Via Daily Dharma: Develop Qualities of Admirable People

 Admirable people have four qualities: They’re virtuous, generous, wise, and believe in the principle that skillful qualities should be developed and unskillful qualities abandoned.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Skillful Shelter”

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Via Lion’s Roar

 

Learn about May 4’s National Buddhist Memorial Ceremony livestream

Buddhist communities and teachers from around the US are gathering together on May 4th for a livestreamed ceremony to remember Asian American ancestors.

Via Daily Dharma: Our Unmarred Nature

Our true nature is like the infinite sky, unmarked by whatever drama temporarily appears in its vast space. 

—Kittisaro, “Tangled in Thought”

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Via white Crane Institute // GEORGE TAKEI

 

George Takei

1937 -

GEORGE TAKEI, American actor, born; a Japanese-American actor best known for his role in the TV series Star Trek, in which he played the helmsman Hikaru Sulu on the USS Enterprise. Most recently, he played Hiro Nakamura’s father Kaito Nakamura on the NBC television show, Heroes.

Takei is also known for his baritone voice and deep-throated catch phrase, "Oh my!"  In October 2005, Takei revealed in an issue of Frontiers magazine that he is Gay, and has been in a committed relationship with his partner, Brad Altman, for the last eighteen years. He said, "It's not really coming out, which suggests opening a door and stepping through. It's more like a long, long walk through what began as a narrow corridor that starts to widen." Nevertheless, Takei's sexuality had long been an open secret among Trek fans since the 1970s, and Takei did not conceal his active membership in Gay organizations including Frontrunners, where Takei met Altman, along with fellow runners Kevin and Don Norte, with whom he became friends.

"We are masculine, we are feminine, we are caring, we are abusive. We are just like straight people, in terms of our outward appearance and our behavior. The only difference is that we are oriented to people of our own gender." This is said to have been taken from a December 2005 telephone interview with Howard Stern, in which Takei described Altman as "a saint" for helping to take care of Takei's terminally ill mother.

Alex Cho, former editor of Frontiers, has stated that the Takei article was initiated by someone in the Takei camp when a close personal friend called the papers to ask them if they would be interested in the story. The friend remains unidentified but according to Cho, Takei offered his story voluntarily and not under any pressure from the media. Kevin Norte and Don Norte, when asked if they were involved in initiating the article, declined to comment.

When asked whether his character Sulu was Gay, Takei's response was that he would like to believe that sexual orientation would not even be an issue in the twenty-third century. Of all the show's principal characters, Sulu was the only male never depicted with a romantic interest; having said that, in the alternate universe depicted in "Mirror Mirror", alternate-Sulu tried many times to seduce Uhura, and "normal" Sulu is revealed to have fathered a daughter, Demora, during the opening sequence of the film Star Trek Generations (Demora's origins were further explored in Peter David's novel Captain's Daughter).

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - April 21, 2021 💌

 

It’s a very delicate task to interpret things like ego and fear because we tend to interpret from where we’re sitting, and we’ve developed these structures around it.

The root of fear is the feeling of separateness that can exist within oneself. The root of fear is within the model one has of oneself. That’s where fear starts. Once that feeling of separation exists, then you process everything from either inside or outside in terms of that model. Then it keeps reinforcing the feeling of vulnerability, because there are incredibly powerful forces moving both inside and outside of you.

The transformative process of spiritual work is reawakening to the innocence of going behind that model of separation that one has, that cuts you off, that made you a tiny little fragile somebody. A lot of the power comes from a freeing of our own fragility.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Think of Everyone’s Needs (Including Yours)

 Crucial to the process of Nonviolent Communication is learning to listen empathically and to strategize ways to meet others’ needs as well as our own.

—Katy Butler, “Say It Right”

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Via SBMG / Edward Brown

 

Via Daily Dharma: Your Unlimited Mind

 Appearances occur in the mind, and mind has no limits. You cannot say that the mind has a center or periphery that is either large or small. The nature of the mind is that it permeates everything.

—Khenchen Thrangu, “On What Is More Important”

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POSTCARDS FROM LONDON - Harris Dickinson - Trailer - Peccadillo

Via Daily Dharma: Noticing with Kindness

In meditation, we are invited to not judge what’s going on for us, but rather to be in relationship with whatever is happening with a sense of kindness and commitment. 

—Sebene Selassie, “Meditation Q&A with Sebene Selassie”

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Via 💌 Inbox Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - April 18, 2021

 

Meditation provides a deeper appreciation of the interrelatedness of all things and the part each person plays. The simple rules of this game are honesty with yourself about where you are in your life and learning to listen to hear how it is. Meditation is a way of listening more deeply, so you hear from a deeper space, exactly how it is. Meditation will help you quiet your mind, enhance your ability to be insightful and understanding and give you a sense of inner peace.

If you meditate regularly, even when you don’t feel like it, you will make great gains, for it will allow you to see how your thoughts impose limits on you. Your resistances to meditation are your mental prisons in miniature.

When I asked Maharajji how to meditate, he said, “Meditate like Christ.” I said, “Maharajji, how did Christ meditate?” He became very quiet and closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he had a blissful expression on his face and a tear trickled down his cheek. He opened his eyes and said, “He lost himself in Love.” Try the meditation of losing yourself in love…. 

- Ram Dass -

 

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Via Lion's Roar // Detox Your Mind: 5 Practices to Purify the 3 Poisons

 

Detox Your Mind: 5 Practices to Purify the 3 Poisons

Five Buddhist teachers share practices to clear away the poisons that cause suffering and obscure your natural enlightenment. Introduction by Lion’s Roar’s editor-in-chief Melvin Mcleod.

I think what makes Buddhism unique — what makes it Buddhism — is its diagnosis of what causes suffering, which is called the second noble truth. Looking at the other noble truths, most religions acknowledge the pervasive reality of suffering, that it can end (if not in this life, then after), and that wisdom, compassion, and ethical living are a path to less suffering. But why do we suffer at all? This is where Buddhism stands alone, offering a real-world explanation that is simple, testable, and, to my mind, irrefutable.

Via Daily Dharma: Choose Your Response

 Our emotions aren’t up to us. What we do with them, however, is absolutely up to us.

—Ralph De La Rosa, “What Is Up to Us”

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Via White Crane Institute // CHAVELA VARGAS

 

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Chavela Vargas

1919 -

ISABEL VARGAS LIZANO (d: 2012), better known as CHAVELA VARGAS, was a Costa Rican-born Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican rancheras, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of popular Latin American music. She has been an influential interpreter in the Americas and Europe, muse to figures such as Pedro Almodovar, hailed for her haunting performances, and called "la voz áspera de la ternura", the rough voice of tenderness.

She is featured in many Almodóvar's films, including La Flor de mi Secreto in both song and video. She has said, however, that acting is not her ambition, although she had previously participated in films such as 1967's La Soldadera. Vargas recently appeared in the 2002 Julie Taymor film Frida, singing "La Llorona" (The Weeping Woman). Her classic "Paloma Negra" (Black Dove) was also included in the soundtrack of the film.

Vargas herself, as a young woman, was alleged to have had an affair with Frida Kahlo, during Kahlo's marriage to muralist Diego Rivera. She also appeared in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel, singing "Tú me acostumbraste" (You Got Me Used To), a bolero of Frank Dominguez. Joaquin Sabina’s song "Por el Boulevar de los Sueños Rotos" ("Down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams") is dedicated to Vargas.

Her heavy drinking and raucous life took their toll, and she vanished from public life in the 1970s. Submerged in an alcoholic haze, she said, she was taken in by an Indian family who nursed her back to health without knowing who she was. In 2003, she told The New York Times that she had not had a drink in twenty-five years.

In the early 1990s she began singing again at El Habito, the bohemian Mexico City nightclub. From there her career took off again, with performances in Latin America, Europe and the United States. At 81, she announced that she was a lesbian.

“Nobody taught me to be like this,” she told the Spanish newspaper El País in 2000. “I was born this way. Since I opened my eyes to the world, I have never slept with a man. Never. Just imagine what purity. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

On the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut in 2003, she looked back on how her singing had changed over her career. “The years take you to a different feeling than when you were 30,” she said in an interview with The Times. “I feel differently, I interpret differently, more toward the mystical.”

On the evening of her death in 2012, instead of holding a traditional Mexican wake, friends, fans and musicians gathered in the evening for a musical tribute at Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City, where Ms. Vargas had spent many a night drinking with Mr. Jiménez. She would have loved it.