BUDDHISTS HELP GET OUT THE VOTE

 BUDDHISTS HELP GET OUT THE VOTE 

In this time of great fear, it is important that we think of the long-term challenges—and possibilities—of the entire globe. Photographs of our world from space clearly show that there are no real boundaries on our blue planet. Therefore, all of us must take care of it and work to prevent climate change and other destructive forces. This pandemic serves as a warning that only by coming together with a coordinated, global response will we meet the unprecedented magnitude of the challenges we face. - The Dalai Lama

 

Dear Friends in the Dharma,

 

This is a truly critical time in American society. We are in the midst of a global pandemic, financial collapse, climate change emergency, and approaching a November election that threatens to exclude many eligible voters. As Buddhist teachers and leaders, we recognize that every vote and voice needs to be heard to help guide the next years of our society wisely.

A mutual caring community is one of the central teachings of the Buddha. In these times so marked by divisiveness and a lack of compassionate leadership, many of you have wondered how you and your whole community can help move us in this direction. Here are two crucial activities to encourage for everyone in your community:

 

❖ Register to vote; and sign up for an absentee ballot: You and your community can do this through Vote.org. Over thirty states now have no-excuse absentee voting, and many others are considering allowing COVID-19 as a valid excuse.

 

❖ Get your friends and family to register, sign up for an absentee ballot, and vote.

 

There’s more we all can do, and these actions don’t demand a lot of time.

1. Volunteer to do voter registration, absentee sign-ups, and get out the vote through these organizations.

• State Voices: A network of nonpartisan state coalitions of hundreds of grassroots organizations. Reach out and see if there are volunteer opportunities.

• Vote Early Day (Oct 24): Inspired by National Voter Registration Day and anchored by a number of large media and tech companies, this organization will also be providing toolkits and training opportunities for impactful work, including recruitment of election workers. Will be assisting voters with both mail and in-person early-voting options. Was in the works pre-COVID-19, but is likely more critical in a pandemic.

• When We All Vote: The best-resourced, truly nonpartisan voter engagement organization.

2. Help ensure that eligible voters get to vote in key states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin. Whether non-partisan or partisan there are many ways to help this.

• Here is an example of how to can get involved in the critical state Wisconsin: https://winwisconsin.org/webinars/

3. Sign up to be a poll worker. Serving as a poll worker offers a dramatically under-appreciated opportunity to have an impact. Problems are made markedly worse or are mitigated to a substantial degree based on the quality of the poll worker. Chronic shortages of election workers nationwide cause long lines at the polls, especially at polling places that serve communities of color.

Here is a song/video from Nina Wise on getting out the vote https://youtu.be/8VvgN63yuVg

You can sign up to be a poll worker and be connected to your local elections office.

Our collective involvement leading up to the November elections can really make a difference. Please forward this to as many teachers and Buddhist communities as you can throughout the United States. And thanks for joining us!

With lovingkindness, compassion and blessings,

 

Yours in the Dharma,

 

​100+ Buddhist Teachers

Via LATimes

 

Via Daily Dharma: Coping with a Painful World

 In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can’t help but stay present.

—Krista Tippett, “Brief Teachings”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Sacramento Bee

 

Via FB

In case folks missed the White House’s Proclamation on Columbus Day, 2020. A guy fixed it.  #wordsmatter

 

Via LATimes

 

Via Daily Dharma: Attending to the Present Moment

It does not matter how elaborate certain teachings or meditation techniques are, the fundamental aim is still to deal with immediate experience, here and now.

—Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche, “Accepting the Unacceptable”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

via FB

 

Via Tumblr

 

Via Tumblr

 

Via Tumblr

 

 

Via Nate Kojun Hayes // FB:

The other night I made a post asking people who intended on voting for Trump in this election to unfriend me on Facebook. This post created some backlash and I’ve been accused of being unpatriotic, not having respect for other opinions, not believing or understanding how Democracy works and even not allowing other people to have an opinion different from mine.

I’d like to say something. 

 

I grew up hiding who I was. I walked the halls of EVERY SINGLE educational establishment in fear. In MeadowBrook Junior High it could have been a swift punch on the shoulder while “Fucking faggot” was whispered just loud enough that everyone but the teachers would hear. 

 

One night outside my dorm room in the Christian college of OVC a few guys banged on my door and threatened “There’s no room for fucking faggots here. You should go home where you belong."

 

In the relative safety of progressive Athens, I once had a professor at Ohio University openly mock my homosexuality in front of the entire class. No one stood up for me, no one reprimanded the professor.

My partner Bruno and I would never dream of holding hands in many places in Athens. The other week we stopped at Walmart for window blinds and we subconsciously kept a distance from each other. It would have been foolish to invite trouble after having walked by all the pickup trucks with Trump stickers on our way in. 

 

So. Here we are. I’m 40 years old and very likely will never feel completely safe in this country that I love. It’s an election year. And the party that Trump is representing would like to:

 

1. Take marriage back to only between a man and a woman.

2. Support adoption agencies that refuse same-sex couples

3. Affirm conversion therapy

4. Ban transgender people from their appropriate bathrooms

5. Support “Religious Freedom” for businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ customers

 

So, when I ask that you remove me from your “friends” list on Facebook and it upsets you? Let me tell you something. 

 

1. Not being able to marry upsets me.

2. Not being able to adopt upsets me.

3. Being told I can “pray the gay away” by a therapist upsets me.

4. Having friends harassed for going to the bathroom upsets me.

5. Being turned away from the grocery store because I’m gay upsets me.

 

And you're upset because I don’t want to be friends with someone who supports this discrimination?

 

CRY ME A FUCKING RIVER. 

 

I understand completely how Democracy works. Whoever is elected president will be my president. I’ll be glad I voted either way. 

 

You are more than in your right to vote proudly for who you want. And I’m more than in my right to decide we aren’t going to be friends because of it. 

 

I can respect your opinion but when your opinion is that I don’t have the human right to marry, well, how much respect do you think would be adequate? Should I gleefully drive you to the polls so you can vote to strip away my human rights? Should I pour a glass of champagne for you when I’m told I can’t buy bread from the bakery because the owner doesn’t agree with my lifestyle? Oh, I guess you’ll have to buy the champagne since that wine shop has a “NO GAYS SERVED” sign in the window. My bad! 

 

So how about this: If it bothers you that I don’t want to be your BFF after you proudly stake that Trump/Pence sign in your yard then I suggest you get over it. 

 

Because trust me, I already have.

Via White Crane Institute // THE 2ND MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS

 

More than a half million people (between 300,000 and 1,000,000, according to organizers...considerably more than the number that attended the current occupant of the White House's inauguration) descended on the capital to participate in the second national March on Washington. Many of the marchers were angry over the government's slow and inadequate response to the AIDS crisis, as well as the Supreme Court's 1986 decision to uphold sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick.

With the first display of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, the 1987 march succeeded in bringing national attention to the impact of AIDS on Gay communities. In the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, a tapestry of nearly two thousand fabric panels offered a powerful tribute to the lives of some of those who had been lost in the pandemic.

The march also called attention to anti-Gay discrimination, as approximately 800 people were arrested in front of the Supreme Court two days later in the largest civil disobedience action ever held in support of the rights of Lesbians, Gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people.

The 1987 March on Washington also sparked the creation of what became known as BiNet U.S.A. and the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organization (LLEGÓ), the first national groups for bisexuals and GLBTQ Latinas and Latinos, respectively. Prior to the march, bisexual activists circulated a flyer entitled "Are You Ready for a National Bisexual Network?" that encouraged members of the community to be part of the first bisexual contingent in a national demonstration. Approximately 75 bisexuals from across the U. S. participated and began laying the groundwork for an organization that could speak to the needs of bi-identified people and counter the animus against bisexuals that was commonplace in both Lesbian and Gay communities and the dominant society.

By 1987, Latino GLBTQ activists from Los Angeles, Houston, Austin, and elsewhere had been meeting for two years, discussing ways to work together to further the basic rights and visibility of GLBTQ Latinas and Latinos. But with AIDS having a disproportionate impact on Latino GLBTQ communities throughout the United States, the activists recognized the need for a national organization and met at the March on Washington to form what was then called NLLGA, National Latina/o Lesbian and Gay Activists. Renaming themselves LLEGÓ the following year, the group has since expanded to address issues of concern to Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, and transgender Latinas and Latinos in other countries.

Along with the formation of new national groups, the most lasting effects of the weekend's events were felt on the local level. Energized and inspired by the march, many activists returned home and established social and political groups in their own communities, providing even greater visibility and strength to the struggle for Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. The date of the march, October 11^th, has been celebrated internationally ever since as National Coming Out Day to inspire members of the GLBTQ community to continue to show, as one of the common march slogans proclaimed, "we are everywhere."

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

 

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - October 11, 2020 💌

 

As we each listen to the intuitive message of our hearts, the society of which we are a part listens too. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Maintain a Questioning Mind

 A closed mind... is a great disadvantage for those who aspire to follow any spiritual path. But an open mind, which questions and doesn’t accept things simply because they are said, is no problem at all.

—Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, “Necessary Doubt”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Saints Sergius & Bacchus

 

Via Tricycle // Facing Fear, Finding Peace

Facing Fear, Finding Peace
 

Overlapping global crises including the coronavirus pandemic, racial injustice, and extreme climate-change events have brought us face-to-face with our deepest fears: Fear of illness and dying. Fear of change. Fear of loss of livelihood. Fear of an unknown future.
 
How can we meet our fear and pain with an open heart and transform these challenges? The ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism tells us that when we’re able to recognize and embrace difficult emotions in the moment, we can step into the eye of the storm—the refuge of calm awareness at the very center of our being. 
 
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, one of the few Bön masters in the West, is known for his ability to make ancient Tibetan practices relevant to life in the modern world. In October’s Dharma Talk series, he offers four traditional practices to transform fear and pain into spaciousness and inner strength. 

Tenzin Wangyal will also be leading a live virtual practice session on Tuesday, October 13, at 1:00 p.m. EST. Click here to learn more and register.

Watch the Dharma Talk now »

Also this week:

• Take a look inside a childhood spent in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in A Little Wisdom, Tricycle’s October Film Club selection.
   
• Succession star Arian Moayed discusses the healing power of theater (and meditation) on the latest episode of the Real Change podcast series with Sharon Salzberg.
   
• Here’s how to break past the barrier of “I don’t have time” to make your meditation practice a daily habit.

Via LATimes: