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Via Daily Dharma: Meditation and the Malleable Self

The self is plastic, a malleable clay being molded each moment by intention. Just as our scientists are discovering not only how the mind is shaped by the brain but now, too, how the brain is shaped by the mind, so the Buddha described long ago the interdependent process by which intentions are conditioned by dispositions and dispositions in turn are conditioned by intentions.

—Andrew Olendzki, "Karma in Action"

Via JMG: Trump Refuses To Answer Gay Marriage Question

March 7, 2016 2016 Election, Marriage Equality

From the Daily Mail:

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump refused to answer a question about same-sex marriage during a press conference Saturday night, following his electoral split of four primary and caucus states with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

DailyMail.com asked Trump to say whether or not he favors marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, and whether U.S. Supreme Court justices he might appoint would be expected to work toward overturning ‘Obergefell v. Hodges,’ the 2015 decision that legalized such unions nationwide.

‘We have policy on it. And I’ve said it very, very strongly,’ Trump replied, without saying what that policy is. ‘And I think you know it. And it’s all done and, you know, in a campaign how many times do I have to say it?’
Trump said in January during an interview on ‘Fox News Sunday’ that he wished the high court had left the issue to the states to resolve, and concluded that he ‘would strongly consider’ appointing justices to overturn the ‘surprising’ Obergefell decision.

That answer allowed him enough room to maneuver in a Republican primary full of rivals on the religious right, without saying unequivocally that a President Trump would work to reverse the Supreme Court.

Make a jump to this article and much more on JMG

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flor del día 07/03/2016

“Shiva é uma frequência de luz que nos inspira o desapego. As cinzas que cobrem o seu corpo simbolizam o fim do desejo. E através do desapego e da transcendência do desejo, é possível conquistar a morte (não mais temê-la, compreendendo que ela é apenas uma passagem para outra forma de vida). A vitória sobre a morte é a maior iniciação possível neste plano. Ela representa moksha, a liberação do ciclo de morte e renascimento.”

“Shiva es una frecuencia de luz que nos inspira al desapego. Las cenizas que cubren su cuerpo simbolizan el fin del deseo. Y a través del desapego y de la trascendencia del deseo, es posible conquistar la muerte (no temerle más, comprendiendo que es sólo un pasaje hacia otra forma de vida). La victoria sobre la muerte es la mayor iniciación posible en este plano. Representa moksha, la liberación del ciclo de muerte y renacimiento.”

"Shiva is a frequency of light that inspires detachment within us. The ashes covering Shiva’s body symbolize the end of desire. Through detachment and by transcending our desires, we can conquer death. We no longer fear death, as we realize that it is but a passage from one form of life to another. Victory over death is the highest level of initiation possible in this realm. This victory represents moksha, being liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth.”

Via Daily Dharma: Closely Inspecting Experience

To see things as they are is to unearth our hidden assumptions about ourselves and our world, to bring them into the light of full consciousness, and to notice how, on close inspection, these assumptions often contradict our actual experience.

—C.W. Huntington, Jr., "Seeing Things as They Are"

Via Ram Dass

March 6, 2016

Work to extricate yourself from the illusion of your own separateness, and then you do what you do in life. And as you do what you do in life, if you’re a shoemaker you make shoes, if you’re a mother you raise your children; whatever you’re doing that is the vehicle through which you express that. It’s like C.S. Lewis saying you don’t see the center because it’s all center. But whatever you are is the center of the whole game, and it resonates out from there. A fully conscious bus driver can affect everybody that’s in the traffic around them, everybody that steps on their bus.

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 06/03/2016

“Amanhã é celebrado na Índia o Mahashivaratri (‘a grande noite de Shiva’) uma data muito auspiciosa por conta da configuração astrológica e astronômica. É o momento do ano no qual a lua exerce menor influência sobre a mente humana, o que favorece a experiência da comunhão com o Divino, através da união entre o masculino (Shiva) e o feminino (Shakti). Esse é um momento propício para a prática do silêncio e/ou do jejum alimentar e da oração.”

“Mañana se celebra en India el Mahashivaratri (‘la gran noche de Shiva') una fecha muy auspiciosa debido a la configuración astrológica y astronómica. Es el momento del año en que la luna ejerce menor influencia sobre la mente humana, lo que favorece la experiencia de comunión con lo Divino a través de la unión entre el masculino (Shiva) y el femenino (Shakti). Este es un momento propicio para la práctica del silencio y/o del ayuno alimenticio y de la oración.”

"In India, Mahashivaratri, 'the great night of Shiva' is celebrated tomorrow. It is a very auspicious date because of its astrological and astronomical configurations. It is the time of year when the moon exerts the least influence on the human mind, which favors the experience of communion with the Divine through the union of masculine, Shiva, and feminine,Shakti. This is a good time to practice silence or fasting as well as prayer.”

Via Daily Dharma: The Point of Buddhism

Most people, myself included, want to get some benefit from something. But in Buddhism, what we’re actually trying to do is to become released from the suffering that comes from wanting to get something.

—Mark Unno, "The Buddha of Infinite Light and Life"

Via PEACE and Grace: Spirituality in a Broken World / FB:

 

DISAVOWAL

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." (Matthew 7:15)

Via FB:

Hilarious Gay Marriage Speech by NZ MP

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 05/03/2016

“Para poder doar ao outro é preciso ter o que doar. É preciso ser generoso consigo mesmo para poder ser generoso com o outro, o que significa poder ir além dos nãos para a sua própria saúde, prosperidade e alegria. Alguns ouvem falar de altruísmo e logo saem por aí pregando e querendo fazer caridade, mas ainda não têm o que oferecer. Esse movimento é justamente o contrário do altruísmo, pois é carregado de necessidade de reconhecimento e atenção. É uma falsa caridade, uma doação que quer algo em troca. Essa ação serve apenas para desenvolver um aspecto da natureza inferior conhecido como ‘ego espiritual’.”

“Para poder dar al otro es necesario tener algo que dar. Es preciso ser generoso consigo mismo para poder ser generoso con el otro, lo que significa poder ir más allá de los No a tu propia salud, prosperidad y alegría. Algunos oyen hablar de altruismo y luego salen por ahí predicando y queriendo hacer caridad, pero todavía no tienen qué ofrecer. Este movimiento es justamente lo contrario del altruismo porque está cargado de necesidad de reconocimiento y atención. Es una falsa caridad, una donación que quiere algo a cambio. Esta acción sólo sirve para desarrollar un aspecto de la naturaleza inferior, conocido como 'ego espiritual’.”

"In order to give to the other, we must have something to give. We must first be generous with ourselves in order to be generous with the other, which means being able to go beyond the no's towards our own health, prosperity and joy. Some people hear about altruism and immediately go around preaching and doing charity, yet they still have nothing to offer. These actions are directly opposite to the true sense of altruism,asthey born out of the need for recognition and attention. This is a false charity; a giving that expects something in return. These action merely serve to develop an aspect of our lower nature known as 'the spiritual ego'.”

Via Daily Dharma: Buddha vs. Hobbes

I think everybody has a natural inclination to compassion. It gets covered over by frustration, ignorance, bad experiences, bad karma, but underneath it, as they say, everybody has a Buddha-nature which is compassionate. This is exactly the opposite of the Hobbesian view, which is that underneath everybody is a snarling animal.

—Allen Ginsberg, "Spontaneous Intelligence"

Via Huffington: It's Time to Rethink Religion vs. LGBT

by Mychal Copeland Co-editor of Struggling in Good Faith: LGBTQI Inclusion from 13 American Religious Perspectives and Director of InterfaithFamily Bay Area. 

 

martinwimmer via Getty Images

Despite what it sounds like on the campaign trail, Americans of all religious backgrounds are opposed to curtailing freedoms for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. While Marco Rubio states that "...faith-based people...are being compelled to sin by government in their business conduct" and Ted Cruz is calling 2016 the "religious liberty election," statistics show a more complicated relationship between American religion and LGBT issues. A majority of Americans - across the religious spectrum - think that people should not be fired from a job, denied housing or evicted from their home simply because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

While more than 50% of white evangelical Protestants and Mormons do support Religious Refusal bills, every other American religious group - including Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Muslims - oppose them. Moreover, majorities in every single American religious group - including white evangelical Protestants and Mormons - would support legislation protecting LGBT individuals from discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing.

The Public Religion Research Institute, drawing on 42,000 interviews conducted in 2015, issued a recent report showing that even among religious groups that oppose same-sex marriage, a majority support legal protections for LGBT people and do not believe that small business owners in their states should be able to refuse products or services to gay or lesbian people on religious grounds. Even where their religion has been vocal in opposing same sex marriage, a majority of Americans (53%) support it. 

The survey comes in the wake of a slew of anti-LGBT religious refusal bills being proposed at the state level which would allow businesses to refuse services to LGBT people and eliminate the ability of local governments to protect LGBT residents and visitors through non-discrimination ordinances. 

On the national scene, the conservative American Principles Project approached all of the presidential hopefuls late last year to endorse the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), hoping to get their pledge to support legislation during their first 100 days in the White House that would, according to the ACLU, "permit government employees to discriminate against married same-sex couples and their families - federal employees could refuse to process tax returns, visa applications, or Social Security checks for all married same-sex couples, and allow businesses to discriminate by refusing to let gay or lesbian employees care for their sick spouse, in violation of family medical leave laws." 

The act goes beyond affecting just LGBT people: it would allow landlords to refuse housing to a single mother on the religious grounds that sexual relations must only occur within the bounds of marriage. Six of the Republican candidates pledged to back the act, and three more have endorsed similar ideas. No Republican candidate has publicly opposed the bill. 

But the findings of the Public Religion Research Institute reveal that it is no longer possible to make blanket assumptions that people who affiliate themselves with a religious institution will support legislation that legalizes discrimination against LGBT individuals and families. When 73% of Catholics, 72% of Mormons, and 57% of white, Evangelical Protestants support LGBT nondiscrimination laws, we begin to see a more complex picture of religion in America. 

The numbers challenge some deeply ingrained myths about religion and religious people. First, no religious tradition is monolithic. Within each denomination, there is a wide array of belief and practice, and without fail, every American religious tradition is engaged in a struggle about LGBT inclusion. 

Second, the Public Religion Research Institute numbers challenge the overstated notion that all religions are, or should be, unchanging and timeless, unaffected by their surroundings. Even if these statistics merely reflect a shift amongst laypeople and not leadership, they still support a theory of change, albeit slow, within all religious traditions. 

As Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson writes in Struggling in Good Faith: LGBTQI Inclusion from 13 American Religious Perspectives, "Most people would tell you that religions are the keepers and preservers of unchanging, eternal truths. They would be wrong." If a religion has stood the test of time, it is because its adherents have struggled with new ideas and found ways to incorporate them. In fact, confronting and incorporating change is built into many religions. This kind of evolution occurs differently across the spectrum of traditions. For some, rather than doctrine or ideology changing with people following afterward, the opposite is true. A slow, subtle shift in attitude is followed by (or is concurrent with) expansive approaches to theology, ideology, and scriptural interpretation, and then, perhaps, changes in doctrine over time. 

Third, there is a prevailing assumption that individuals will hold anti-LGBT religious doctrine above other religious ideals. More and more religious leaders and lay people are prizing overarching principles of faith, such as compassion, love, dignity, and welcome over negative religious legislation. Even where there are prohibitions on the books disallowing same-sex relationships or activity, there is an underlying call for compassion and a support of individuals' rights. Most Americans now know someone who is LGBT, and see this acronym no longer as an amalgamation of heady labels but as a face of someone they love, someone they work with, someone who has struggled. Those Americans are more likely to see that individual as someone who should be able to rent an apartment, keep a job, and even marry the one they love.

Follow Mychal Copeland on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rabbimychal

MORE:

Gay, Republican Party, Islam, RELIGIÓN, Catholic Church

 

Make the jump here to read the original and more on Huffington 

Via Alternet / Belief: Why It's Heretical to Read the Bible Literally

Retired Bishop John Shelby Spong challenges a common tendency towards a literal reading of the Bible.

By Candace Chellew-Hodge / Religion Dispatches

 

March 1, 2016

Bishop John Shelby Spong
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons

That’s why, says retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, despite his best-selling controversial books and popular speeches, his position on Jesus and the Christian church will never be the majority opinion, because he believes Jesus is not the Savior of the world and that the Bible cannot be read literally.

That hunger for security is being sated by everyone from mega-church pastors offering assurances that Jesus will save the faithful, to the current crop of presidential candidates hawking their ability to keep us safe.

“Donald Trump can say the outrageous things he says because it speaks to people’s fears,” Spong said in a recent interview with RD’s Candace Chellew-Hodge. “They respond because he says what their fears want to hear. He can’t deliver any more than anyone else can.”

But that doesn’t keep him, or any of the other candidates or pastors from promising that security, whether it’s offered through God, guns or the government.

How did we get into such as sorry state? Gentiles, Spong says.

In his new book, Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy, Spong dissects the Gospel of Matthew to uncover what the Jewish writers were really trying to do in their gospel narrative, and oddly enough, building megachurches and promising safety and security in exchange for right belief isn’t anywhere to be found.

What is there, however, is a powerful message that runs counter to the idea that faith offers nothing but a sweet and secure life. Instead, the biblical writers are inviting readers into the mystery of a life that is frequently messy and often downright brutal.
 
That, Spong says, is the real Good News.

Make the jump here to read the full article

Via JMG: US Promotes LGBT Rights At United Nations By Taking Ambassadors To See Lesbian-Themed Broadway Musical

March 3, 2016 LGBT News

Reuters reports:

The United States turned to cultural diplomacy on Tuesday to push gay rights at the United Nations by taking 15 U.N. ambassadors, including those from Russia, Gabon and Namibia, to see an award-winning lesbian musical on Broadway.

Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said the “Fun Home” coming-of-age production “brings home the challenges that LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) are facing every day around the world.”

“Thank you for bringing this all home in a way that resolutions and statements never can,” Power told the cast during a question-and-answer session after their performance.

According to the United Nations, being gay is a crime in at least 75 countries.

Last year, “Fun Home” won five Tony Awards – American theatre’s highest honors – including best musical and best actor for Michael Cerveris, who plays a closeted gay father.

The U.S. mission said ambassadors from the European Union, Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, El Salvador, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Uruguay and Vietnam also attended.

Make the jump here to read the original and more at JMG

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 04/03/2016

“Estamos passando por uma aceleração do processo evolutivo, tanto como indivíduos, quanto como planeta. Apesar de haver uma grande fricção ocorrendo interna e externamente, estamos sendo levados a experienciar liberdade e união. Para aqueles que, de certa forma, já puderam ir um pouco além do egoísmo e das mazelas da natureza inferior, esse momento é um convite para se doarem mais; é um convite para colocar seus potenciais, dons e talentos a serviço do bem comum. Mas isso precisa ser feito de forma autêntica, verdadeiramente amorosa e desinteressada, como na passagem da bíblia que diz: ‘A mão esquerda não deve ver o que a mão direita dá’.”

“Estamos pasando por una aceleración del proceso evolutivo, tanto como individuos y como planeta. A pesar de haber una gran fricción ocurriendo interna y externamente, estamos siendo llevados a experimentar libertad y unión. Para aquellos que, de alguna manera, ya pudieron ir un poco más allá del egoísmo y de los males de la naturaleza inferior, este momento es una invitación a darse más; es una invitación para poner tus potenciales, dones y talentos al servicio del bien común. Pero esto debe hacerse de manera auténtica, verdaderamente amorosa y desinteresada, como el pasaje de la biblia que dice: ‘La mano izquierda no debe ver lo que la mano derecha da’.”

"The evolutionary process is accelerating, both on the individual level as well as the collective. Although there is a lot of internal and external friction, we are being led to the experience of freedom and unity. For those who, in some way, have already been able to surpass selfishness and the wrong doings of the lower nature, this moment isan invitation to give of yourselves even more. It is inviting us to put our potential gifts and talents at the service of the greater good. However, this must be done authentically, in a truly loving and selfless way. As a passage from the Bible says, ‘Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.'"

Via Daily Dharma: Making History Here

World history is a record of the effects of the negative and positive thoughts of human beings. This, I think, is quite clear. By reflecting on these past occurrences, we can see that if we want to have a better and happier future, now is the time to examine the mindset of our present generation and to reflect on the way of life that it may bring about in the future.

—The Dalai Lama, "The Enemy Within"

Via JMG: GEORGIA: Gov. Nathan Deal Denounces Anti-LGBT “Religious Liberty” Bill By Citing The Bible

March 3, 2016 LGBT News, Religion

Feeling the heat from major local corporations, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal today denounced the pending anti-LGBT “religious liberty” bill by citing scripture. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Standing in the lobby of a government building after a ribbon-cutting ceremony, he laid out a lengthy condemnation of the measure from a Biblical perspective, first noting that he is a Southern Baptist who took religion courses at Mercer University.

“What the New Testament teaches us is that Jesus reached out to those who were considered the outcasts, the ones that did not conform to the religious societies’ view of the world. We do not have a belief in my way of looking at religion that says we have to discriminate against anybody. If you were to apply those standards to the teaching of Jesus, I don’t think they fit.”

He then turned to a passage from the Gospel of John that showed Jesus reaching out to an outcast.
“What that says is we have a belief in forgiveness and that we do not have to discriminate unduly against anyone on the basis of our own religious beliefs. We are not jeopardized, in my opinion, by those who believe differently from us. We are not, in my opinion, put in jeopardy by virtue of those who might hold different beliefs or who may not even agree with what our Supreme Court said the law of the land is on the issue of same-sex marriage. I do not feel threatened by the fact that people who might choose same-sex marriages pursue that route.”

Make the jump here to read the orginal and more at JMG