Via White Crane Institute / SIR IAN McKELLEN

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Sir Ian McKellen

1939 -

Today's the birthday of beloved stage and screen actor and long time Gay Rights advocate and hero SIR IAN McKELLEN. Born in Burnley, England, he studied at St. Catharine's College, University of Cambridge. McKellen was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Gay director James Whale ("Frankenstein") in Gods and Monsters becoming the first openly Gay actor to be nominated.

He is the recipient of six Oliviers, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, A BIF Award, two Saturn Awards, four Drama Desk Awards and two Critic’s Choice Awards. He has also received two Academy Award nominations, five Emmy Award nominations, and four BAFTA nominations.

He's had quite a career with roles in such classic plays (and films adaptations) of Macbeth, Richard III and Edward II to name just a few. These are all available on DVD and well worth the watching. Millions of fans the world over know him as the bearded wizard Gandalf or the helmeted mutant master of magnetism Magneto. He may be the best known out Gay actor in the world. He's been out for decades becoming one of the first to do so back in the 1980s. People told him it would mean the end of his career. It hasn't.

In 2009 McKellen premiered a one-man show in Washington, DC as a benefit for the Washington Shakespeare Theater. He held an audience and this writer spellbound as he performed soliloquy after soliloquy from Shakespearean roles he's had over the years. He shared stories of the actors he has known and called friend. Most moving of all was his telling the story of being in South Africa after the end of apartheid. He was there for a role but was asked by local gay activists if he'd be willing to speak to Nelson Mandela about the need for Gay Rights protections in the new country's constitution.

He told them he would only agree if he were accompanied by South African Gay activist leaders. The three of them, all friends, met with Mandela and spoke of the need for the new country to place Gay Rights protections into the constitution. Mandela agreed and it was his support that allowed for South Africa to become the first country to place direct rights for Gay and Lesbian people into its constitution. McKellen called it the proudest moment of his life. We love you Sir Ian. Happy birthday!

Via Daily Dharma: Imagine the War Being Over

Victory is no balm for loss. Any of us may celebrate a moment, but we live a long time, and finality is not what we need, compassion is what we need. Let the future think about the war being over, because then it will be.

—George Evans,“A Walk in the Garden of Heaven”

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Via Modern MET // Giant Buddha Is Surrounded With Harmonious Mound of 150,000 Lavender Plants

Renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando brings harmony to the landscape by enclosing a large stone Buddha in a lavender covered hill. Located in the Makomanai Takino Cemetery in Sapporo, Ando was charged with shaping the landscape around the pre-existing sculpture.

For 15 years, the 44-foot-tall Buddha stood alone as a solemn 1,650-ton figure in a field. “Until now, the Buddha statue has stood alone in the field, giving an unrestful impression. The client wanted to give visitors a more serene appreciation of the Buddha,” Ando shared. “Our idea was to cover the Buddha below the head with a hill of lavender plants. We called the idea the ‘head-out Buddha.'”

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Via White Crane Institute // Tales of the City

1976 -

ARMISTEAD MAUPIN'S serialized epic Tales of the City makes its debut in The San Francisco Chronicle. That first appearance became a series of seven novels that were originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner. It has since been transformed into a movie and a musical.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 24, 2020 💌

"One day I was sitting in a motel in middle America, and it was one of those really plastic Holiday Inn type places, and I had arrived and I went into my room and I sat down and set up my little puja table and you know, all that stuff. Moving the menu and stuff, and it was kind of depressing, and I thought, 'Well, a few more weeks and I'll be done with this tour and I can go home.' And then I saw the pain that that thought was creating for me.

So I got up and I walked out of the room, closed the door, walked down the hall, turned around, came back, unlocked the door and yelled, 'I’m home!' And I came in and I sat down, and I looked and, you know, I wouldn’t have decorated particularly this way, but what the hell, you know? I thought, if I’m not at home in the universe, boy, I got a problem. If I say, 'I can only be home here, not there.'

What is home? Home is where the heart is. Home is the quality of presence. It’s the quality of being wherever you are."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Extend Compassion Toward Yourself

Compassion for oneself... is the basis of an authentic and openhearted life.

—Aura Glaser, “Into the Demon’s Mouth”

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Pixar Sparkshort “Out” Disney+ Teaser Trailer

The Saint of Dry Creek

The local Toucan made a visit to a friend´s house

 

There are a pair of toucans who have und around OP for almost 15 years... a buddy posted this of one of them sporting the flag

Via Kalachakra by His Holiness the Dalai Lama // Happy Saga Dawa 2020

🙏— Happy Saga Dawa 2020 —🙏

Today marks the first day of the “Saga Dawa” observed during the fourth month of the Tibetan calendar. The Saga Dawa called the “month of merits” is the month during which five important life events of Lord Buddha took place. It is believed that Lord Buddha was conceived, born, defeated evil forces attained enlightenment and passed away into parinirvana on the 15th day of this month.
Therefore, this month is one of the most auspicious times for Buddhists. It is said that both positive and negative deeds during this month is multiplied 100,000 times.

P.C: Olivier Adam (Tibetan nun project)

Via Daily Dharma: Concentrate Your Effort

Intelligence or lack of it does not matter; between the dull and the sharp-witted there is no distinction. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating the Way.

—Eihei Dogen Zenji,“The Principles of Zazen”

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Via White Crane Institute / Happy Harvey Milk Day!

The Harvey Milk Forever stamp

1930 -

Gay rights pioneer, martyr and San Francisco city supervisor HARVEY MILK was born on this date. Milk was an American politician and Gay Rights activist and the first openly Gay city supervisor of San Francisco, California. He was often called, "the first openly Gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet," though this slights others who were elected before him in cities not so associated with Gay life.

What is not as well-remembered was his amazing ability to bring communities and neighborhoods together for progressive ends. 

The U.S. Postal Service officially revealed the Harvey Milk Forever Stamp in 2015. The stamp’s official first-day-of-issue ceremony took place at the White House. The public was invited to attend the May 28 Harvey Milk Forever Stamp special dedication ceremony in San Francisco. Customers may order the Harvey Milk stamp now through this link for delivery following the May 22 stamp issuance.

The stamp image is based on a circa 1977 black and white photograph of Milk in front of his Castro Street Camera store in San Francisco taken by Danny Nicoletta of Grants Pass, OR. Antonio Alcalá of Alexandria, VA, was art director for the stamp.

Via Daily Dharma: The Most Meritorious Act

Buddhism emphasizes love’s beneficial power. Because its nature is joy and because it always brings about happiness and well-being, to love is the most meritorious action.

—Karma Trinlay Rinpoche, “What We’ve Been All Along”

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Via Querty // ! Meet the hunky Spanish doctor who beat coronavirus and just became Mr. Gay World Pride

30-year-old Francisco José Alvarado is a family doctor at Lavapiés Health Center in Madrid. While working tirelessly to help COVID-19 patients back in March, he contracted the virus. After making a full recovery, he returned to work. Now, he’s just been named Mr. Gay World Pride.

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Via White Crane Institute / REVEREND ROBERT WOOD

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Reverend Robert Wood

1923 -

REVEREND ROBERT WOOD, author of historic book Christ and the Homosexual (1960) was born. Wood's book is considered one of the first positive treatments of homosexuality and Christianity. 

Wood, himself a Gay man was ministering at the time in New York City and was well acquainted with the ostracism experienced by the gay subculture at the hands of what he saw as “a society which in most cases has not taken the time to study the facts and to know the individuals involved.”

“Christ and the Homosexual” was the first book published merging these two subjects, and groundbreaking in its poignant critique of the Church, and in its description, support, and affirmation of the Gay community.

All 3,000 hardbound copies sold at a cost of $3.95 each. Copies of the book are extremely scarce today as no further editions were printed.

Via Daily Dharma: Understanding Why We Do What We Do

You have to get dirty with your emotions. Meditation allows us to feel them, live them, and taste them completely. It gives us a lot of insight into why we do the things we do and why other people do the things they do. Out of this insight, compassion is born.

—Pema Chödrön,“Meditating with Emotions”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 20, 2020 💌

"Death is our greatest challenge as well as our greatest spiritual opportunity. By cultivating mindfulness, we can prepare ourselves for this final passage by allowing nature, rather than Ego, to guide us. In so doing, we become teachers to others, and our own best friends, looking beyond the body's death at the next stage in our Soul's adventure."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: An Ever-Renewing Present

All experience arises in the present, does its dance, and disappears. Experience comes into being only tentatively, for a little time in a certain form; then that form ends and a new form replaces it moment by moment.

—Jack Kornfield, “No Self or True Self?”

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Imee Ooi - Medicine Buddha Dharani (Bhaisajyaguru) Phật Dược Sư Đà La Ni

Sanskrit: Bhaiṣajyaguru (भैषज्यगुरु) Chinese: Yàoshīfó (藥師佛); Yàoshīrúlái (藥師如來) Japanese: Yakushi (薬師); Kusurishi Nyorai (薬師如来) Korean: Yaksayeorae, Yaksabul (약사여래, 약사불) Mongolian: Оточ Манла Bhaiṣajyaguru, more formally Bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūryaprabharāja (भैषज्यगुरुवैडूर्यप्रभाराज; "Medicine Master and King of Lapis Lazuli Light"), is the buddha of healing and medicine in Mahayana Buddhism.

In the English language, he is commonly referred to as the "Medicine Buddha". The use of the analogy of a Buddha being depicted as a doctor who cures the illness of suffering using the medicine of his teachings appears widely in Buddhist scriptures. In the Bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūryaprabharāja Sūtra, the Medicine Buddha is described as having entered into a state of samadhi called "Eliminating All the Suffering and Afflictions of Sentient Beings." From this samadhi state he spoke the Medicine Buddha Dharani. 

namo bhagavate bhaiṣajyaguru vaiḍūryaprabharājāya tathāgatāya arhate samyaksambuddhāya tadyathā: oṃ bhaiṣajye bhaiṣajye mahābhaiṣajya-samudgate svāhā. 

Buddhists recite the mantra of the Medicine Buddha to overcome sickness. He is also closely associated with ceremonies for temple donors and for transferring of merit to such donors.

Phật Dược Sư (tiếng Phạn: bhaiṣajyaguru; chữ Hán: 藥師佛; nghĩa là "vị Phật thầy thuốc"), còn gọi là Dược Sư Lưu Li Quang Phật, (bhaiṣajyaguruvaidūrya-prabha-buddha; 藥師琉璃光佛), là vị Phật đại diện cho sự trọn vẹn của Phật quả ngự cõi phía đông (là cõi Tịnh Lưu ly). Tranh tượng của vị Phật này hay được vẽ với tay trái cầm thuốc chữa bệnh và tay mặt giữ Ấn thí nguyện. Phật Dược Sư thường được thờ chung với Phật Thích Ca Mâu Ni và A Di Đà, trong đó phật Dược Sư đứng bên trái còn Phật A Di Đà đứng bên phải Phật Thích Ca. Trong kinh Dược Sư, hiện nay chỉ còn bản chữ Hán và chữ Tây Tạng, người ta đọc thấy 12 lời nguyện của vị Phật này, thệ cứu độ chúng sinh, với sự giúp đỡ của chư Phật, Bồ Tát và 12 vị Hộ Pháp và Thiên vương.