A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
My
own teacher . . . said that learning that many of her traditional
beliefs were not historically accurate only made her think more deeply
about their spiritual meaning. This is really the point. When we cease
to confuse history and stories, when we look at traditional stories
outside the context of literal truth and sectarian debate, we are freer
to appreciate the imaginative truths they convey.
Some
people think by giving everything away, you end up with nothing. But
the dharma is an inexhaustible well. However much you give of it, you
can always go back for more.
Every
negative emotion, every drama, comes down to one or more of the three
most basic fears: the fear of losing safety and control, the fear of
aloneness and disconnection, and the fear of unworthiness.
A new analysis of implicit bias and explicit sexual orientation statements may help to explain the underpinnings of anti-gay bullying and hate crimes
Credit: Wikimedia Commons/thaths
Homophobes should consider a little self-reflection, suggests a new study finding those individuals who are most hostile toward gays and hold strong anti-gay views may themselves have same-sex desires, albeit undercover ones.
The prejudice of homophobia may also stem from authoritarian parents, particularly those with homophobic views as well, the researchers added.
"This study shows that if you are feeling that kind of visceral reaction to an out-group, ask yourself, 'Why?'" co-author Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, said in a statement. "Those intense emotions should serve as a call to self-reflection."
"Sometimes people are threatened by gays and lesbians because they are fearing their own impulses, in a sense they 'doth protest too much,'" Ryan told LiveScience. "In addition, it appears that sometimes those who would oppress others have been oppressed themselves, and we can have some compassion for them too, they may be unaccepting of others because they cannot be accepting of themselves."
One
doesn’t have to beat down one’s ego for God. That isn’t the way it
works. The ego isn’t in the way. It’s how we are holding the ego. It is
much better to just do the spiritual practices and open to God and love
God and trust your intuitive heart. As the transformation happens, the
ego then becomes this beautiful instrument that’s available to you to
deal with the world. It’s not in the way anymore.
There may be bliss with awakening, because it is actually a by-product of awakening, but it is not awakening itself. As long as we are chasing the byproducts of awakening, we will miss the real thing.
There
is always a need for experience and knowledge rooted in traditions, but
it is not a spiritual given that these are the places where peace,
union, and spiritual awareness are found.
George Saunders has won the Man Booker Prize — awarded for the best original novel published in the UK — for his novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Saunders is a Buddhist, and his novel is based on the idea of bardo, the Tibetan Buddhist concept of a state between death and life.
The book tells the story of Abraham Lincoln visiting the crypt of his son, William, who died at age 11. In an interview, Saunders told Lion’s Roar editor-in-chief Melvin McLeod:
“I’d been reading some Buddhist texts and was aware of
the bardo as a sort of transitional state between the moment when you
die and the moment you’re reincarnated. That struck me as an interesting
way to destabilize the usual ghost story.”
On announcing the award, Baroness Lola Young, chair of the Man Booker Prize, said, “The form and style of this utterly original novel reveals a witty, intelligent, and deeply moving narrative.” Young said that Lincoln in the Bardo stood out from the other books shortlisted for the prize, “because of its innovation – its very different styling and the way in which it paradoxically brought to life these not-quite-dead souls in this other world.”
In 2014, Saunders gave a convocation speech at Syracuse University that went viral and was adapted into a book. Shortly afterward, he spoke with McLeod, and explained how Buddhism comes into his writing:
“In my writing work, I’ve noticed that if you do anything
with real intensity, and with a real interest in the truth of the
matter, then it ends up being dharmic somehow. If you’re really, really
interested in the truth, then you’ll end up with something that looks
and feels very much like dharma.”
The Man Booker is widely regarded as one of the top prizes in fiction, assuring success and renown for its winners.
When
you look back at the suffering in your own life, each time you would
have avoided it if you possibly could. And yet, when you look at the
depth of your character now, isn’t part of that a product of those
experiences? Weren’t those experiences part of what created the depth of
your inner being?
Nonself only begins to be clear when the illusion of seamlessness disappears and we experience the gaps in the continuity, when we actually see the mind and its object arising and dying together from instant to instant.
