Via Daily Dharma / April 6, 2016: Don’t Try So Hard

Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It's not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can't grab it.

—Jisho Cary Warner, "The Snaggletoothed Barbarian"

Via NPR: Better Late Than Never: Olympic Champion Greg Louganis Gets His Wheaties Box

Greg Louganis in an inward dive pike on the front of the Wheaties box. The "legends" series boxes will be on shelves starting in May.

Courtesy Of General Mills 

 

In his competitive diving career, four-time Olympic diving gold medalist and five-time world champion Greg Louganis has been all over the world. Now he'll be in one place that's eluded him for years: your kitchen table.

Wheaties announced that Louganis — who is openly gay and HIV-positive — along with two other former Olympians, hurdler Edwin Moses and swimmer Janet Evans, will be featured on the cereal boxes as part of the revamped "legends" series.

In a 2015 HBO documentary called Back on Board: Greg Louganis, the diver said he understood that he wasn't featured on the Wheaties box during the prime of his career in the 1980s because he didn't fit the company's requirement of a "wholesome image" as he was rumored to be gay. He came out publicly about his sexual identity and HIV-positive status in 1995.

Louganis says he's glad to finally be getting the recognition.

i

Janet Evans is one of the greatest women's distance swimmers in U.S. history..

Courtesy Of General Mills 

 

"[It's] so incredible to be honored with the likes of Edwin Moses — we were in our first Olympic games in 1976 together," Louganis told NPR's All Things Considered. "Janet Evans — we trained at Mission Viejo together — I watched her grow up."

Louganis became the only man to sweep the Olympic diving events in back-to-back games when he won gold medals in both springboard and platform diving in the '84 and '88 Olympics. He's now a role model for other athletes including British Olympic diver Tom Daley, who came out as gay when he was around 20 years old.

i

Edwin Moses was a three-time world champion in the 400-meter hurdles.

Courtesy Of General Mills 

 

"I would have always wanted someone like him as a role model on the front of a cereal box," Daley told NPR's Ari Shapiro. "He's a great model and forever will be the greatest diver to walk this earth."
General Mills spokesman Mike Siemienas told NPR he couldn't provide an answer as to why Louganis wasn't on the box previously because no one who was involved in those decisions still worked at the company. Siemienas said a committee is responsible for determining which athletes are on the boxes.

Wheaties unveiled the "legends" cereal boxes after the documentary detailing Louganis' athletic career and experiences as a gay man sparked a petition on Change.org to get the diver on the iconic Wheaties cereal box. Created by Julie Sondgerath, who had never met Louganis, the petition garnered nearly 45,000 signatures.

Wheaties told NPR that the petition did not factor into their decision to put Louganis on a Wheaties box.

"We were aware of the petition, as we see this all the time from fans wanting their favorite athlete on the box," Siemienas said. "But appearing on a Wheaties box is not a popularity contest. Wheaties chooses athletes based on their achievements on and off their field of play."

As for Louganis, he says that he appreciates the honor more now than he would have in the 1980s.
"Back in '95, I wasn't expected to live very long because we thought of HIV-AIDS as a death sentence, so to be here today, now 56, the box means so much more to me than it would have then because I feel like I'm being embraced as a whole person, not just for my athletic achievements."

Make the jump here to listen to the orginal and more at NPR

Via United Nations Free & Equal / FB: No one should have to choose between God and their sexual orientation!

 

Vicky Beeching: no one should have to choose between God and their sexual orientation!

#GayVsGod?

Via Bike Friday / FB:

This is Nirvana... a Bike and Buddha...  __/|\__

Make the jump here to see the original on FB

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day 05/04/2016

“O processo do despertar inevitavelmente gera fricções, porque parte desse processo diz respeito à desconstrução de tudo aquilo que é falso. Se toda a sua história foi construída com base na falsa identidade, então você tem a impressão de que tudo está desabando. Quando inicia o caminho do autoconhecimento, você começa a despertar (inicia-se um processo de iluminação), o que é sinônimo de deixar de fantasiar. E isso pode ser bastante desafiador. Nesse momento é preciso lembrar que isso faz parte do processo. Você está renascendo para uma nova vida.” 

“El proceso del despertar inevitablemente genera fricciones, porque parte de este proceso se basa en la deconstrucción de todo aquello que es falso. Si toda tu historia fue construida con base en la falsa identidad, entonces tienes la impresión de que todo está desmoronándose. Cuando inicias el camino del auto-conocimiento, comienzas a despertar (se inicia un proceso de iluminación), que es sinónimo de dejar de fantasear. Y esto puede ser bastante desafiante. En este momento es necesario recordar que esto es parte del proceso. Estás renaciendo para una nueva vida.” 

“The process of awakening inevitably creates friction, because part of this process has to do with the deconstruction of everything that is false. If our entire lives have been based upon a false identity, then we may get the impression that everything is falling apart. When we begin walking the path of self-knowledge, we begin to wake up and move towards self-realization, which is synonymous with putting an end to our fantasies. This can be very challenging. At this moment, it is necessary to remember that this deconstruction is part of the process. We are being reborn to a new life.”

Via Daily Dharma / April 5, 2016: The Body’s Quiet Movements

Sitting motionlessly quiet, for minutes or hours, regardless of length of time, is being in touch with the movements of the body—mind, gross and subtle, dull and clear, shallow and deep—without any opposition, resistance, grasping, or escape.

—Toni Packer, "Unmasking the Self"

Via Daily Dharma / April 4, 2016: On Meditation

Practice every day for ten to fifteen minutes (or more) and you will discover the treasures of your life.

—From The Ten Directions, "How to Sit"

Via Unfundamentalist Christians / FB:

Via GayStar News: International Family Equality Day to focus on freedom of movement

Plans underway to unite LGBTI families worldwide in biggest event yet

International Family Equality Day to be held 1 May.

3 April 2016

by Albertus van Aswegen

The Network of European LGBTIQ Families Associations (NELFA) will hold the fifth International Family Equality Day (IFED) on 1 May.

The motto of this year’s IFED is Families Without Borders.

The aim is to raise awareness for LGBTI families, especially those traveling or moving to other countries where the legal status of their family might not be recognized.

LGBTI families often face the risk of death or humiliation just by entering other countries. NELFA and family organizations from around the world hope that IFED will send a message of unity to families of refugees and migrants who are either separated by borders or need to cross them.

‘Still today a legally recognized rainbow family will not necessarily be treated as such when crossing borders. A married Spanish couple with two children might become “two single mothers” with no legal ties between them when moving to Italy,’ President of NELFA, Maria von Känel says. ‘Parents who are not legally recognized may not get residence or work permits.’

‘We urge states worldwide to respect existing family laws and to protect all rainbow families,’ the Vice-President of NELFA, Luís Amorim, added.

Families from 32 countries and 67 cities across the globe joined IFED in 2015. This year they will be joined by Ecuador, Norway, Russia, South Africa and Sweden.

NELFA encourages the public to support the event on social media with the hash tag #IFED16.

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

“Tenho dito que a crise global que se manifesta nos mais diversos setores da nossa sociedade tem raiz na nossa desconexão com a espiritualidade. Isso quer dizer que estamos falando de uma crise espiritual. Essa crise foi gerada pela mente humana que tem o vício de separar. E a cura para os nossos problemas sociais é a união. Precisamos espiritualizar a educação, a economia, a política e todos as nossas instituições. E esse processo começa dentro de cada um de nós.”

“Vengo diciendo que la crisis global que se manifiesta en los más diversos sectores de nuestra sociedad, tiene su raíz en nuestra desconexión con la espiritualidad. Esto quiere decir que estamos hablando de una crisis espiritual. Esta crisis fue generada por la mente humana que tiene el vicio de separar. Y la cura para nuestros problemas sociales es la unión. Necesitamos espiritualizar la educación, la economía, la política y todas nuestras instituciones. Y este proceso comienza dentro de cada uno de nosotros.”

“The global crisis that is taking place in the most diverse sectors of our society is due to our disconnection with spirituality. Therefore, this is a spiritual crisis. This crisis was created by the human mind that is addicted to separation, and the cure to our social problems is union. We need to bring spirituality to our systems of education, economics, politics and every other one of our institutions. This process begins within each one of us.”

The Dalai Lama's Doctor

Via Daily Dharma:

Prostrations and offerings are admittedly just forms—just a human way of expressing what cats express by rubbing themselves against a beloved person’s legs. If it were natural for humans to stand on their heads or stick out their rumps to express reverence, then Buddhists would stand on their heads or stick out their rumps as a matter of course.

– John Blofeld “A Spirit of Reverence”

North Carolina and Georgia Anti-LGBTQ Laws: A Closer Look

Forest Gump long run scene

Via Ram Dass:

April 3, 2016

The art of playing on the playground of life is to do what you do as well as you can, but what happens is not always in your control. To not be attached to the fruits of the action, even though you have worked hard to make it come about. The forces that act upon whether or not you will win or not are more than what is under your control.

Via Freethinkers United For Change / FB:

Via Gina Nahai: Out of Iran and out of the closet

Two gay men, two lesbians, one transgender woman, one mother of a gay son. Six Iranians of varying backgrounds and religious affiliations speaking candidly about who they are and what their life’s journey has entailed. Going on record, being photographed and videotaped, telling stories of being thrown out of their house by their parents in the middle of the night, seeking help from psychiatrists who instead called them names and showed them the door, reading the same handwritten line — 

“Mom, I’m gay” — a hundred times without being able to grasp the meaning. Stories about having to be patient, understanding, even forgiving of loved ones who turned their back on them, or realizing that it would take time and hard work to “educate” one’s parents about what being gay really is. About managing to mend what was broken, or accepting that acceptance would never come. 

And all the time they’re speaking, I’m thinking of my cousin Ellie (not her real name), a nice Jewish girl with a promising future, circa 1970, who ran away from home to marry her math tutor. Ellie was 18. The math tutor was Muslim. Whatever else the two might have had going for or against them was entirely irrelevant. Forty years ago in Iran, marriage between a Jew and a Muslim was the social-suicide equivalent of coming out as LGBT within today’s Iranian community in L.A. 

I used to see Ellie all the time until she eloped and broke everyone’s heart. She was 10 years older than me and headed for college (the math tutor was preparing her for the entrance exams) when I last saw her in Iran. As far as I know, she never got a chance to speak about her life as a heretic. She was a stoic, private person anyway, much better at listening than at talking. Even if she had wanted to speak, the damage that kind of openness would have done to her family, back then, would have been more than devastating. To this day, everything I know about that part of her life is what I overheard as a child or have since learned through hearsay. 

But on the evening of March 9 in West Hollywood, this new bunch of apostates is talking as if there’s no tomorrow. And that’s not even the strangest part. 

For one thing, the room is filled to capacity and there are people standing in the back and along the sides of the auditorium. Even the organizers hadn’t dared hope for such a turnout. 

More importantly, the vast majority of the audience is Iranian. To say that this event marks a watershed moment in the (very long) history of the Iranian culture since Islam is no exaggeration. 

And these were Iranians of all ages, even ones who looked as if they are in their 70s. And they are Jewish and Muslim, which is another thing — Muslim and Jewish Iranians united in a common cause — you don’t often see in this town. Many are parents or siblings of LGBTQ individuals, which means they are awfully brave to out themselves not only as related to, but also supportive of, their own or all LGBTQ people. Many others don’t have a personal stake in the conversation or its consequences; they’ve come out of curiosity, or a willingness to understand, or a desire to show support. 

Not that a couple of hundred people coming together in West Hollywood to talk about what it’s like to be an LGBTQ Iranian is going to change thousand-year-old beliefs and attitudes within a worldwide population of 80-plus million. But the very fact that such a gathering is taking place, and that it’s free of judgment, disapproval or “let’s save our children from this modern-day plague,” is in itself groundbreaking.

The organizers say they created the event to “give voice to Iranians who do not believe anyone should be shamed based on their gender identity or sexual preferences,” to “shed light on what it means to be Iranian and LGBTQ.” The hope, they say, is that understanding will lead to tolerance and, in time, acceptance. 

They must realize, I say to myself, that for many in this community, them is some serious fighting words. If this event is an auspicious beginning for some, for others it doubtless will be an equally forceful confirmation that their worst fears — as one Iranian goes, so go all Iranians — were well-placed. Back in the day, when I still had conversations with people at social gatherings about politics, religion and why there’s nothing wrong with having gay teachers at the Valley Beth Shalom day school, the prevalent doctrine among the anti-gay caucus was that the more accepted homosexuality becomes, the more heterosexuals will become gay. Religious people confessed that they would rather their children have a terminal disease than be gay; that they would forgive a gay child or sibling or friend, as long as he or she lived a heterosexual life. 

To them, this notion of inviting straight people to understand and accept gayness, especially Iranian gayness, would be tantamount to proselytizing. Which would inevitably lead to conversion. Which, in turn, would lead to damnation. 

I do want to emphasize here that this kind of opinion has never been universal among Iranians. We’re not all subscribers to the fire-and-brimstone school of thought, or self-appointed captains of the morality patrol. Some of us even welcome diversity and aren’t afraid to say so. Others are more heedful of the collective sentiment, reluctant to risk the judgment of those with the loudest voices. 

They just don’t publicly advertise their live-and-let-live attitude, because it may be interpreted as indicating a lax moral fiber, or mean a lesser marriage for their children some day in the distant future. For them, this panel might serve as notification that times have changed, and, improbable as it once seemed, so has our community. 

More fighting words, yes, and perhaps greater cause for alarm among the “traditionalists.” Change, they will tell you, is not always for the better. Some rules, they will say, are absolute and immutable. 

If God said it, it must be true. 

Then again, there’s my cousin Ellie. 

Ellie’s father sat shiva for her and refused to see her until she had left her husband some 10 or 12 years later. Her mother held out for a good five years before giving in and seeing her, on the sly and without her husband’s knowledge, once in a long while for a few minutes. By the time Ellie came back, some years after the revolution, all three of their lives were broken beyond repair. 

The math tutor turned out to be a disaster of a husband and, in time, a cruel and vengeful father to the only child he and Ellie had. She stayed with him for as long as she could bear to, and when she asked for a divorce, he took their child and disappeared. Maybe she would have left him early in the marriage, started over somewhere outside Iran, if she’d had a home or family to go back to. Maybe their child could have found safe harbor from her pitiless father with her grandparents. Maybe the marriage, or at least mother and child, would have fared better if surrounded by the proverbial village. 

“Parents are the circle of trust and comfort for their kids, and if they can’t provide that, then who will?” one of the panelists says. 

“This is about all of us being in it together … the more we learn to embrace and respect each other, the better our quality of life will be. This is about all of us,” another one says.

Ellie’s parents were not cruel people. To the day he died, her father was a hero among Tehran’s poor and underprivileged for giving of himself and his own to help others. Her mother was everyone’s best friend. Cutting off their only daughter caused not only her, but also them, everlasting pain. It’s not what they wanted; it’s what they thought they had to do. 

Only they didn’t know, in 1970 Tehran, that breaking with convention was a viable choice; that what seems inconceivable today will be commonplace tomorrow. That times will change, society will adapt, and there are no absolutes. 

Largely because of the revolution, our very old community quickly adapted to some very novel practices. Intermarriage with a Muslim, while still rare and frowned upon, is no longer a death sentence. Families have learned to accept and adapt, choose their children’s happiness over the community’s approval if they had to. 

As for the morality patrol: There’s an expression in Farsi my mother was fond of when I was young: “Sooner or later, everyone will wake up to find this camel asleep at their door.” It’s the equivalent of “no one will escape unscathed.” 

At least half a dozen people in the audience March 9 — I know for a fact — had spent years privately or publicly condemning gays and lesbians, warning of the consequences of indulging alternate lifestyles, carrying the banner of reputation and respectability within the Iranian community. Until one of their own came out.  

To their everlasting credit, these and many other families who were not present at the event have been able to learn and accept, even embrace, their new reality. It can’t be easy, I imagine, no matter how open-minded and tolerant you are, to suddenly find yourself part of an often-maligned minority, to risk the disapproval, even condemnation, of some in the community in exchange for their loved ones’ well-being. The rest of us liberal armchair quarterbacks should be so lucky as to cope with any novel actuality as well as many of today’s families have. 

Then again, perhaps the great achievement of the organizers of and participants on the panel March 9 was that it proved, to many who might not have noticed on their own, that at this time, in this place, we do have a choice.

---

Gina Nahai’s most recent novel is “The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.”

Make the jump here to read this and much more on Gina Nahai

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day 02/04/2016

“O orgulho é o general das matrizes do eu inferior. Ele é um eu muito complexo, muito astuto. Quando falamos do orgulho normalmente lembramos de aspectos como a vaidade, a soberba e a arrogância, mas ele também está por trás do complexo de inferioridade, que se manifesta como vitimismo e submissão. Esse aspecto do orgulho se acha muito humilde; se acha uma pessoa muito pura, às vezes quase santa. Ele inclusive se horroriza com as atitudes violentas dos orgulhosos. Mas isso é um tremendo autoengano.”

“El orgullo es el general de las matrices del yo inferior. Es un yo muy complejo, muy astuto. Cuando hablamos del orgullo normalmente recordamos aspectos como la vanidad, la soberbia y la arrogancia, pero él también está por detrás del complejo de inferioridad, que se manifiesta como victimismo y sumisión. Este aspecto del orgullo se cree muy humilde, se cree una persona muy pura, a veces casi santa. Incluso se horroriza con las actitudes violentas de los orgullosos. Pero esto es un tremendo autoengaño".

“Pride is the general of the matrices of the lower self. It is a very complex and very astute psychological self. When we speak of pride, we usually think of aspects such as vanity and arrogance. However, pride is also an underlying inferiority complex that manifests as victimhood and submission. This aspect of pride believes itself to be very humble, believes itself to be very pure, and in some cases, almost a saint. This particular manifestation of pride can even be horrified by the violent attitudes of proud people. But this is a huge self-deceit.”

Via Daily Dharma / April 2, 2016: The True Essence of Consciousness

The essence of our consciousness is already love and wisdom. Karma, concepts, and emotional patterns are only temporarily preventing our consciousness from unfolding its enlightened nature. Nirvana is nothing more than being awakened to the enlightened nature of our consciousness.

—Gil Fronsdal, "Nirvana: Three Takes"