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.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Via MyGWork: How LGBT+ Employees Can Prepare for Overseas Work Assignments
In more than half the world LGBT+ people are not protected from discrimination by workplace laws. 70 countries still criminalise homosexuality – 10 with the death penalty – while only 28 recognise same-sex marriage. If you work for a multinational corporation and are given the opportunity for an overseas assignment or relocation these are unfortunately some of the considerations you will have to have if you are LGBT+. Will this new country be safe for me? Will my partner be able to obtain a spousal visa? Will I be protected from discrimination? Will I be lonely or ostracised because of my LGBT+ identity?
Some of the most common regions large companies send their employees to are less than favourable to LGBT+ people. In Hong Kong 75 percent of gay people are closeted at work, in Singapore it’s 72 percent, in Russia that number jumps to 80 percent.
Make the jump here to read the full article and more
Via Daily Dharma: Choose Your Response
One
of the finest results of meditation is the increased gap between
stimulus and response. That gap before I react gives me time to notice
my habitual patterns and sometimes even decide whether to stay a slave
to them or break loose.
—Brent R. Oliver, “I Take Refuge in the Humor”
—Brent R. Oliver, “I Take Refuge in the Humor”
Monday, July 29, 2019
Via Daily Dharma: A World of Compassion
Instead
of looking at others, telling yourself your usual story about who
people are, visualize every person you see as the Bodhisattva of
Compassion, the very embodiment of compassion. Deeply doing this,
there’s no way you can feel negative toward them.
—Lama Yeshe, “Visualizations”
—Lama Yeshe, “Visualizations”
Via Tricycle: Happiness is Found Within
Happiness is Found Within
Download Transcript
It has been edited for clarity.
Make the jump here to listen
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Via Daily Dharma: Planting Seeds for the Future
In
each moment our experience is determined to a great extent by seeds
from the past that are bearing fruit right now. In each moment, too, we
can plant a seed intentionally that will create fruit in the future.
—Ben Connelly, “Cleaning Out the Storehouse”
—Ben Connelly, “Cleaning Out the Storehouse”
Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - July 28, 2019 💌
Sometimes you experience a quality of dying or emptiness about life.
It’s scary because you built your whole game up — you saved all your
money to buy a Mercedes-Benz. Then you buy a Mercedes-Benz and after
about a week it’s just another car. How can it be just another car when
you spent years buying a Mercedes-Benz? There's a real horror when
meaningful stuff becoming meaningless — and you are awakening.
-Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: What Happens When We Stay Present During Terrible Times?
The
hard truth is, terrible things happen in life that we can’t control,
and somehow we do bear them. We bear witness to them. When we do so with
the fullness of our bodies, minds, and hearts, often a loving action
emerges.
—Frank Ostaseski, “Washing My Boy’s Body”
—Frank Ostaseski, “Washing My Boy’s Body”
Via Daily Dharma: A Fundamental Clarity
Fear is not inherent in what is known as main or basic mind. What is inherent? Clear seeing, spaciousness, pure awareness.
—Pilar Jennings, “Fear”
—Pilar Jennings, “Fear”
Friday, July 26, 2019
Via Daily Dharma: We’re Already Complete
You
and I don’t manifest in the universe as meaning, we manifest as living
human beings. We’re not here to represent something else. We’re here in
our own right. A human being, or a garden hoe for that matter, is
complete in itself.
—Lin Jensen, “Wash Your Bowl”
—Lin Jensen, “Wash Your Bowl”
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - July 24, 2019 💌
My own strategy is to keep cultivating the witness, that part of me that
notices how I’m doing it—cultivate the quiet place in me that watches
the process of needing approval, of the smile on the face, of the false
humility, of all the horrible creepy little psychological things that
are just my humanity. And watching them occur again and again and again.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Reaching Out to One Another
There
is far more love available to us in any given moment than we might be
aware. And there is much, much more love in our hearts than we as adults
have been conditioned to believe is appropriate to express.
—Kate Johnson, “Making the First Move”
—Kate Johnson, “Making the First Move”
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Via Daily Dharma: Dropping Our Facades
To truly connect with other human beings, we must dare to present ourselves in ways that depict the true variety and complexity of our human experience. Without honesty there is no real bond between us, and without connection, nothing else really matters.
—Josh Korda, “Why I Come Clean to Students About My Insomnia, Anxiety, and Sobriety”
—Josh Korda, “Why I Come Clean to Students About My Insomnia, Anxiety, and Sobriety”
Monday, July 22, 2019
Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - July 21, 2019 💌
At some point awakening begins. The awakening happens with trauma or it
happens when somebody you love dies. In sexuality you transcend
separateness. It can be drugs, it can be meditation, it can be a hymn,
it can be a leaf falling, it can be lying under the stars, it can be
trying to solve a problem where your mind gets so one-pointed it goes
through the veil. Whatever it is, you open up into other planes of
consciousness that have been there in all of the splendor all the time.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Watch as Obstacles Dissolve
Something remarkable happens when we go on sitting through all the but’s,
through all the thoughts, sensations, and emotions that we would so
like to oust. Gradually they begin to feel less alien, less like
obstacles in the way, rocks in the path. Our deepening awareness becomes
a kind of dew, falling on everything equally, allowing everything to
sparkle.
—Noelle Oxenhandler, “Ah, But the Breezes…”
—Noelle Oxenhandler, “Ah, But the Breezes…”
Via Daily Dharma: Nothing but the Present Moment
Don’t
worry about the future; don’t worry about the past. Stay right here.
Ultimately you get so that you can’t say that you’re going forward, you
can’t say that you’re going back, you can’t say that you’re staying in
place. There’s nothing to be attached to.
—Ajahn Chah, “The Last Gift”
—Ajahn Chah, “The Last Gift”
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Via Daily Dharma: Karma’s Equanimity
The
principle of karmic retribution—cause and effect—works with perfect
clarity right before our eyes. Even the smallest, most minor evils are
consumed in this fire, burning like dim stars in the night.
—Hakuin, “Black Fire”
—Hakuin, “Black Fire”
Friday, July 19, 2019
Via Daily Dharma: Use Imagination as a Spiritual Tool
If
we really want to go beyond the surface of things to the deeply hidden,
actual experience of being alive (as spiritual practice encourages us
to do), we need imagination as an ally. The senses, reason, even our
moral and emotional faculties are not enough.
—Norman Fischer, “Saved from Freezing”
—Norman Fischer, “Saved from Freezing”
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