Via How to Live a Spiritual Life in a Capitalist World

Confronting the Dangers of a Materialistic Culture
 

As the COVID crisis continues, we’ve seen some of the most harmful ideologies underpinning our culture—including racism and runaway capitalism—pushed to a breaking point.

Dr. Bokin Kim, a Won Buddhist minister and President of the Won Institute of Graduate Studies in Philadelphia, describes the current pandemic as a warning signal for us to examine the materialistic foundations of our culture and the suffering it has caused.

Materialism has always been a central concern of Won Buddhism. The tradition was founded 100 years ago in South Korea with the guiding motive “As material civilization develops, cultivate spiritual civilization accordingly.” Concerned by rapid industrialization and the decline of moral values, the Korean founder of Won, Venerable Sotaesan set out to create a “buddhadharma of the future” that would make the Buddha’s teachings applicable to everyday life in modern society. Won principles can provide insight on the roots of human suffering in the 21st century and valuable guidance for navigating the fragile world we live in.

Watch our July Dharma Talk series with Dr. Kim to discover wisdom and practical tools for finding the right balance between our spiritual and material lives.

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Via White Crane Institute // Hiram Bingham

Noteworthy

Hiram_Bingham III in 1916

1911 -

HIRAM BINGHAM III "re-discovers" Machu Picchu “Lost” City of the Incas". Whoever left their intricately stone carved city of about 1,000 at 11,000 feet above the Urubamba River, please use the White Courtesy telephone.

Bingham is credited with becoming the first outsider, in 1911, to visit the ruins of Machu Picchu, the now-famous Inca settlement in the Peruvian Andes that was built in the 15th century and abandoned around the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in the 16th century. Born in 1875 to Christian missionaries in Hawaii, Bingham earned a Ph.D. from Harvard and married a Tiffany & Co. heiress, whose wealth helped fund his expeditions. In 1911, Bingham, then a Yale University faculty member specializing in South American history, was in Peru searching for Vilcabamba, the last Inca outpost before it fell to the Spanish, when he encountered a local farmer who directed him to the ruins of Machu Picchu. Although the site was known to peasants living in the region, its existence had never been publicized. Bingham, who returned to Machu Picchu (meaning “old peak” in Quechua, one of Peru’s native languages) in 1912 to conduct a major excavation and made a third visit to the area in 1914-15, documented his sensational findings in a series of articles and books. Although some experts later contended that missionaries and other non-locals might have visited Machu Picchu before Bingham, he was the first to conduct a scientific exploration of the site.

In addition to his days as an explorer, Bingham commanded a flight school in France for the American military during World War I then went on to represent Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1925 to 1933. He died in 1956. In 2010, after a lengthy custody dispute, Yale University reached an agreement with the Peruvian government to return thousands of artifacts Bingham had excavated from Machu Picchu.

Via Daily Dharma: The Foundation of Spiritual Growth

Skillful attitudes of mind are the key to facing potentially explosive situations and the ongoing highs and lows of life and practice. In fact, recognizing these attitudes and cultivating their antidotes is the foundation for all spiritual growth.

—Steve Armstrong, “Got Attitude?”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 22, 2020 💌

The first being one must have compassion for is oneself. You can't be a witness to your thoughts with a chip on your shoulder or an axe to grind.
Ramana Maharshi said, "If people would stop wailing alas I am a sinner and use all that energy to get on with it they would all be enlightened."
He also said, "When you're cleaning up the outer temple before going to the inner temple, don't stop to read everything you're going to throw away..."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: What Anger Indicates

When anger arises, it is pointing to something. Our anger is a clue to our underlying beliefs about ourselves.

—Jules Shuzen Harris, “Uprooting the Seeds of Anger”

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Via Daily Dharma: Drop Your Negative Stories

The more we learn to let go of thoughts, the more we gain the ability to drop our negative stories. As we continue to practice, we may begin to catch ourselves earlier in the chain—perhaps even noticing dislike at the feeling level and choosing a mindful response rather than automatic reaction. 

—Sean Murphy, “Get Out Of Your Head”

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Via Daily Dharma: Fostering Peace

Real peace is not simply the absence of violent conflict but a state of harmony: harmony between people; harmony between humanity and nature; and harmony within ourselves. 

—Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, “Fostering Peace, Inside and Out”

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Dennis McEoin: Iran targets its largest minority, the Bahai

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 19, 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: Finding Steadiness of Mind

Equanimity is steadiness of mind, unshakeableness, imperturbability.

—Peter Doobinin, “Sutta Study: The Failings of the World”

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Via Daily Dharma: Let Yourself Rest

Through prolonged practice, we meditators may begin to recognize that we are simply worn out from the striving—and thus open a door to deeper understanding of the dharma.
—Sarah Conover, “‘Minefulness’: A Case Study”
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Via FB

What if...

Namaste

Via Daily Dharma: Set Your Thoughts Free

Ordinary discursive thoughts will just rear up again
Like poison that’s lain dormant,
Until you’ve really understood the subtle crucial point—
How thoughts are set free just as they arise.

—Patrul Rinpoche, “Liberating Your Thoughts”

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Via White Crane Institute // ANTINOUS

This Day in Gay History

July 16

Born

Antinous

0110 -

ANTINOUS born (d: 130 C.E.); If there was an All Time Beautiful Men contest, this man would have been a contender if he didn’t just walk away with the cup. And like most beauties, be married well. Antinous was a famous beauty of the ancient world who became the beloved of the emperor Hadrian.

He may have been a male prostitute when Hadrian met him, but his origins are obscure though later on he was believed to have been the product of a virgin birth. All that is known for certain is that Hadrian was immediately and utterly smitten with the beautiful 15-year-old.

From that time on, Antinous was with the emperor constantly until a journey to Egypt where he was drowned in the Nile. Some say that Antinous, knowing that a prophecy had declared the death of Hadrian unless a living sacrifice were to be offered in his place, died so that his lover might live. Others believe that Antinous, growing into young manhood, was ashamed of playing mistress to the emperor.

The most poignant story is that the boy killed himself because he couldn’t bear the idea of growing old. What we know for certain is that Hadrian’s grief at the death of Antinous was uncontained and nothing short of monumental. He deified him and founded the city of Antinopoölis in Egypt in his honor (and many other Antinopoölises elsewhere in the world) and renamed the boy’s birthplace Antinopoölis as well.

A cult was inaugurated in his honor that focused on the youth who was born of a virgin and went on to sacrifice his own life for the good of mankind. Coins were minted with his likeness and numerous busts and shatteringly beautiful statues were erected to commemorate the beauty of this youth and the love the emperor felt for him (there are so many beautiful images that are purported to be Antinous it is hard to choose which one to include here).

After deification, Antinous was associated with and depicted as the Egyptian god Osiris, associated with the rebirth of the Nile. Virgin birth. Risen from death. Sacrificed for the benefit of all people. 

Sound familiar?

Antinous was depicted as the Roman Bacchus, a god related to fertility, cutting vine leaves. Sociologist Royston Lambert wrote an utterly fascinating study of the relationship of Hadrian and Antinous as well as an equally intriguing discussion of the parallels between this story of a young man, sacrificed and associated with rebirth, and another contemporaneous story about a young man from Nazareth.

Highly recommended: Check this out on Amazon .

Via Daily Dharma: Celebrate the Light

Threaded through the dark tangle of our misery are strings of light. We are no more responsible for the light than for the dark, but surely it is wise to celebrate the beauty of the light that has manifested in and through us.

—Matthew Gindin, “Putting to Rest the Myth of the Heroic Self”

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Via Daily Dharma: Befriend Who You Already Are

Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already.

—Pema Chödrön,“Nothing to (Im)prove”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - July 15, 2020 💌

If we accept that the ends of our actions often prove unknowable, we’re also freer to be focused on the process of our work as it’s happening. We can be attentive to situations as they occur. What lies before us is it. Helping is right here. Not having to know so badly, not wandering off looking, we’re more able to be present, freer simply to be.
We needn’t be troubled or worn down, then, by paradox and ambiguity. The mystery of helping can be our ally, our teacher, an environment for wonder and discovery. If we enter into it openly, our actions fall into perspective, a larger pattern we can trust. At rest in the Witness, meanwhile, we greet the outcome of our action with equanimity.
Here is a final shift in perspective which can help release us from burnout: We do what we can.

- Ram Dass -