Monday, November 16, 2020
Via White Crane Instistute // The VAGINA MUSEUM
The VAGINA MUSEUM opened in London's Camden Market; In July we talked about the Penis Museum, one of the top tourist attractions in Reykjavic, Iceland. Now, in a sort of response to its erection, it has a sister museum across the pond, in London. The Vagina Museum is the first of its kind and is driven by a mission for social justice and public health initiatives.
Visitors to the museum will discover informational posters and sculptures, a small shop with vaginally themed products and an events calendar that includes a dinner for Trans Day of Remembrance and "Cliterature" (book club) meetings.
"The anatomy has such complex politics around it that we found it was best to first engage people through what they know, so we can teach them things they don't know," said the museum curator, Sarah Creed. "It's all about unpacking social constructs and changing perspective through engagement."
Via Daily Dharma: Traveling Toward Truth
The
Buddha found what he had to see by sitting still, but even he had to
travel to get to that point, to see through the other roads that would
lead nowhere and come finally to the understanding that the truth we’re
looking for is no further than the hair on our arms.
—Pico Iyer, “The Long Road to Sitting Still”
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Sunday, November 15, 2020
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Via White Crane Insitute // This Day in Gay History
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| This Day in Gay History | |||
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Born 
1900 -
AARON COPLAND, American composer (d. 1990); an American composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as “the dean of American composers.” Copland's music achieved a difficult balance between modern music and American folk styles, and the open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are said to evoke the vast American landscape. He incorporated percussive orchestration, changing meter, polyrhythms, polychords and tone rows. Aside from composing, Copland taught, presented music-related lectures, wrote books and articles, and served as a conductor (generally, but not always, of his own works). Copland was born in Brooklyn, NY, of Lithuanian Jewish descent. Throughout his childhood Copland and his family lived above his parents' Brooklyn shop. Although his parents never encouraged or directly exposed him to music, at the age of fifteen he had already taken an interest in the subject and aspired to be a composer. His musical education included time with Leonard Wolfsohn, Rubin Goldmark (who also taught George Gershwin), and Nadia Boulanger at the Fontanbleu School of Music in Paris from 1921 to 1924. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1925 and again in 1926. Copland defended the Communist Party USA during the 1936 presidential election. As a result he was later investigated by the FBI during the Red scare of the 1950s, and found himself blacklisted. Because of the political climate of that era, A Lincoln Portrait was withdrawn from the 1953 inaugural concert for President Eisenhower. That same year, Copland was called before Congress where he testified that he was never a communist. Outraged by the accusations, many members of the musical community held up Copland's music as a banner of his patriotism. The investigations ceased in 1955, and were closed in 1975. Copland was never shown to have been a member of the Communist Party. Despite this insult, only a decade later, in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Copland the Medal of Freedom for his contributions to American culture. Copland exerted a major influence on the compositional style of his friend and protege Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein was considered the finest conductor of Copland's works. British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer recorded two pieces based on Copland works: Fanfare for the Common Man and Hoe-Down. Several of their live recordings of Fanfare for the Common Man incorporated the closing of the second movement of Copland's Symphony no. 3 as well. Copland was a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the U.S. and the U.K. He made a series of recordings of his music, especially during the 1970s, primarily for Columbia Records. In 1960, RCA Victor released Copland's recordings with the Boston Symphony Orchestra of the orchestral suites from Appalachian Spring andThe Tender Land; these recordings were later reissued on CD, as were most of Copland's Columbia recordings (by Sony). Copland's sexuality was documented in Howard Pollack's biography, Aaron Copeland: The Life and Work of An Uncommon Man. Unlike many gay men of his age, Copland was neither ashamed of nor tortured by his sexuality. He apparently understood and accepted it from an early age, and throughout his life was involved in relationships with other men. In later years, his affairs were mostly with younger men, usually musicians or artists, whom he mentored, including composer Leonard Bernstein, dancer and artist Erik Johns (who wrote the libretto for The Tender Land), photographer Victor Kraft, and music critic Paul Moor. Given the social prejudices of the times in which he lived, Copland was relatively open about his sexuality, yet this seems not to have interfered with the acceptance of his music or with his status as a cultural figure. The likely explanation is that Copland conducted his personal life with the characteristic modesty, tactfulness, and serenity that marked his professional life as well. Copland died of Alzheimer’s and respiratory failure in North Tarrytown, NY (now Sleepy Hollow), on December 2, 1990. | |||
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"I’ve never been into being a guru. As a teacher, I always use my life experiences as a lesson plan—often as an example of what not to do. We’re on a journey together, and I’m as honest as I can be about my trip." - Ram Dass
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Via Tricycle Talks Religion As We Know It
Religion As We Know It
Defining religion with scholar Jack Miles
By Tricycle
What is religion? Is Buddhism a religion? How about democracy? And how religious (or not) do you have to be to ask?
In the latest episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s Editor and Publisher James Shaheen speaks to Jack Miles, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scholar of religion, about what we mean when we say something is a religion and how Miles’s own life has led him back to this question time and again.
Miles’s latest book, Religion As We Know It: An Origin Story, was released in 2019. In it, he explores the commonsense understanding of religion as one realm of activity among many, and how this definition serves and fails us. Miles is also the author of God: A Biography, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996, as well as the general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Religions and professor emeritus of English and religious studies at the University of California, Irvine.
Tricycle Talks is a podcast series featuring leading voices in the contemporary Buddhist world. You can listen to more Tricycle Talks on Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and iHeartRadio.
Thank you for subscribing to Tricycle! As a nonprofit, we depend on readers like you to keep Buddhist teachings and practices widely available.
Via Daily Dharma: Keep Your Hope Alive
Hope
is a flame that we nurture within our hearts. It may be sparked by
someone else—by the encouraging words of a friend, relative, or
mentor—but it must be fanned and kept burning through our own
determination.
—Daisaku Ikeda, “On Hardship & Hope”
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Friday, November 13, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: A Task for Us All
I
encourage you and me to ask ourselves how can each of us find our way
to compassion and connection; maybe through spiritual practice,
compassionate work for others and our world, or connection with trees,
mountains, and the Earth?
—Radhule Weininger, “Practicing in a Pandemic”
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Thursday, November 12, 2020
Daily Dharma: Fall in Love with Silence
I no longer sit because I long for awakening. I sit because I have fallen in love with the silence.
—Nina Wise, “The Psychedelic Journey to the Zafu”
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Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Via JoeMyGod // Brazil’s Bolsonaro: “Stop Being Fags” About COVID
Brazil’s Bolsonaro: “Stop Being Fags” About COVID
Agence France-Presse reports:
President Jair Bolsonaro drew criticism Tuesday for telling Brazilians not to deal with Covid-19 like “a country of fags,” the far-right leader’s latest controversial outburst on the pandemic.
Bolsonaro, who has consistently downplayed the virus even as it has killed 163,000 people in Brazil, made the comment during a meandering speech at the presidential palace in which he also appeared to threaten US President-elect Joe Biden.
“All anyone talks about these days is the pandemic. We need to stop that,” said Bolsonaro during the speech, which was ostensibly on tourism. “I regret the deaths. I really do. But we’re all going to die someday. There’s no use fleeing reality. We have to stop being a country of fags. We have to face up to it and fight. I hate this faggot stuff.”
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro answers @JoeBiden’s threat of economics sanctions if Brazil doesn’t stop deforestation in amazon rainforest:
“Diplomacy isn’t enough. When the saliva (dialogue) is over, you must have gunpowder” pic.twitter.com/Qcqf4DPPLs
— Samuel Pancher (@SamPancher) November 10, 2020
During a speech, President Jair Bolsonaro hit out at U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden’s comments about deforestation in the Amazon, saying that “when the saliva runs out, there must be gunpowder.”pic.twitter.com/F70QbGALO6
— The Brazilian Report (@BrazilianReport) November 10, 2020
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - November 11, 2020 š
If you meditate regularly, even when you don't feel like it, you will make significant gains, allowing you to see how your thoughts impose limits on you. Your resistances to meditation are your mental prisons in miniature.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Feeling in Healthier Directions
We
need to learn ways of expressing the pure energy of our feelings—anger
and hate feelings especially—in a healthier direction that’s beneficial
to the world.
—Interview with Maxine Hong Kingston by Trevor Carolan, “Helping Veterans Turn War into Art”
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