Sunday, August 30, 2020
Via // How do Buddhists handle coronavirus? The answer is not just meditation
Millions of Buddhists seeking protection and healing from the novel coronavirus are turning to traditional religious rituals.
Since the emergence of COVID-19, the Dalai Lama, other senior monks and Buddhist organizations in Asia and worldwide have emphasized that this pandemic calls for meditation, compassion, generosity and gratitude. Such messages reinforce a common view in the West of Buddhism as more philosophy than religion – a spiritual, perhaps, but secular practice associated with mindfulness, happiness and stress reduction.
But for many people around the world Buddhism is a religion – a belief system that includes strong faith in supernatural powers. As such, Buddhism has a large repertoire of healing rituals that go well beyond meditation.
Having studied the interplay between Buddhism and medicine as a historian and ethnographer for the past 25 years, I have been documenting the role these ritual practices play in the coronavirus pandemic.
Talismans, prayer and ritual
Buddhism originated in India about two and a half millennia ago. Today, with well over a half-billion adherents across the world, it is a highly diverse tradition that has adapted to many cultural and social contexts.
There are three main schools of traditional Buddhism: Theravāda, practiced in most of Southeast Asia; Mahāyāna, the form most prevalent in East Asia; and Vajrayāna, commonly associated with Tibet and the Himalayan region.
In Buddhist-majority places, the official COVID-19 pandemic response includes conventional emergency health and sanitation measures like recommending face masks, hand-washing and stay-at-home orders. But within religious communities, Buddhist leaders also are using a range of ritual apotropaics – magical protection rites – to protect against disease.
In Thailand, for example, Theravāda temples are handing out “yant,” talismans bearing images of spirits, sacred syllables and Buddhist symbols. These blessed orange papers are a common ritual object among Buddhists in Southeast Asia who see crises such as epidemic illnesses as a sign that demonic forces are on the rise.
Theravāda amulets and charms trace their magical powers to repel evil spirits not only to the Buddha but also to beneficial nature spirits, demigods, charismatic monks and wizards.
Now, these blessed objects are being specifically formulated with the intention of protecting people from contracting the coronavirus.
Mahāyāna Buddhists use similar sacred objects, but they also pray to a whole pantheon of buddhas and bodhisattvas – another class of enlightened beings – for protection. In Japan, for example, Buddhist organizations have been conducting expulsion rites that call on Buddhist deities to help rid the land of the coronavirus.
Mahāyāna practitioners have faith that the blessings bestowed by these deities can be transmitted through statues or images. In a modern twist on this ancient belief, a priest affiliated with the Tōdaiji temple in Nara, Japan, in April tweeted a photo of the great Vairocana Buddha. He said the image would protect all who lay eyes upon it.
The third major form of Buddhism, Vajrayāna, which developed in the medieval period and is widely influential in Tibet, incorporates many rituals of earlier traditions. For example, the Dalai Lama has urged practitioners in Tibet and China to chant mantras to the bodhisattva Tārā, a female goddess associated with compassion and well-being, to gain her protection.
Vajrayāna practitioners also advocate a unique form of visualization where the practitioner generates a vivid mental image of a deity and then interacts with them on the level of subtle energy. Responses to COVID-19 suggested by leading figures in traditional Tibetan medicine frequently involve this kind of visualization practice.
Buddhist modernism
Since the height of the colonial period in the 19th century, “Buddhist modernists” have carefully constructed an international image of Buddhism as a philosophy or a psychology. In emphasizing its compatibility with empiricism and scientific objectivity they have ensured Buddhism’s place in the modern world and paved the way for its popularity outside of Asia.
Many of these secular-minded Buddhists have dismissed rituals and other aspects of traditional Buddhism as “hocus pocus” lurking on the fringes of the tradition.
Having documented the richness of the history and contemporary practice of Buddhist healing and protective rituals, however, I argue that these practices cannot be written off quite so easily.
In most living traditions of Buddhism, protective and healing rituals are taken seriously. They have sophisticated doctrinal justifications that often focus on the healing power of belief.
Increasingly, researchers are agreeing that faith in itself plays a role in promoting health. The anthropologist Daniel Moerman, for example, has identified what he calls the “meaning response.” This model accounts for how cultural and social beliefs and practices lead to “real improvements in human well-being.” Likewise, Harvard Medical School researcher Ted Kaptchuk has studied the neurobiological mechanisms for how rituals work to alleviate illnesses.
To date, there is no known way to prevent COVID-19 other than staying home to avoid contagion, and no miracle cure. But for millions worldwide, Buddhist talismans, prayers and protective rituals offer a meaningful way to confront the anxieties of the global coronavirus pandemic, providing comfort and relief.
And in a difficult time when both are in short supply, that’s nothing to discredit.
[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read The Conversation’s newsletter.]
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - August 30, 2020 💌
The art of playing on the playground of life is to do what you do as
well as you can, but what happens is not always in your control. The key
is not to be attached to the fruits of the action, even though you have
worked hard to make it come about. The forces that act upon whether you
will win or not are more than what is under your control.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Achieving a Moment of Breakthrough
Enlightenment
is initially subconscious awakening, which is spontaneously merged with
conscious awakening at the moment of breakthrough.
—Kazuaki Tanahashi, “Fundamentals of Dogen’s Thoughts”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Saturday, August 29, 2020
Via White Crane Institute // This Day in Gay History: EDWARD CARPENTER
This Day in Gay History
August 29
Born
Edward CarpenterEDWARD CARPENTER, English socialist
poet anthologist, early gay theorist, activist, and socialist
philosopher, was born on this date (d: 1929); Perhaps Gay Pride ought to
consider claiming another week, this one. Ulrichs and Carpenter, both
born this week, are two of the founding philosophers of the LGBT Rights
Movement.
A leading figure in late 19th and early 20th century Britain, Carpenter 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 Annie Bessant, Isadore Duncan, Havelock Ellis, Roger Fry, Mahatma Gandhi, James Keir Hardie, J.K. Kinney, Jack London, George Merrill, E.D. Morel, William Morris, E.R. Pease, John Ruskin and Olive Schrener. In this writers humble opinion, along with Walt Whitman, this man’s date of birth should be a recognized holiday in the LGBT community.
As a philosopher Carpenter may have been the original Radical Faerie. He is particularly known for his publication of Civilization, its Cause and Cure in which he proposes that civilization is a form of disease that human societies pass through. Civilizations, he says, rarely last more than a thousand years before collapsing, and no society has ever passed through civilization successfully. His 'cure' is a closer association with the land and greater development of our inner nature. Although derived from his experience of Hindu mysticism, and referred to as 'mystical socialism', his thoughts parallel those of several writers in the field of psychology and sociology at the start of the twentieth century, such as Boris Sidis, Sigmund Freud, and Wilfred Trotter who all recognized that society puts ever increasing pressure on the individual, which can result in mental and physical illnesses such as neurosis, and the particular nervousness which was then described as neurasthenia.
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. He was also the first person to introduce the wearing of sandals into Britain.
In the 1880s Carpenter developed an intellectual passion for Hindu mysticism and Indian philosophy. During this period, Carpenter received a pair of sandals from a friend in India. "I soon found the joy of wearing them," Carpenter wrote. "And after a little time I set about making them."This was the first successful introduction of sandals to Britain. In 1890 he traveled to Ceylon and India to spend time with the Hindu teacher called Gnani, who he describes his work "Adam's Peak to Elephanta". The experience had a profound effect on his social and political thought. Carpenter began to believe that Socialism should not only concern itself with man's outward economic conditions, but also affect a profound change in human consciousness. In this new stage of society Carpenter argued that mankind would return to a primordial state of simple joy:
"The meaning of the old religions will come back to him. On the high tops once more gathering he will celebrate with naked dances the glory of the human form and the great processions of the stars, or greet the bright horn of the young moon.” Edward Carpenter (1889), Civilization: Its Cause and Cure.
This brand of "Mystical socialism" inspired him to begin a number of campaigns against air pollution, promoting vegetarianism and opposing vivisection.
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 strong relationship, eventually moving in together as lovers 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 homosexuality 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. The love of the two men, 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 homosexual love had the power to subvert class boundaries. It was his belief that at sometime in the future homosexual 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 "homosexual" or "gay" today.)
The 1890s saw Carpenter produce his finest political writing in a concerted effort to campaign against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. He strongly believed that homosexuality was a natural orientation for people of a third sex. His 1908 book on the subject, The Intermediate Sex, would become a foundational text of the LGBT movements of the 20th century. It can only speculated why Carpenter felt compelled to embark on such an unpopular and even dangerous subject in such hostile times, but one theory is that Carpenter's moral courage was ignited by the death of the gay scholar and middle-class radical John Addington Symonds. In the 1880s Symonds had composed a number of works in defense of homosexuality, which were distributed among a small group of people, including Carpenter. On Symonds' death in 1893, Carpenter perhaps saw the political mantle passing to him and within a couple of years made his first attempt to write on the subject. While engaged in this campaign Carpenter developed a keen interest in progressive education, especially providing information to young people on the topic of sexual education, and was a good friend of John Haden Badley, the social reformer and educationalist and would regularly visit BedalesSchool when his nephew Alfred Francis Blakeney was a student there.
Sexual education for Carpenter also meant forwarding a clear analysis of the ways in which sex and gender were used to oppress women, contained in Carpenter's radical work "Love's Coming-of-Age". In it he argued that a just and equal society must promote the sexual and economic freedom of women. The main crux of his analysis centered on the negative affects of the institution of marriage. He regarded marriage in England as both enforced celibacy and a form of prostitution. He did not believe women would truly be free until a socialist society was established. In contrast to many of his contemporaries, however, this led him to conclude that all oppressed workers should support women's emancipation, rather than to subordinate women's rights to male worker's rights. He remarked
"...there is no solution except the freedom of woman-which means, of course, the freedom of the masses of the people, men and women, and the ceasing altogether of economic slavery. There is no solution which will not include the redemption of the terms free women and free love to their true and rightful significance. Let every woman whose heart bleeds for the sufferings of her sex, hasten to declare herself and to constitute herself, as far as she possibly can, a free woman"
He continued to work in the early part of the 20th century composing works on the "Homogenic question". The publication in 1908 of his groundbreaking anthology of poems, Iolaus - Anthology Of Friendship was a huge underground success, leading to a more advanced knowledge of homoerotic culture. In April 1914, Carpenter and his friend Laurence Houseman founded the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology. Some of the topics addressed in lecture and publication by the society included: the promotion of the scientific study of sex; a more rational attitude towards sexual conduct and problems and questions connected with sexual psychology (from medical, juridical, and sociological aspects), birth control, abortion, sterilization, venereal diseases, and all aspects of prostitution. At this time, he also lectured to the Independent Labor Party and to the Fellowship of the New Life, from which the Fabian Society later grew.
In May 1928 Carpenter suffered a paralytic stroke rendering him almost helpless. He lived another 13 months before he died on a perfect summer afternoon, Friday June 28, 1929. On December 30, 1910 Carpenter had written:
"I should like these few words to be read over the grave when my body is placed in the earth; for though it is possible I may be present and conscious of what is going on, I shall not be able to communicate..."
Unfortunately the existence of his request was not discovered until several days after his burial. The closing words form the epitaph engraved on his tombstone:
"Do not think too much of the dead husk of your friend, or mourn too much over it, but send your thoughts out towards the real soul or self which has escaped — to reach it. For so, surely you will cast a light of gladness upon his onward journey, and contribute your part towards the building of that kingdom of love which links our earth to heaven."
He was interred in Mount Cemetery at Guildford in Surrey. At the time of his death, Carpenter was largely forgotten, but his books were stocked in many libraries' "restricted to adults" sections and proved inspirational to Gay people searching for solace. One such man was the Gay Rights activist Harry Hay. He was so inspired by the work of Carpenter and his prophecy of the coming together of homosexuals to fight for their rights that he decided to put the words into action by founding the Mattachine Society which started advancing homosexual rights in America.
Via Lion's Roar: For the Moment
For the Moment
Short Practices for Relief and Resilience
Short Practices for Relief and Resilience
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Via Daily Dharma: The Way to Enlightenment
To
study the way of enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self
is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad
things.
—Eihei Dogen Zenji, “Tea and Rice”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Friday, August 28, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Opening Through Prayer
Through
prayer, we come out of the mine shaft, open our eyes, become receptive
to enlightened presence, the omnipotent love and compassion that exist
for all beings.
—Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, “Prayer: Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Thursday, August 27, 2020
Via FB / *copied and pasted*
Just a note for my right leaning family and friends from my left leaning self as we near voting day:
They say we want to disband police departments (and that we hate the police): we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to weed out racism and unnecessary police brutality and for those who abuse their power to be held accountable.
They say we want to release all prisoners: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to weed out racism and ensure the punishments match the crimes and to deprivatize prisons.
They say we want open borders: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want asylum seekers to be given their chance to seek asylum. We want to help people who are coming from unimaginable terror and poverty help to give them the chances we have. We want to ensure children aren’t separated from their parents and that nobody is kept in cages. But we do want proper vetting.
They say we want to take away your guns: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want logical gun control to help prevent mass shootings.
They say we want to wage a war on Christianity and Christian values: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want people of all religions to be able to practice and worship freely.
They say we want to get everything for free: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to work hard and make sure that healthcare and education are affordable for all.
They say we want a war against traditional marriage: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want people of all sexual orientations to be able to love freely, no matter who you love.
They say we want to destroy or rewrite history: we don’t, that’s a lie. We want to recognize the ugly parts of our past and do everything we can to say “that’s not okay, let’s not honor those aggressors, let’s not let those things happen again”.
They say we want to take away your constitutional rights: we don’t, that’s a lie. We choose to believe science and wear masks and try to prevent the spread of this disease.
They say we hate America: we don’t, that’s a lie. We just recognize our faults and want us to do better, be better.
Stop with the us vs. them. Stop with the straw man arguments.
Stop with the fake news. Stop with Fox News. Our position is one of empathy, compassion and logic. Stop believing the hype. Stop with the division. Just because we want equality for all doesn’t mean we want to take anything away from you.
Feel free to use the words as your own. They are!
*copied and pasted*
Via Daily Dharma: Making Meditation a Habit
We have to realize that for the last twenty, thirty years we have cultivated many habits which promoted distractions, and when we meditate we go against all these habits. It is going to take some time before we dissolve the power of these tendencies.
—Martine Batchelor, “The Ten Oxherding Pictures”
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - August 26, 2020 💌
Listening is an art that comes from a quiet mind and an open heart. Listening uses all of your senses, and it is a very subtle skill, not only with the ears but with your being. Your being becomes the instrument of listening. Your sensing mechanism in life is not just your ears, eyes, skin sensitivity, and analytic mind. It's something deeper in you. It's an intuitive quality of knowing. With all of your being, you become an antenna to the nature of another person. Then, for the relationship to remain a part of the Living Spirit, one of the best ingredients to put into the stew is truth.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Guide Your Mind
The
mind is very powerful. Therefore, it requires firm guidance. A powerful
jet plane needs a good pilot; the pilot of your mind should be the
wisdom that understands its nature.
—Lama Thubten Yeshe, “Your Mind Is Your Religion”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Via NPR: 'Hoax' Traces The 'Grotesque Feedback Loop' Between President Trump And Fox News
President Trump greets talk show host Sean Hannity at a 2018 rally in Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Via Daily Dharma: Connection Between Mind and Body
If
proper attention is not given to sensations, then we are not going to
the deepest levels of the mind. The deepest level of the mind, according
to Buddha, is constantly in contact with body sensations.
—Interview with S. N. Goenka by Helen Tworkov, “Superscience”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Monday, August 24, 2020
Via White Crane Institute // This Day in Gay History: STEPHEN JOHN FRY
August 24Born  Stephen Fry
1957 -
STEPHEN JOHN FRY is an English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist born on this date. With Hugh Laurie, he is half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, who starred in Jeeves and Wooster. Fry's acting roles include a Golden Globe–nominated lead performance in the film Wilde, portraying Oscar Wilde, Melchett in the BBC series Blackadder, the title character in the television series Kingdom, a recurring guest role as Dr Gordon Wyatt on the crime series Bones, and as Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V for Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award–winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which saw him explore his bipolar disorder, and the travel series Stephen Fry in America. He was also the long-time host of the BBC television quiz show OI, with his tenure lasting from 2003 to 2016. Besides working in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines and written four novels and three volumes of autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles and More Fool Me. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just A Minute, and acting as chairman during one series of I'm Sorry I haven't A Clue, where he was one of a trio of possible hosts who were tried out to succeed the late Humphrey Lyttelton, Jack Dee getting the post permanently. Fry is also known for his voice-overs, reading all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the UK audiobook recordings, narrating the LittleBigPlanet and Birds of Steel series of video games, as well as an animated series of explanations of the laws of cricket, of which he is a particular fan, and a series of animations about Humanism for Humanists UK. Fry married comedian Elliott Spencer in January 2015. Fry is on cordial terms with Prince Charles, through his work with the Prince's Trust. He attended the Prince's wedding to Camilla Parker-Bowles in 2005. Fry is a friend of comedian and actor (and Blackadder co-star) Rowan Atkinson and was best man at Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City. Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and by his own account did not engage in sexual activity for 16 years from 1979 until 1995. When asked when he first acknowledged his sexuality, Fry quipped: "I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother and thought to myself, 'That's the last time I'm going up one of those'." Fry was in a 15-year relationship with Daniel Cohen, which ended in 2010. Fry was listed #2 in 2016 and #12 in 2017 on the World Pride Power list. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3ZBeX9uC8s
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