Today's Daily Dharma: Groundless and Open

Groundless and Open

If we want to know what enlightenment is like, what awakening is like, we can practice the mind of non-clinging, non-fixation, nonattachment to anything at all. It's the mind of open groundlessness.

—Joseph Goldstein, "One Dharma"

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Via FB:

Today's Daily Dharma: The Enlightened State

The Enlightened State

For me the enlightened state is the realization of the oneness of life. And the proof is in the pudding: Are you functioning that way? Are you helping others?

—Bernie Glassman, "Working in the Cracks"

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Via JMG: NETHERLANDS: Gay Refugees Moved To Separate Housing After Attacks By Fellow Refugees

 

December 7, 2015 LGBT News

Dutch News reports:

Five gay asylum seekers in Amsterdam have been moved to a new location after they were spat on and attacked by other people in their refugee centre, the Parool says on Friday. The five – three from Syria, one from Iran and one from Iraq – have been moved to a house owned by housing corporation Rochdale. Junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff said earlier he did not support separate accommodation for gay refugees because it was ‘stigmatising’. A spokesman for the Salvation Army, which is in charge of refugee accommodation in the capital, said the men’s safety could not be guaranteed in their former housing. ‘They often don’t dare to leave their rooms,’ Philip Tijsma from gay rights lobby group COC told the Parool.

When Canada announced that it would accept gay Syrian refugees but not other “solo males,” activists worried that gay men who identify themselves in order to be eligible could face attacks in European refugee centers during the lengthy evaluation period. Unrelated to that, we must give credit to the Salvation Army for working to protect these gay refugees in the Netherlands.

Read the original here and more on JMG

Via Towleroad: Marco Rubio: I’ll Reverse LGBT Executive Orders, Appoint Anti-Equality SCOTUS Justices

GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio sat down with David Brody at the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview published Saturday and told Brody that as president he would reverse Obama’s LGBT executive orders that stop religious business owners from discriminating against gays, appoint conservative SCOTUS justices who don’t believe that gays have the right to marry or that women have rights over their own bodies. He also said any transgender rights laws regarding bathroom usage have got to go.

Make the jump here to read the full article / transcript and more

This Animated Short Film Shows Us What It’s Like To Date A Werewolf Boyfriend

Via my buddy RG on FB: Bias

Probably one of the best paragraphs I've come across summarizing the stereotyping and confirmation bias (my pilot friends will know all about the danger of confirmation bias in aviation) surrounding gay men even today. This is what keeps so many in the closet and ruins lives. 

"I’ve observed girly ticks in straight men who were otherwise highly masculine. And I’ve met heterosexual men who were quite a bit more effeminate than many homos. Yet these effeminate heteros rarely have their manhood called into question, by sheer virtue of their heterosexuality. All of these men are routinely given the benefit of the doubt—their effeminate behaviors dismissed as mere quirks of character. Admit homosexuality, however, and every momentary lapse in machismo is regarded as a sure sign of a womanly nature.

While the objective reality seems to be that masculinity varies from male to male, almost regardless of sexuality, subjective realities based on public and private perceptions have dramatically influenced what it means to be an adult male who loves men. People assign meaning to sexual desire, including their own, and this meaning plays a role in shaping their personalities and dictates who and what they believe they can be."

- Jack Donovan

Via The Middle Class Will Be Heard / FB:

Via Towleroad / FB: Ted Cruz Promises to Fight Gay Rights in Phone Call With Right Wing Extremists: LISTEN

In a phone call last week with anti-gay right wing extremists, Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz vowed he would fight against gay rights.

The call was organized by E.W. Jackson, a failed GOP nominee for the post of Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, and anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera.

 

LaBarbera asked Cruz about “the gay agenda”, specifically what he would do to “reverse and neutralize the Obergefell decision of the Supreme Court”, “end Obama’s policy of actually flying the rainbow flag at U.S. embassies worldwide”, and halt “the Equality Act, which I’m calling the Homosexual Superiority Act, in Congress.”

Cruz first addressed the question about the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage, comparing it to the Court’s ruling on abortion in Roe v. Wade, as Right Wing Watch points out:

“It is the decision reminiscent of Roe v. Wade of a handful of unelected judges arrogantly and lawlessly decreeing the authority to fundamentally change our country and to tear down the foundations of the country,” Cruz added.

He also criticized Republicans who decided to “surrender” to the Supreme Court and treat Obergefell as the “settled law of the land.”

“My response to this decision was that it was illegitimate, it was lawless, it was utterly contrary to the Constitution and that we should fight to defend marriage on every front,” he said, before promoting constitutional amendments to overturn the ruling and put justices up for retention elections, along with legislation “to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to marriage.”

Cruz also said he wants “to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to marriage.” He added, “we will not use the federal government to enforce this lawless decision that is a usurpation of the authority of we the people in this country.”

On LGBT rights as they pertain to military service, Cruz remarked that he was “just hearing terrible things” about the military being “beset with these new LGBT rules”:

“You look at the military and one of the things we’ve seen is morale in the military under the Obama administration has plummeted, and it has plummeted because you have a commander-in-chief that doesn’t support our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines, you have a commander-in-chief that doesn’t stand up against our enemies, that won’t even acknowledge or say the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ and you have a commander-in-chief that treats the military as a cauldron for social experimentation. He’s more interested in promoting homosexuality in the military than he is in defeating our enemy.

For example, the military is now focused on trying to promote transgendered [sic] soldiers. The role of the military is not to be some left-wing social experiment. The reason we have the brave men and women who sign up as service men and women to defend this nation is to stand for our values, to protect our safety and security, to protect innocent men and women and to stand up and defeat our enemies, and I would stop the shameless politicizing of our military to push a left-wing agenda that is contrary to the values and contrary to who we are as an American people and a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values.”

LaBarbera praised Cruz for his anti-gay advocacy, calling him a “real believer” who is “not one of these candidates who is going to say, ‘I believe in traditional marriage but I would attend a gay wedding if it was a friend of mine.’” That being a not-so-thinly veiled reference to Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Read the full article and listen to the phone call

Via Andy Grammer / FB:

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day 07/12/2015

“As distorções dos princípios vitais feminino e masculino, que se manifestam como agressividade e submissão, nascem da necessidade de retirar energia do outro. Energia significa amor – essa é a energia que alimenta o universo. O desamor é o que gera as distorções. Assim, a entidade humana, movida pelo desamor, passa a vida tentando conquistar o amor, mas tudo o que ela consegue é gerar mais desamor. O submisso gera mais ódio no agressivo porque ativa nele a violência do masculino distorcido; e o agressivo ativa ainda mais a submissão do feminino distorcido. Esse é o núcleo da guerra neste planeta.”

“Las distorsiones de los principios vitales femenino y masculino, que se manifiestan como agresividad y sumisión, nacen de la necesidad de retirar energía del otro. Energía significa amor - esta es la energía que alimenta al universo. El desamor es lo que genera distorsiones. Así, la entidad humana, movida por el desamor, se pasa la vida tratando de conquistar el amor, pero todo lo que consigue es generar más desamor. El sumiso genera más odio en el agresivo, porque activa en él la violencia del masculino distorsionado; y el agresivo activa aun más la sumisión del femenino distorsionado. Este es el núcleo de la guerra en este planeta.”

"The distorted masculine and feminine principles manifest as aggression and submission, and are born from the need to take energy from the other. Energy is love, and this energy feeds the Universe. A lack of love is what creates distortions. Thus, human beings moved by the lack of love spend their lives trying to get that love, but all they generate is more absence of love. A submissive person generates more hatred in an aggressive person because they activate the violence of the distorted masculine.In turn, an aggressive person activates even more submission of the distorted feminine. This is the nucleus of warfare on our planet."

Today's Daily Dharma: All There Is

All There Is

Wherever there is the death of one state of mind there is the birth of another, and linking the two there is bardo. The past has gone and the future has not yet come: we cannot catch that in-between moment, yet it is really all there is.

—Francesca Fremantle, "The Secret Life of the Street"

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Via FB:

Coldplay Performs 'Adventure of a Lifetime'

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day 06/12/2015

“A verdade é muito simples. A complexidade existe porque tentamos fugir da verdade. A mentira é muito complexa. Ela é a mais sutil e menos óbvia matriz do eu inferior. Ela se manifesta como autoengano – o autoengano da falsa ideia de eu. O sofrimento está sentado em cima da mentira, enquanto a verdade é a base para a alegria.”

“La verdad es muy simple. La complejidad existe porque intentamos huir de la verdad. La mentira es muy compleja. Es la más sutil y menos obvia matriz del yo inferior. Se manifiesta como autoengaño - el auto-engaño de la falsa idea de yo. El sufrimiento está sentado arriba de la mentira, mientras que la verdad es la base de la alegría.”

"The truth is very simple. Things become complicated when we try to escape the truth. Lies are very complex. Deceit is the most subtle and least obvious matrix of the lower self. Lies manifest as self-deception, which is the false idea of the self. Suffering comes from lies, whereas the truth is the foundation for joy."

Celebrate Togetherness

Home. Heart. Holiday. "The Homecoming"

Today's Daily Dharma: The Consequence of Forgetfulness

The Consequence of Forgetfulness

If we live in forgetfulness rather than in mindfulness—in a dream—we are creating violence without being aware of it. The way we live our daily lives and the way we consume creates a lot of suffering, a lot of injustice. We think it does not harm us, or others, but it can be very violent.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, "Waking Up the Nation"

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Today's Daily Dharma: Brave Enough to Be Unsure

Brave Enough to Be Unsure

Becoming intimate with the queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere only makes our hearts more tender. . . . By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength.

—Pema Chodron, "The In-between State"

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