difficult stage of our evolutionary journey.”

Today's Daily Dharma: We Must Act Now

We Must Act Now

The situation in which we find ourselves today is more dire than any other moment in human history, and we simply cannot wait until we become perfect bodhisattvas or perfect environmentalists before we respond. We must act now, as flawed, failed, flailing selves.

—Roy Scranton, "Learning to Die in the Anthropocene"

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Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 26/10/2015

“A maior parte dos chamados ‘seres humanos’ ainda está transitando do animal para o homem. O que caracteriza o estado de consciência animal é a luta pela sobrevivência. Só é possível ancorar a consciência humana quando deixamos de simplesmente buscar pela sobrevivência através da satisfação de necessidades básicas e começamos a manifestar valores humanos: cooperação, respeito, amor, verdade e assim por diante. E somente quando consolidamos esses valores e ancoramos a consciência humana poderemos nos mover em direção à consciência divina.”

“La mayor parte de los llamados ‘seres humanos’ aún está transitando del animal al hombre. Lo que caracteriza el estado de consciencia animal es la lucha por la supervivencia. Solo es posible anclar la consciencia humana cuando dejamos de simplemente buscar la supervivencia a través de la satisfacción de necesidades básicas y comenzamos a manifestar valores humanos: cooperación, respeto, amor, verdad y así en adelante. Y solamente cuando consolidamos estos valores y anclamos la consciencia humana podremos movernos en dirección a la consciencia divina.”

“At the deepest level, most of whom we refer to as 'human beings' are still transitioning from an animalistic consciousness to a truly human one. What characterizes the animal state of consciousness is the struggle for survival. We can only anchor human consciousness when we stop focusing exclusively on our own survival, needing to satisfy our most basic needs, and instead begin to manifest human values such as cooperation, respect, love, truth and so forth. Only when we unite these values and anchor human consciousness can we move toward divine consciousness."

Today's Daily Dharma: Exchange Self and Other

Exchange Self and Other

Whosoever wishes to swiftly provide Deliverance for themselves and others Should practice the sublime mystery Of exchanging self and other.

—Shantideva in "Because We Can" by Pamela Gayle White

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Via WP: Gay asylum seekers face threat from fellow refugees in Europe

Four young refugees in their apartment in the German city of Dresden. They were taken out of official refugee shelters after being harassed. (Mario Wezel for The Washington Post)

 
DRESDEN, Germany — Rami Ktifan made a snap decision to come out. A fellow Syrian had spotted a rainbow flag lying near the 23-year-old university student’s belongings inside a packed refugee center. The curious man, Ktifan recalled, picked it up before casually asking, “What is this?”

“I decided to tell the truth, that it is the flag for gay people like me,” Ktifan said. “I thought, I am in Europe now. In Germany, I should not have to hide anymore.”

What followed over the next several weeks, though, was abuse — both verbal and physical — from other refugees, including an attempt to burn Ktifan’s feet in the middle of the night. The harassment ultimately became so severe that he and two other openly gay asylum seekers were removed from the refugee center with the aid of a local gay activist group and placed in separate accommodations across town.

As the largest flow of refugees since World War II streams into Europe, Ktifan’s case illustrates an emerging problem for gay and lesbian asylum seekers. Some of them arrive in Europe only to find themselves under threat from fellow refugees.

Gays who face official persecution in nations such as Iran and Uganda have been fleeing to Europe for years. But experts estimate that a record number of gays and lesbians seeking asylum, as many as 50,000, will arrive this year in Germany, the European nation accepting the largest number of refugees. Rather than leaving their home countries specifically because of anti-gay persecution, many are fleeing violence and war in nations such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Make the jump here to read the full article in the Washington Post

Via Equality House / FB:

BERNIE SANDERS | FULL INTERVIEW WITH JAKE TAPPER on 'CNN STATE OF THE UNION’ 10/25/15

 

Via WGB: Billys Dad is a Fudge Packer

Billy's Dad is a Fudge-Packer! is a 2004 American black-and-white short comedy film written and directed by Jamie Donahue in her first non-acting effort. It is a parody of the 1950s social guidance films, and depicts the life of a boy learning about adulthood in a traditional family. The apparently innocent account of family life in the 1950s is loaded with sexual innuendo. It was made by production company POWER UP.

Via The ManKind Project / FB:

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 25/10/2015

“O conflito está na mente. A separação é somente uma ilusão criada pela mente condicionada. A espiritualidade não divide, ela une. O Eu maior é indivisível. Se você está em comunhão com o Ser, onde quer que esteja você estará presente e inteiro. Você será capaz de transformar um lugar comum em um santuário. Tudo se torna sagrado porque a sacralidade emerge dessa inteireza - a paz e a pureza nascem da presença.”

“El conflicto está en la mente. La separación es solamente una ilusión creada por la mente condicionada. La espiritualidad no divide, une. El Yo mayor es indivisible. Si estás en comunión con el Ser, donde quiera que estés, estarás presente y entero. Serás capaz de transformar un lugar común en un santuario. Todo se torna sagrado porque la sacralidad emerge de esa entereza –la paz y la pureza nacen de la presencia-.”

“Conflict only exists in the mind. Separation is but an illusion created by the conditioned mind. Spirituality does not divide: it only unites. The higher self is indivisible. If you are in communion with your Being, you will be present and whole wherever you go. You will be able to turn an ordinary place into a sanctuary. Everything becomes sacred, because sanctity emerges from this wholeness. Peace and purity are born out of presence.”

Today's Daily Dharma: Root out Suffering

Root out Suffering

Just as a tree, though cut down, sprouts up again if its roots remain uncut and firm, even so, until the craving that lies dormant is rooted out, suffering springs up again and again.

—Acharya Buddharakkhita, "From the Canon: Thirst"

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Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 24/10/2015

“O trânsito da ilusão para a percepção da Realidade na qual experimentamos Satchitananda – existência, consciência e bem aventurança absolutos - inevitavelmente envolve episódios de cura. Ocorre uma espécie de cirurgia psicoespiritual na qual tumores de autoengano são removidos. Essa cirurgia pode ser bastante desafiadora. O desafio será proporcional ao tamanho do apego ao que precisa ser removido.”

“El tránsito de la ilusión a la percepción de la Realidad en la cual experimentamos Satchitananda –existencia, consciencia y bienaventuranza absolutos– inevitablemente envuelve episodios de cura. Ocurre una especie de cirugía psico-espiritual en la cual tumores de autoengaño son removidos. Esta cirugía puede ser bastante desafiante. El desafío será proporcional al tamaño del apego que precisa ser removido.”

"We are moving from a perception of illusion to the perception of reality in which we experience Sat-chit-ananda: existence, consciousness and absolute bliss. This transition inevitably involves a healing process. A type of psychospiritual surgery may occur where tumors of self-deceit are removed. This surgery can be quite challenging, and how challenging it will be depends on how attached we are to what is needing to be removed.”

Today's Daily Dharma: Enlightenment Isn't Perfect

Enlightenment Isn't Perfect

We must give up the pursuit of positive emotional states through spiritual practice. The path of awakening is not about positive emotions. On the contrary, enlightenment may not be easy or positive at all. It is not easy to have our illusions crushed. It is not easy to let go of long-held perceptions. We may experience great resistance to seeing through even those illusions that cause us a great amount of pain.

—Adyashanti, "Bliss is a By-Product"

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Via M.J. Rose / FB:

This is so beautiful. I was crying by the second line, Written by Henry Scott Holland (27 January 1847 – 17 March 1918) was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.

 

 

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / FB:

Greetings,

When I look back on the suffering in my life, I now see it as a gift.

I would have never asked for it for a second, I hated it while it was happening and I protested as loudly as I could, but suffering happened anyway. Now, in retrospect I see the way in which it deepened my being immeasurably.

I recently spent time in the local hospital as a result of a wound that I incurred accidentally. The hospital was filled with staff who were more or less karma yogis without having any idea of what karma yoga is in it’s Eastern definition.

For me, that was like being on a vacation because there was no demand on me in my role as Baba Ram Dass. I just thought about love and we all loved one another. I got through the physical suffering by remaining in the depth of my soul.

I also used the perspective of the witness. I witnessed the suffering, I witnessed my body as it got hold of my mind in reaction to the pain. I witnessed the capturing of my consciousness. Eventually, that witness gave me the leverage to transform my suffering. It was interesting; my sadhana (spiritual work) came through, my years and years of practice. Everyone who encountered me saw that my spirit was strong if not my body. I immediately settled on the fact that what happened to me was simply a matter of nature. Once I realized that it was nature and karma, I was content and with that contentment I was able to surrender to the One: to the Guru, God, and Self. I had Maharajji’s photo in the hospital and I talked to him, not about the suffering, because I accepted early on that this was just nature and inevitable. But rather, I talked to him about love. About truth. About joy. Of course, that’s the time to be able to burrow into that moment in any of life’s twists and turns. I was very grateful to have this grace in those very difficult circumstances. And that grace is always available; we just need to sink into our spiritual hearts, our souls, and see our lives as a passing show from that perspective. The body is the body, the soul is the soul. Namaste, Ram Dass

Via Huffington Comments: Buddhist Priest Invites Same-Sex Couples To Marry At His Temple

"We mustn't act as if it's all right to cast the LGBT community aside because they're a minority group," says priest at Japan's Shunkoin temple.

Via HuffPost Japan

Posted: 10/22/2015 01:35 PM EDT | Edited: 10/22/2015 01:37 PM EDT

 

Rena Kure Deputy Head Priest Zenryu Kawakami at Shunkoin temple in Kyoto, Japan.

 

Same-sex marriages are not legal in Japan. However, there is a Japanese Buddhist temple where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and members of other sexual minority groups can wed: the Shunkoin temple in Hanazono, Kyoto. Same-sex couples from around the world visit the temple. 
How did the Shunkoin temple start holding LGBT wedding ceremonies? HuffPost Japan posed the question to the Rev. Taka Zenryu Kawakami, deputy head priest at Shunkoin. 

The priest admits he was prejudiced against the LGBT community when he was younger. "I am not gay myself, and there were no LGBT people around me when I was growing up. The old me was prejudiced against sexual minorities," he said. 

Kawakami was born into a family that has produced Shunkoin chief priests for generations. After graduating from the Hanazono School (which is affiliated with Rinzai Buddhism's Myoshinji temple), he studied English at Rice University in Texas, and then enrolled at Arizona State University.

"One day I was having tea with a friend, and a person walked past who you could tell at a glance was gay. I made a discriminatory comment. My friend replied, 'I'm gay, too. Is that the way you feel about me, Taka?’” Kawakami recounted. 

“When he said that, I remembered being discriminated against as an Asian person when I traveled in the South," he said. "Especially because I had been the victim of prejudice myself, I felt terrible shame, and I completely changed my position. As I changed, my friends began to open up to me about the fact that they were gay or lesbian." 

 

John S Lander via Getty Images  

 

A monk at Shunkoin stands in front of the temple's sliding door panels, which were painted by artist Eigaku Kano.

 

Kawakami majored in religious studies and psychology at Arizona State, and lived in the U.S. for approximately eight years. In 2004, he returned to Japan to start his ascetic training at the Zuiganji temple in Miyagi prefecture, since having experience as a priest would help prepare him for graduate school.

In 2006, Kawakami finished his training and returned to Shunkoin, where he had the opportunity to give an American acquaintance zazen meditation classes in English. Word got out about the classes, and tourists started calling. In 2007, Kawakami officially became deputy head priest at Shunkoin, and started offering meditation classes to more and more English speakers.

The first person to ask about same-sex wedding ceremonies was a woman from Spain who had visited Shunkoin many times to learn about zazen meditation.

"'Can you hold wedding ceremonies here?' she asked me," Kawakami recalled. "I told her, ‘Yes, we can.' Then she said, 'I have one more question. My partner is a woman.' And I responded, 'That's fine.'"

 

John S Lander via Getty Images  

 

A view of a garden at Shunkoin. The temple dates back to the 16th century and was one of the most important places for Zen Buddhism in the early 20th century.

 

Kawakami looked over the sacred texts of Mahayana Buddhism, and confirmed that such a wedding would not contradict scripture. He expected to be criticized for holding the ceremony, but was also sure that his willingness to hold same-sex wedding ceremonies at the temple would support the LGBT cause by paving the way for more acceptance in Japanese society.

"The reasons why LGBT people are not accepted are different in the West than in Japan," Kawakami said. "In Japan, there is no religious pressure from groups like Christian conservatives. So you don’t see the same sort of strong opposition as in the West. On the other hand, in Japan, there is an underlying pressure to conform, a sense of ‘We are all the same; we are all heterosexual’ -- and that makes it hard to live as an LGBT person."

"I thought that if places such as my temple could show that we actively accept same-sex marriage, it would draw more attention to the problem," he added. 

In 2010, the Spanish couple held a public wedding ceremony.

In the spring of 2014, Shunkoin partnered with Hotel Granvia Kyoto to offer Buddhist wedding package tours for LGBT couples. Five couples signed up that year. So far in 2015, eight couples have come to pledge their love, Kawakami said. Six of the couples were from abroad, and two of the couples were Japanese -- two men, and two women.

"A lot of the couples are women. This was the first year we had a couple where both individuals were Japanese, which made me happy. I hope we get even more couples like them in the future," Kawakami said.

 

John S Lander via Getty Images

  

Same-sex couples from around the world come to Kyoto to marry at Shunkoin temple.

Since the same-sex wedding ceremonies started at Shunkoin, Kawakami has given lectures at General Electric and the University of Tokyo, and has been invited to speak at other institutions.

"The missionary Luís Fróis recorded that in the Warring States period, daimyo [lords] had sexual relationships with their pages. Same-sex love is depicted in the shunga [erotic] art of the Edo period, and was accepted," Kawakami said. 

"This changed during [the Meiji period]. During the ‘Leave Asia, Join Europe’ phase, the definition of a 'civilized country' as a Protestant-based Western nation was blindly imported, and it came to be thought that gay love was a sin. If we look carefully at history, we can see that pre-Meiji Japan was 'gay friendly,'" he added.

"We mustn't act as if it's all right to cast the LGBT community aside because they're a minority group," Kawakami said. "According to surveys, 7.6 percent of Japan's population is LGBT. That means about seven percent of the people in Japan don't have the option to get married. This cannot lead to happiness in the country."

And it’s not just about gay rights, Kawakami believes. Becoming a society where women, people with disabilities, immigrants, and other minority groups can be happy is the road to happiness for the whole country, he says.

This story originally appeared on HuffPost Japan. It has been translated into English and edited for clarity.

MORE: LBGT, Japan, Kyoto, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Meditation, Zazen, shunkoin temple, Gay Marriage, same sex marriage, Gay Rights, taka zenryu kawakami, What's Working

 

Thank you Huffington for this work! Make the jump here to read this and other great articles at Huffington