Slowly over the years I’ve noticed that when I’m working with the dying
or working on a political action or something, I feel absolutely
harmonious with my being - like this is just what I should be doing. And
it began to dawn on me: feed people, serve people, be like Gandhi.
- Ram Dass -
Who’s being affected by your hatred? The first person is you.
—Interview with Ani Choying Drolma by Pamela Gayle White, “Topping the Charts for Freedom”
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| Yes, We Can Have Hope | ||
| Roshi Joan Halifax reflects on the idea of “wise hope” and why we should open ourselves to it. | ||
As
Buddhists, we share a common aspiration to awaken from suffering; for
many of us, this aspiration is not a “small self” improvement program.
The bodhisattva vows at the heart of the Mahayana tradition are, if
nothing else, a powerful expression of radical and wise hope—an
unconditional hope that is free of desire.
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This Day in Gay History
T.S. Eliot
T.S. ELIOT, poet, dramatist and literary critic, born in St. Louis MO (d: 1965) He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. He wrote the poems "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", The Waste Land, "The Hollow Men", "Ash Wednesday", and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent". Eliot was born an American, moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at the age of 25), and became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39. When he was living in Paris before WWI, he met a French medical student named Jean Verdenal in the Luxembourg Gardens. Werdenal was waving a branch of lilac at the time. Verdenal died in the Dardanelles in 1915. Eliot dedicated Prufrock to him, adding a epigraph from Dante’s Purgatory: “Now can you understand the quantity of love that warms me to you, so that I forget out vanity, and treat the shadows like the real thing.”
This is all we know about his friendship with the young medical student, and all we are likely to know. Other considerations: Eliot had a horror of the female body, he feared it, and thought it “smelled.” He had an abhorrence of sex in general, though as a boy, he masturbated guiltily and wrote a magnificently sensuous poem about it…an excerpt here:
Then he knew that he had been a fish
With slippery white belly held tight in his own fingers
Writhing in his own clutch, his ancient beauty
Caught fast in the pink rips of his new beauty.
Eliot obsessed with the thought that every man wanted to kill a woman, and without irony, extended his fantasy to all men. His first marriage was miserable in that his wife laughed in his face at the very idea of sleeping with him. These are the general facts, and various interpretations are offered by various biographers. Thus far, interpretations have run in two obvious directions. Of course he was completely asexual. Of course he was a latent homosexual. Either seems unfair in some way; he was simply T.S. Eliot. Perhaps the first queer?
Appreciating the many ordinary encounters we have leads to a broader and deeper experience of life.
—Rev. Dr. Kenji Akahoshi, “Shin Buddhism: A Path of Gratitude”
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Almodovar
PEDRO ALMODOVAR, Spanish filmmaker, was born; Almodóvar is the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, and quirky stylings, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular songs, irreverent humor, strong colors and glossy décor. He never judges his character's actions, whatever they do, but he presents them as they are in all their complexity. Desire, passion, family and identity are the director's favorite themes. Almodóvar is openly – dare we say brilliantly? -- Gay and he has incorporated elements of underground and gay culture into mainstream forms with wide crossover appeal, redefining perceptions of Spanish cinema and Spain in the process. At one time, it is believed, he owned the film rights to Tom Spanbauer’s mystical book, The Man Who Fell In Love With the Moon (though we now believe Gus Van Sant has these rights.)
Around 1974, Almodóvar
began making his first short films on a Super-8 camera. By the end of
the 1970s they were shown in Madrid’s night circuit and in Barcelona These shorts had overtly sexual narratives and no soundtrack: Dos
putas, o, Historia de amor que termina en boda (1974) (Two Whores, or, A
Love Story that Ends in Marriage); La caída de Sodoma (1975) (The Fall
of Sodom); Homenaje (1976) (Homage); La estrella (1977) (The Star)
1977 Sexo Va: Sexo viene (Sex Comes and Goes) (Super-8); Complementos (
“I showed them in bars, at parties… I could not add a soundtrack because it was very difficult. The magnetic strip was very poor, very thin. I remember that I became very famous in Madrid because, as the films had no sound, I took a cassette with music while I personally did the voices of all the characters, songs and dialogues.” After four years of working with shorts in Super-8 format, in 1978 Almodóvar made his first Super-8, full-length film: Folle, folle, fólleme, Tim (1978) (Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim), a magazine style melodrama. In addition, he made his first 16 mm short, Salome. This was his first contact with the professional world of cinema. The film's stars, Carmen Maura and Felix Rotaeta, encouraged him to make his first feature film in 16mm and helped him raise the money to finance what would be Pepi Luc: Bom y otras cgicas del monton.
Almodóvar's subsequent films deepened his exploration of sexual desire and the sometimes brutal laws governing it. Matador is a dark, complex story that centers on the relationship between a former bullfighter and a murderous female lawyer, both of whom can only experience sexual fulfillment in conjunction with killing. The film offered up desire as a bridge between sexual attraction and death.
Almodóvar solidified his creative independence when he started the production company El Deseo, together with his brother Agustín, who has also had several cameo roles in his films. From 1986 on, Pedro Almodóvar has produced his own films.
The first movie that came out from El Deseo was the aptly named Law of Desire (La Ley del Deseo). The film has an operatically tragic plot line and is one of Almodóvar’s richest and most disturbing movies. The narrative follows three main characters: a Gay film director who embarks on a new project; his sister, an actress who used to be his brother (played by Carmen Maura), and a repressed murderously obsessive stalker (played by Antonio Banderas).
The film presents a gay love triangle and drew away from most representations of Gay men in films. These characters are neither coming out nor confront sexual guilt or homophobia; they are already liberated, like the homosexuals in Fassbinder’s films. Almodóvar said about Law of Desire: "It's the key film in my life and career. It deals with my vision of desire, something that's both very hard and very human. By this I mean the absolute necessity of being desired and the fact that in the interplay of desires it's rare that two desires meet and correspond."
Almodóvar's films rely heavily on the capacity of his actors to pull through difficult roles into a complex narrative. In Law of Desire Carmen Maura plays the role of Tina, a woman who used to be a man. Almodóvar explains: "Carmen is required to imitate a woman, to savor the imitation, to be conscious of the kitsch part that there is in the imitation, completely renouncing parody, but not humor".
Elements from Law of Desire grew into the basis for two later films: Carmen Maura appears in a stage production of Cocteau’s The Human Voice, which inspired Almodóvar’s next film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown; and Tina's confrontation scene with an abusive priest formed a partial genesis for Bad Education.
The same mind that can create harsh judgments is capable of undoing them through the power of awareness and attention.
—Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, “The Aim of Attention”
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While keeping people focused on a strong, robust election process is a must, we also need to prepare for a coup.
Some days I feel confident it will happen. A poll showed over 75 percent of Democrats think this is possible — and a shocking 30 percent of Republicans do too!
Other days I feel confident this is tough talk from a president not good at planning ahead. Still, he is good at the kind of misdirection that can keep us complacent and reactionary — which could lead us to stop doing the important groundwork of getting out the vote, protecting the post office and fighting voter suppression.
Inside the Translator’s Workbook
By Ken McLeod
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The
ability to be a true friend to oneself, to love and respect oneself, to
offer heartfelt wishes for one’s own safety, health, happiness and
peace, will determine the authenticity and ease with which we offer
[lovingkindness] to others.
—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: A Bedtime Ritual”
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Photo by Todd Cravens.
For several years, the furniture in my house has been picked up for free at curbside giveaways. There’s a special pride that comes with my “cheap” décor. Pride in the story. In the uniqueness. And in my resourcefulness.
There’s also shame in the fact that this “look” — this shoddy, worn-down furniture — is the result of not being able to afford something “better.”
All my lamp shades are crooked. You can tell this bookshelf is the wooden base of a construction sign, leant against the wall. That other bookshelf is an old bed frame with shelves added to it. There’s a beautiful tea table with a design that keeps chipping away.
Today wabi-sabi is known in the West as a popular trend in style and interior design, yet it originally drew on Chinese Confucianism and Japanese Taoism as a defiant response to elite materialism.
Wabi-sabi is now known as a design trend akin to hygge or minimalism. But the essence of its appeal lies in what cannot be bought or mass produced.
The breath reminds us that we are here and alive: let it be your anchor to the present moment.
—Elana Rosenbaum, “Guided Meditation: Awareness of Breathing”
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Every moment a thought enters your mind, right at that moment, before the seed takes fruit, offer it. You can offer it to Kali Ma, to Christ, to me, it doesn’t matter. Offer it to God, like you have been full of opening, full of God, full of the Living Spirit.
-Ram Dass -
Underneath
all the confusion of conceptual thinking and emotional reaction,
underneath all the ideas you have about who and what you are, there is
nothing—no self, not a vestige—but there is a clear empty knowing.
There! This is what you are.
—Ken McLeod, “Inside the Translator’s Workbook”
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