Manila Luzon - "Gay Man" Official Music Video

Via Daily Dharma: Universal Gratitude

In my pursuit of mindfulness I have found myself giving thanks for all things at a far deeper level… As I become more mindful I am even grateful for difficulties and pain, as they allow me to access greater compassion for those going through their own hardships.

—Jim Owens, “Bible Belt Buddhism”

Gay Men's Chorus Confronts Protesters With Music

Via FB...

Via Trike Daily: A Big Gay History of Same-sex Marriage in the Sangha

Buddhist same-sex marriage was born in the USA. That’s a little known but significant fact to reflect on now, just after the Supreme Court has declared legal marriage equality throughout the country. Appropriately enough, it all started in San Francisco, and was conceived as an act of love, not activism.

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/big-gay-history-same-sex-marriage-sangha/?utm_source=Tricycle&utm_campaign=68b4bc82cc-Newsletter_19_6_2_Subs&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1641abe55e-68b4bc82cc-307231789

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - June 2, 2019 💌

If you meditate regularly, even when you don’t feel like it, you will make great gains, for it will allow you to see how your thoughts impose limits on you. Your resistances to meditation are your mental prisons in miniature. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Our Neighbors’ Happiness Is Our Happiness

Pain and joy, love of life, and fear of death know no boundaries of us and them. We can all wake up to realize that our happiness depends on the happiness of our neighbors and vice versa, and our real safety is in togetherness, not intractable conflict.

—Stephen Fulder, “Do We Really ‘Have No Choice’?”

Via Lion´s Roar: Leslie Booker offers step-by-step instruction./ How to Practice Walking Meditation

In the four foundations of mindfulness, as laid out in the famed Satiphatthana Sutta, the Buddha offers four postures for practicing meditation: A monk knows, when he is walking, “I am walking”; he knows, when he is standing, “I am standing”; he knows, when he is sitting, “I am sitting”; he knows, when he is lying down, “I am lying down”; or just as his body is disposed so he knows it. Walking meditation is often described as a meditation in motion.   Read the rest of the article and more here

Via Daily Dharma: Embarking on a Path toward Self-Acceptance

Some thoughts feel deep, some shallow—but those are just sensations, nothing more. The feeling-tones are not reliable judges of value. For me, this was a radical rejection of a view of the self that seemed, to me at least, to be everywhere.

—Dr. Jay Michaelson, “Working Through the Strong Emotions of Sexual Identity”

Via Daily Dharma: A Place of Belonging

My suffering does not set me apart: it makes me belong. I now know that my being with whatever arises is a purification, a lens polished—often with tears from the past—with which I must stand firm against the waves of segregating myself from the world.

—Sarah Conover, “Lost At Sea”

Via The Guardian: In a Heartbeat: the story behind the animated gay love short that's gone viral

The makers of the four-minute film, with 12m views in under a week, discuss the shock of their success and the importance of depicting same-sex romance.

It’s not every day that a wordless, four-minute animated short about two young boys falling in love goes viral. But on Monday, when recent college graduates Esteban Bravo and Beth David posted their senior thesis film on YouTube, that’s exactly what happened.

make the jump here to read the whole story and more

in a heartbeat 2

in a heartbeat - animated short film

Via Daily Dharma: The Mind Reflected

In meditation, we are invited to still the waters of our lives. We quiet the mind, releasing conjured stories and fantasies. When the waters are still long enough, we see our reflection.

—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “The Terror Within”

Via Lions Roar: For the Children We’ve Lost

Bays made this memorial, which is in the Jizo garden at Great Vow Zen Monastery.
It’s dedicated to children who’ve died in war.

Make the jump here to read the full article

Zen Community of Oregon Statement of Inclusivity

The Zen Community of Oregon welcomes everyone. We study dharma together and practice for the benefit of all beings and this living earth. We recognize the suffering caused by biases, prejudices, systems of power, privilege and oppression based on race, sex, class, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, ability, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression. We aspire to do no harm and to dismantle barriers that cause separation and suffering, recognizing that our liberation is interconnected with the liberation of all.

Via Daily Dharma: Our Closest Teacher

When the body calls us back, we begin to find that we have a partner on the spiritual path that we didn’t know about—the body itself. In our meditation and in our surrounding lives, the body becomes a teacher.

—Reggie Ray, “Touching Enlightenment”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - May 29, 2019 💌

I think that the assignment for us is very clear in terms of the game on Earth. I think it is to be instruments that allow the whole process to move and change in a way that ends up celebrating life rather than ultimately destroying it. And it has to come out of non-attachment.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Universal Support

Nothing exists separate from all the other things in the universe. Every person lives only by relying on the support of others.

—Jeff Wilson, “Born Together With All Beings”

Via Daily Dharma: Taking Our Place in History

Venerating the ancestors of all life forms returns us to the river that flows from the past into the present.

—Joan Halifax, “Giving Birth to Ancestors”