Via Daily Dharma: Happiness, Pure and Simple

When confusion and ignorance have been definitively eliminated, and goodness, caring, and wisdom have entirely taken their place, that is true happiness.

—Pamela Gayle White, “A Slow, True Path”

Via Daily Dharma: Joyous Speech

Conversation is a dynamic interplay between each person’s choice to speak or listen. When those choices are conscious and respectful, conversations tend to be more productive and enjoyable.

—Oren Jay Sofer, “When to Speak and When to Listen”

Holly Near: It won't Take Long

Via FB:

Via Carta Capital - Diversidade: Sob pressão da bancada evangélica, Supremo decide se homofobia é crime

"O professor de Direito da Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto e pesquisador das relações entre justiça e questões LGBT Alexandre Bahia, explica que a ideia defendida nas ações é a de que a violência específica (homofobia) que existe contra um grupo específico (LGBT) exige igualmente uma punição específica. Hoje isso não ocorre." #criminalizaSTF #lgbtrights #arehumanrights

Ações pedem que preconceito seja punido como racismo, com pena de um a cinco anos de prisão

Embora o Brasil seja apontado internacionalmente como um dos países que mais mata gays, lésbicas e trans no mundo, homofobia e transfobia não são consideradas crimes no país. Nesta quarta-feira 13 o STF (Supremo Tribunal Federal) dá início ao julgamento de duas ações para que este tipo de preconceito seja punido criminalmente. 

Uma delas foi enviada à suprema corte pelo PPS (Partido Popular Socialista) e a outra pela Associação Brasileira de Gays, Lésbicas e Transgêneros (ABGLT). Elas pedem que o STF reconheça, em um primeiro momento, que a omissão do Congresso Nacional em legislar sobre a criminalização da homofobia e transfobia viola a Constituição Federal de 1988.

Se isso for feito, a suprema corte deverá estabelecer um prazo para que o Congresso faça a discussão, e indicar parâmetros jurídicos para a questão até que isso ocorra. Elas pedem ainda que a homofobia e a transfobia sejam consideradas crime de racismo, descrito na lei 7.716/89 com penas de um a cinco anos de prisão.

Homofobia e racismo

O advogado e representante das duas entidades, Paulo Roberto Iotti Vecchiatti, afirma que as ações se baseiam em uma teoria do próprio STF de que racismo é qualquer ideologia ou conduta que pregue a inferiorização de um grupo social em relação a outro. Nesse caso, o crime seria enquadrado em uma lei já existente, sem a necessidade da formulação de uma nova.

O professor de Direito da Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto e pesquisador das relações entre justiça e questões LGBT Alexandre Bahia, explica que a ideia defendida nas ações é a de que a violência específica (homofobia) que existe contra um grupo específico (LGBT) exige igualmente uma punição específica. Hoje isso não ocorre.

Make the jump here to read the full article:

https://www.cartacapital.com.br/?p=59399

Via FB:

Via Daily Dharma: Grateful and Givin

Thankful for the blessings we receive, we can try to be kinder, more open-minded, and more accepting of one another. And we can work to eliminate barriers between people, so that our togetherness is brought to light and honored.

—Jeff Wilson, “Come Together”

Via Daily Dharma: Love Unbounded

The potential to develop the heart-mind is truly limitless. Myths and ideas that limit us can fall away, and the heart opens to reveal love.

—Cator Shachoy, “Valentine’s Day Buddhist Heart Replacement”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 13, 2019 💌

You can heal my soul if your heart is a mirror for my soul - and your heart can be that mirror only if you are resting in your own soul.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Just This

Meditation is releasing whatever reasons and justifications we might have, and taking up this moment with no thought that this can or should be something other than just this.

—Steve Hagen, “Looking For Meaning”

Via Daily Dharma: Let Go of the Story

Stories, of course, are made up of thoughts—those mental sound bites that intrude upon direct experience, and that we let go of in meditation. The more we learn to let go of thoughts, the more we gain the ability to drop our negative stories.

Histórias, é claro, são compostas de pensamentos - aquelas mordidas de som mentais que se intrometem na experiência direta e que deixamos de lado na meditação. Quanto mais aprendemos a abandonar os pensamentos, mais ganhamos a capacidade de abandonar nossas histórias negativas.

—Sean Murphy, “Get Out Of Your Head”

Via TMBLR: Sri Swami Satchidananda

If it comes, accept it. If it doesn’t come, trust that it’s all for good. You may lose anything and everything in the world, but don’t lose your peace. God bless you.  

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.

Sri Swami Satchidananda

Via Words of Wisdom - February 10, 2019 💌

The root of the problem lies in the way we deal with change. Most of us feel so insecure that we want to create a structure around us makes us feel safe and then we don’t want it to change. Any change increases our uncertainty and our confusion and our inadequacy. And it frightens us.
Think of how bizarre that is, because you are a part of nature. Look out there, and you show me something out there that isn’t changing. The nature of things is that they change, including us. Do you see how you’re in a losing strategy if you pit yourself against change? See, it’s a losing game.

- Ram Dass  -

Via Daily Dharma: See for Yourself

Seeing for yourself, from your own experience, what works and what doesn’t is what meditation is all about.

—Jason Siff, “The Problem with Meditation Instructions”

Via Daily Dharma: Wisdom Itself

To manifest wisdom means simply to step back and see—to reflect, inquire, be aware, be disciplined, and be focused not once in a while, but all of the time, moment to moment. This life is precious and fleeting. Pay attention.

—Seido Ray Ronci, “The Examined Life”

Via Daily Dharma: Uncovering Love

Because a loving heart is the very nature of every human being, to cultivate love does not mean to fabricate something that is not already present. Rather, it means to identify and gradually remove the many obstacles that block access to our loving heart.

—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: A Bedtime Ritual”

Via Daily Dharma: What You Gain When You Lose

Loss itself is a time-honored gateway; it encourages a shift from anxiety and attachment to the pursuit of a new spiritual awareness.

—David Rome, “The Green Buddha”

Via Daily Dharma: Fresh Perspectives

When we open our hearts and our minds completely, we are in a place where we can experience something new, a new truth, a new reality, a miracle that we haven’t experienced in the past. We can see things differently and they present new, expanded opportunities, new horizons.

—Anam Thubten Rinpoche, “How a Tomato Opened My Mind”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - February 6, 2019 💌

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 changes, the ego then becomes this beautiful instrument that’s available to you to deal with the world. It’s not in the way anymore.

- Ram Dass -