You
hold the qualities of those who have passed away in your heart and
mind, and you also put those qualities into practice in the way that you
live.
—Guo Jun, “A Special Transmission”
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A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Honoring Loved Ones
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - December 23, 2020 💌
Surrender to the One. Surrender to your atman, because you have
the One inside of you. That means you don’t surrender to the God with a
beard, you surrender to the God inside. My relationship with Maharajji
is an inside job. Once he left his body, I could very much identify him
inside of me, and I would surrender to that voice inside. That voice is
joyful, compassionate, loving, peaceful, and wise. I find it very
enjoyable to surrender to that God inside.
If you shift your identification into the atman, you will see what the
world looks like to the One. It’s quite different than the world you
perceive through your ego. It’s a fun thing to surrender.
- Ram Dass -
Via White Crane Institute // DANNY NICOLETTA
DANNY NICOLETTA, is an American photographer and activist, born on this date: In 1975, when he was nineteen, he was hired by Harvey Milk and Scott Smith to work at Castro Camera, their camera store on Castro Street. The three became friends and Nicoletta worked with Milk on his political campaigns for office.
During this period of time, Nicoletta took many now well-known photographs of Milk. Once Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Milk became California's first openly Gay elected official and served for almost eleven months before he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White in City Hall on November 27, 1978.
After the death of Harvey Milk, Nicoletta worked to keep his memory alive. He was the installation coordinator of the Harvey Milk photographic tribute plaques installed at Harvey Milk Plaza and at the Castro Street Station, which featured his photographs as well as those of Marc Cohen, Don Eckert, Jerry Pritikin, Efren Ramirez, Rink, and Leland Toy. He was co-chair of the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee, and his photograph served as the basis for the bust of Milk that now resides in the rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall. His portrait of Milk was also used on the United States Postal Service's tribute stamp.
Daniel Nicoletta's photographs of Milk are featured prominently in the 1985 Academy Award-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Rob Epstein. In the feature film Milk, a biographical film based on the life of Harvey Milk directed by Gus Van Sant, Daniel Nicoletta is played by Lucas Grabeel. Nicoletta himself plays Carl Carlson and served as the stills photographer on the film.
Daniel Nicoletta was one of the founders of Frameline Film Festival. In 1977, while still working at Harvey Milk's photography shop, Nicoletta, along with David Waggoner, Marc Huestis, and others, began film screenings of their Super 8 films, called the Gay Film Festival of Super 8 Films, which evolved into the yearly festival.
As a photographer, Nicoletta has contributed to a number of films, as well as books and periodicals. His work is archived at the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library, at the Wallach Collection of Fine Prints and the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library and at Schwules Museum in Berlin, Germany.
His work has documented queer culture throughout the late 1970s into the 2000s and besides his historic photographs of Harvey Milk also include subjects such as the White Night Riots, the Castro Street Fair and the San Francisco Pride Parade, The Cockettes and the Angels of Light. Nicoletta’s first book, “LGBT San Francisco: The Daniel Nicoletta Photographs,” was released by Reel Art Press this summer (2017).
Via Daily Dharma: Ignite a Vibrant Energy Within
True
devotion does not actually drain us. It is a source of vibrant energy
that makes our commitments come alive and become a source of joy.
—Mindy Newman and Kaia Fischer, “The Karmic Power of Devotion”
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Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Monday, December 21, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Let the Ordinary Take Your Breath Away
As
our awareness deepens with practice, we find our breath being taken
away more and more by the ordinary experiences all around us and within
us. Nothing special—just a tiny life expressing itself—singing!—in
Winter’s frozen world.
—Sylvia Forges Ryan, “Bare Branches, Bare Attention”
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Saturday, December 19, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Learning to Live with Desire
Meditation,
if correctly wielded, is not about shoving desire to the side. It’s
about learning to live with and learn from desire.
—Mitch Abblett, “Slip Free of Craving”
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Friday, December 18, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Step Away from Fixations
Spiritual
practice is stepping out of the assumed reality of “me” by
understanding what the “me” is and withdrawing energy from its
perceptual fixations.
—Rodney Smith, “Undivided Mind”
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Thursday, December 17, 2020
Via Insight Meditation Society
—Metta Sutta
Via Daily Dharma: Let Yourself Relax
Spiritual
practice is nutrition for the soul, and you can neither cook nor eat
while you are weeping. Cooking requires some happiness, and happiness
may require letting things slide from time to time, so that we can get a
little relief from the seriousness of our troubles.
—Norman Fischer, “Sailing Home”
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Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: When to Train Your Mind
The
good thing about mind training is that it can be practiced in all kinds
of situations. You do not have to wait for the right conditions to
arrive or make special arrangements in order to work with mind training.
The only rearrangement that needs to be made is to your own attitude.
—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Don’t be swayed by external circumstances”
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