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Via Daily Dharma: Deepen Your Understanding of Existence

“Just sit” doesn’t mean to sit passively; it is sitting based on deepening both your intellectual and experiential understanding of your existence. 

—Dainin Katagiri Roshi, “You Are Already Here”

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Via Neem Karoli Baba Ashram // GURU PURNIMA ON SITE CANCELLED

GURU PURIMA ON SITE CELEBRATION CANCELLED This is a retraction of yesterday's email.

 

Ram Ram,

Dear Devotees

It is with deep regret and sadness that the Ashram is cancelling the on-site Guru Purnima celebration scheduled for Saturday July 4, 2020. Upon the advice of our consulting epidemiologist, Dr. Larry Brilliant, a longtime devotee of Maharaj-ji, who guided his participation in the World Health Organization’s eradication of small pox in the 1970’s, we must revise our previous email regarding Guru Purnima celebrations and offerings.  It is the wiser course for all devotees to refrain from premature visits to the ashram for darshan currently to prevent the potential spread of the covid 19 coronavirus.  

Please join us for the virtual livestream Guru Purnima celebration that will be streamed from the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram on Taos Facebook page.   https://www.facebook.com/events/2635774179997921/

We look forward to the time in the future when it is safe to gather and pray together again in the mandir. It is the better course to celebrate Guru Purnima now by looking within our hearts, saving darshan at the Ashram for a later time when the risk has passed. 

Ram Ram

Via Gay Buddhist Fellowship" group

Enjoy 600+ free recorded dharma talks at www.gaybuddhist.org

Via ADAM & ANDY

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 1, 2020 💌

One dies as one lives. Once that starts to fall into place, then the question becomes how to use the moment-to-moment experiences of your life as a vehicle for awakening.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Pay Attention to Your Movement

When we pay attention to our movement, our minds and bodies become integrated. We relax. We become calm, concentrated, and as a result, joyful. It makes us happy to pay attention when we move.  

—Cator Shachoy, “A Real Pain in the Butt”

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Via White Crane Institute // ALLEN YOUNG

This Day in Gay History

June 30

Born

Journalist and Activist Allen Young

1941 -

ALLEN YOUNG is an American journalist, author, editor and publisher who is also a social, political and environmental activist. He was born on this date. He was a red diaper baby. He graduated from Fallsburg Central High School and received his undergraduate degree in 1962 from Columbia University. Following an M.A. in 1963 from Stanford in Hispanic American and Luso-Brazilian Studies, he earned an M.S. in 1964 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. After receiving a Fulbright Award in 1964, Young spent three years in Brazil, Chile and other Latin American countries, contributing numerous articles to  The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and other periodicals and other periodicals.

Young returned to the United States in June 1967 and worked briefly for The Washington Post before resigning in the fall of that year to become a full-time anti-Vietnam War movement activist and staff member of the Liberation News Service. 

Young, Marshall Bloom, Ray Mungo and others worked in the office at 3 Thomas Circle producing the news packets that were sent to the hundreds of underground newspapers bi-weekly or tri-weekly. A member of the Students for a Democratic Society, Young was part of the Columbian University protests of 1968 and was among more than 700 arrested. 

When the Liberation News Service split in two in August 1968 Young became a recognized leader of the New York office. In February and March 1969 Young went to Cuba, where he was instrumental in the organization of the Venceremos Brigade. 

Young became disillusioned with the Castro regime after observing the lack of civil liberties and other freedoms, and especially the government's anti-gay policies. After th Mariel boatlift he wrote Gays Under the Cuban Revolution, breaking with those New Leftists who continued to defend the Cuban Revolution.

After the Stonewall Riots in New York City, Young became involved in the Gay Liberation Front. During the second half of 1970 he lived in the Seventeenth Street collective with Carl Miller, Jim Fouratt, and Giles Kotcher where he was involved in producing Gay flames. 

Young wrote frequently for the gay press, including The Advocate, Come Out, Fag Rag and Gay Community News among others. His 1972 interview with Allen Ginsberg, which first appeared in Gay Sunshine is often reprinted and translated.

Young has edited four books with Karla Jay including the ground breaking anthology Out of the Closets.  His autobiography "Left, Gay & Green: A Writer's Life" is published and available on Amazon.com.

Via Daily Dharma: Come Back to Just This

Zazen practice continually reminds us to unhook from our projects, which always reflect in some way a desire to be elsewhere. We are continually invited to come back to “just this,” to come back to who we really are. 

—Julie Nelson,“Sick and Useless Zen”

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#FiqueEmCasa #WearAMask #ShutupandWearyourDamnMask

#FiqueEmCasa #WearAMask #ShutupandWearyourDamnMask

ATTN:

Did you guys know the FDA just approved a drug that reduces your chance of getting COVID-19 by 5X? It’s trade name is called Wearamaskasshole.
Side effects include:

mild inconvienience, possible victim complex, fear of people thinking you are a sheeple, being ostracized by your anti-vax plandemic bros, and the power to stop your own asymptomatic transmission as this country stubbornly dives right on into that second wave. 

Check with your doctor, or really anyone, to see if Wearamaskasshole is right for you.
Yes totally stole this.... Put a mask on. ✌🏼

Via Queerty // Nice buns! This global burger chain just renamed itself for pride in Mexico

If there’s one thing that prompts heated debate among some LGBTQ people it’s the use of the word ‘queer’.

For some, it’s a defiant and unifying umbrella term to cover non-hetero sexualities. Others, remembering its use as a slur, prefer not to apply it to themselves. Perhaps for that reason, it’s a term that many corporates shy away from adopting, instead opting to just co-opt the rainbow flag instead.

¡Viva México!

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Via Daily Dharma: Transforming Emotions into Guidance

Only when emotions are truly attended to can they be endured and transformed into useful energies that express our needs and help guide us through life.

—Josh Korda,“A Safe Container for Fear”

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Via White Crane Institute - HENRY GERBER

Henry Gerber

1892 -

HENRY GERBER was among the earliest Gay Rights activists in America and, sadly, remains one of it's unsung heroes (d: 1972). He founded the nation’s first Gay organization and Gay publication. Born Joseph Henry Dittmer in Bavaria, Germany, Gerber moved to Chicago in 1913. From 1920 to 1923, he served in the U.S. Army during the occupation of Germany. While in Germany, he was exposed to the homosexual emancipation movement. Gerber subscribed to Gay publications and was inspired by Magnus Hirschfeld, founder of a German homosexual and science advocacy organization.

After returning to Chicago, Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights, which advocated for Gays and Lesbians. He published the organization’s newsletter, “Friends and Freedom.” Gerber limited membership in the Society for Human Rights to Gay men. Unknown to him, the vice president, Al Weininger, was married with children. In 1925, Weininger’s wife reported the organization’s activities and it was shut down for moral turpitude.

The Chicago police arrested Gerber and tried him three times. Although Gerber was found not guilty, the legal fees cost him his life savings and his job. Gerber moved to New York City and reenlisted in the Army, where he served for eighteen years. He led a correspondence club called Connections, which became a national network for Gay men. Under a pen name, he wrote articles for various publications, arguing the case for Gay Rights. At 80, Gerber died in the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home in Washington, D.C. In 1992, he was inducted posthumously into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. In 2001, the Henry Gerber House was designated a Chicago landmark.

Como entender a homossexualidade? | Monja Coen responde | Zen Budismo

Feliz Dia Internacional do Orgulho LGBTQIA+. Happy Pride!

“O espírito do Budismo sobre a homossexualidade é a inclusividade!

Se duas pessoas realmente se sentem bem dessa maneira e ambos os lados concordam totalmente, então tudo bem. Não se pode considerar isso uma doença ou que é errado. Você tem que ir além disso. 

Você precisa respeitar essa pessoa, de verdade.” #namaste #andrealmada #happypride #orgulho #monjacoen

President Obama Speaks to the People of Brazil - Mar 23, 2011

Via White Crane Institute // EDWARD CARPENTER

---

Died

Edward Carpenter and George Merrill

1929 -

EDWARD CARPENTER, English poet and Gay pioneer, died (b: 1844); Edward Carpenter was a pioneering socialist and radical prophet of a new age of fellowship in which social relations would be transformed by a new spiritual consciousness. The way he lived his life, perhaps even more than his extensive writings, was the essence of his message.

It is perhaps not surprising that his reputation faded quickly after his death, as he lived much of his life modestly spreading his message by personal contact and example rather than by major literary works or through a national political career. He has been described as having that unusual combination of qualities: charisma with modesty.

His ideas became immensely influential during the early years of the Socialist movement in Britain: perhaps Carpenter's most widely remembered legacy to the Socialist and Co-operative movements was his anthem England Arise!

A leading figure in late 19th and early 20th century Britain, he was instrumental in the foundation of the Fabian Society and the Labor Party. A poet and writer, he was a close friend of Walt Whitman and Rabindranath Tagore, corresponding with many famous figures such as Isadora Duncan, Havelock Ellis, Mahatma Ganghi, Jack London.William Morris and John Ruskin among many others.

But it is his writings on the subject of homosexuality and his open espousal of this identity that makes him unique. If you are unfamiliar with Carpenter, find him…read him. He is unquestionably one of the formative, foundational Gay philosophers in the late 19th and early 20th century. His influence was widespread at the time, and is no less innovative and profound, today.

His important writings include:

• • Towards Democracy (1883)
  • England's Ideal (1887)
  • Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure (1889; reissued 1920)
  • Homogenic love and its place in a free society (1894)
  • Love's Coming of Age (1896)
  • Days with Walt Whitman (1906)
  • Iolaus — anthology of friendship (editor, 1908)
  • The Intermediate Sex: a Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women (1908)
  • The Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk (1914)
  • My Days and Dreams (autobiography, 1916)
  • Pagan & Christian Creeds: their origin and meaning (1920)

A strong advocate of sexual freedom, living in a Gay community near Sheffield, he had a profound influence on both D.H. Lawrence and E.M. Forster. On his return from India in 1891, he met George Merrill, a working class man also from Sheffield, and the two men struck up a relationship, eventually moving in together in 1898. Merrill had been raised in the slums of Sheffield and had no formal education.

Two men of different classes living together as a couple was almost unheard of in England in the 1890s, a fact made all the more extraordinary by the hysteria about alternative sexualities generated by the Oscar Wilde trial of 1895 and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill passed a decade earlier "outlawing all forms of male homosexual contact". But their relationship endured and they remained partners for the rest of their lives. Their relationship not only defied Victorian sexual mores but also the highly stratified British class system. Their partnership, in many ways, reflected Carpenter's cherished conviction that same-sex love had the power to subvert class boundaries.

It was his belief that at sometime in the future, Gay people would be the cause of radical social change in the social conditions of man. Carpenter remarks in his work "The Intermediate Sex":

"Eros is a great leveler. Perhaps the true Democracy rests, more firmly than anywhere else, on a sentiment which easily passes the bounds of class and caste, and unites in the closest affection the most estranged ranks of society. It is noticeable how often Uranians of good position and breeding are drawn to rougher types, as of manual workers, and frequently very permanent alliances grow up in this way, which although not publicly acknowledged have a decided influence on social institutions, customs and political tendencies". p.114-115

(Note: The term “uranian", referring to a passage from Plato's Symposium, was often used at the time to describe someone who would be termed "Gay" nowadays. Carpenter is counted among the Uranians himself.)

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - June 28, 2020 💌

The final step in integrating meditation into your awareness is to use the stuff of daily life as part of your meditation. There are ways of perceiving the world and the way you live in it such that each experience brings you more deeply into the meditative space. At the same time, however, this kind of meditation requires firm grounding: you must continue to function effectively in the world as you meditate on it.
This is meditation in action. It finally becomes the core of a consciously lived life, a meditative space within you. This space stands between each thing you notice and each response you make, allowing a peaceful, quiet, and spacious view of the universe.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Why Joy Is a Radical Act

Innate joy is a radical act, because once we learn to recognize it, we can begin to toss aside the everyday understanding of happiness at the heart of our culture.

—Scott Tusa, “Joy Is a Radical Act”

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Via LGBTq Nation // What happened inside the White House on the day the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage?

What happened inside the White House on the day that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality and legalized same-sex marriages nationwide? Former President Barack Obama has released a video on the five year anniversary of that momentous day that is bringing the internet to tears.
From lighting the White House in rainbow colors to delivering the eulogy after the racist mass shooting at Mother Emanual church, the inside glimpse of the Obama presidency is both fascinating and touching.

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