Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how we can use loving relationships to cultivate the seeds of buddhahood inside us.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Via Whaite Crane Institute / This Day in Gay History February 12
Abraham Lincoln's bed-mate Captain David Derickson
1809 -
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 16th President of the United States, born (d: 1865); Only in a world that thinks that being Gay is an abnormal condition does the suggestion that a revered president might have been primarily Gay become an issue. C.A. Tripp went farther than any earlier study to present the greatest amount of evidence and the strongest argument currently available that Lincoln’s primary erotic response was that of a homosexual man in his posthumously published book, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln.
Over the years, a number of other writers and scholars had argued that Lincoln was homosexual, but Tripp objected to the evidence, finding it unconvincing. He then set out to collect as much information as he could on Lincoln and explore the 16th president’s sexuality in all its dimensions and complexity. What he created was neither a work of sexual or biological reductionism, but a full-fledged character study and a significant effort to understand a complicated man, that placed Lincoln’s sexuality into a larger, more significant framework.
There are, as usual, the dismissals of his evidence as “misreadings” of the customs of another time. And yet the evidence of the relationship Lincoln had with his wife Mary is as obscure and subject to interpretation as are his relationships with the important men in his life and there is no problem accepting those vagueries. As any modern Gay man will attest, Lincoln may have functioned as a heterosexual, but his marriage does not preclude an intense homosexual drive.
From 1862 to 1863, President Lincoln was accompanied by a bodyguard from the Pennsylvania Bucktail Brigade named Captain David Derickson. Unlike Lincoln’s earlier male friend, Joshua Speed, Derickson was a prodigious father, marrying twice and siring ten children. Like Speed, however, Derickson became a close friend of the president and also shared his bed while Mary Todd was away from Washington. According to an 1895 regimental history written by one of Derickson’s fellow officers:
“Captain Derickson, in particular, advanced so far in the President’s confidence and esteem that, in Mrs. Lincoln’s absence, he frequently spent the night at his cottage, sleeping in the same bed with him, and — it is said — making use of His Excellency’s night-shirt!”
Another source, the well-connected wife of Lincoln’s naval adjundant, wrote in her diary: “Tish says, ‘there is a Bucktail Soldier here devoted to the President, drives with him, & when Mrs L. is not home, sleeps with him.’ What stuff!” Derickson’s association with Lincoln ended with his promotion and transfer in 1863.
Sadly, Tripp died in May 2003, and we will never know how he would have defended his study of the sexual orientation of Abraham Lincoln. But any Gay man reading of Lincoln’s seduction of a 44-year old captain of the Pennsylvania Bucktails in the fall of 1862, will have little trouble with the remaining arguments. But it does give a whole new meaning to the term “rail-splitter” doncha think?
Via :Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - February 12, 2020 💌
Of course it’s embarrassing not to always be infinitely wise, but I feel that what we can offer each other is our truth of the process of growing, and that means we fall on our face again and again.
Sri Aurobindo says, “You get up, you take a step, you fall on your face, you get up, you look sheepishly at God, you brush yourself off, you take another step, you fall on your face, you get up, you look sheepishly at God, you brush yourself off, you take another step…” and that’s the journey of awakening.
If you were awakened already, you wouldn’t do that, so my suggestion is you relax and don’t expect that you will always make the wisest decisions, and just realize that sometimes you make a decision, and it wasn’t the right one, and then you change it.
Sri Aurobindo says, “You get up, you take a step, you fall on your face, you get up, you look sheepishly at God, you brush yourself off, you take another step, you fall on your face, you get up, you look sheepishly at God, you brush yourself off, you take another step…” and that’s the journey of awakening.
If you were awakened already, you wouldn’t do that, so my suggestion is you relax and don’t expect that you will always make the wisest decisions, and just realize that sometimes you make a decision, and it wasn’t the right one, and then you change it.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: How to Ripen Wisdom
Wisdom,
which includes skillful action, arises when we can hold our views
lightly and continue to question the basic assumptions that underlie our
truths.
—Brandon Dean Lamson, “Meeting Violence with Kindness”
—Brandon Dean Lamson, “Meeting Violence with Kindness”
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Via Queerty / Farmer's diary from 1810 shows he was more woke about homosexuality than many Americans today
A page of Tomlinson’s diary. Credit: The University of Oxford
An English farmer who lived 200 years ago was more woke about homosexuality than many people today, according to an entry from his newly unearthed diary.
Matthew Tomlinson was a farmer in West Yorkshire in Northern England. In January 1810, he heard about a naval surgeon who had been executed for sodomy and took to his journal to express why he thought criminalizing homosexuality was wrong.
In England and Wales, homosexuality was punishable by death until 1861, when it was replaced with a prison sentence. Homosexual acts remained illegal until 1967 when it was finally decriminalized.
Via FB / Thich Nhat Hanh
Life ~ Thich Nhat Hanh https://justdharma.com/s/ycdwo
Only the present moment contains life. – Thich Nhat Hanh from the
book "Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices" ISBN: 978-1888375916 -
https://amzn.to/1bGLLIM Thich Nhat Hanh on the web: http://plumvillage.org Thich Nhat Hanh biography: http://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/biography/
Via Daily Dharma: Feeling Close with Every Creature
For
compassion to develop toward a wide range of persons, mere knowledge of
how beings suffer is not sufficient; there has to be a sense of
closeness with regard to every being.
—Jeffrey Hopkins, “Everyone as a Friend”
—Jeffrey Hopkins, “Everyone as a Friend”
Monday, February 10, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Change Can Be a Gift
It is only because of change that suffering can end.
—Sallie Tisdale, “Washing Out Emptiness”
—Sallie Tisdale, “Washing Out Emptiness”
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: How to Be a Bodhisattva in Everyday Life
[The]
wish to be more kind and helpful is the beginning of the bodhisattva
path itself, and the treading of this path … will mainly consist of
small acts of kindness and concern, brief moments of putting others
before ourselves.
—Manjusura, “An Everyday Aspiration”
—Manjusura, “An Everyday Aspiration”
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - February 9, 2020 💌
It is the continuing work of life: of learning to trust that the universe is unfolding exactly as it should, no matter how it looks to
us; learning to appreciate that each of us has a part in nurturing this
interconnectedness and healing it where it is torn; discovering what our
individual contribution can be, then giving ourselves fully to it.
Demanding as that sounds, it is what, in the spiritual sense, we are all here for, and compassionate action gives us yet one more opportunity to live it. It is an opportunity to cooperate with the universe, to be part of what the Chinese call, "the great river of the Tao."
It is not a coincidence that Hanuman, who in the Hindu cosmology is called the “embodiment of selfless service,” is the son of the wind god; when we give ourselves into becoming fully who we are by doing fully what we do, we experience lightness, we are like kites in wind, we are on the side of the angels, we are entering lightly.
Demanding as that sounds, it is what, in the spiritual sense, we are all here for, and compassionate action gives us yet one more opportunity to live it. It is an opportunity to cooperate with the universe, to be part of what the Chinese call, "the great river of the Tao."
It is not a coincidence that Hanuman, who in the Hindu cosmology is called the “embodiment of selfless service,” is the son of the wind god; when we give ourselves into becoming fully who we are by doing fully what we do, we experience lightness, we are like kites in wind, we are on the side of the angels, we are entering lightly.
- Ram Dass -
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 327 – Uncovering Afflictive Emotions with Joseph Goldstein and Noah Markus
Joseph Goldstein drops by Mindrolling for a conversation around investigating and uncovering afflictive emotions such as grief, loss, and anxiety, and how we can turn up the dial of intentionality.
Make the jump here to listen and more
Lama Surya Das – Awakening Now – Ep. 87 – Emaho and Advanced Dzogchen
On this episode of Awakening Now, Lama Surya Das explores the fun practice of Emaho and other advanced Dzogchen teachings, including integrated dharma into daily life.
Make the jump here to listen and more
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