Secretary of State Antony Blinken told American embassies and diplomatic missions that they can fly the Pride flag again as well as “other symbols connoting support for LGBTQ rights based on what is ‘appropriate in light of local conditions.'”
It’s a reversal of the Trump administration’s ban on embassies flying the rainbow flag that even resulted in former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to force the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea to take down its Pride flag.
The romantic quality of love, which is between separate entities, is a
doorway into deeper love. A lot of people experience a quality they call
love but they’re doing it with their mind, they’re not really opening
their hearts fully, they are loving, meaning I am attracted to… or I am
attached to.
When we talk about love versus fear for example, we are talking about ‘being’ versus ‘fear’, or ‘unity’ versus ‘separateness’.
So I would say that when the fear dissipates you are feeling at home in
the universe. Meaning your identity with your separateness isn’t
overriding your feeling of connection with everything to the point that
you’re feeling cut off and vulnerable - which is where the root of the
fear is.
So as you cultivate that unitive quality the fear dissipates, so the
relation is one between love and fear, but it’s not the love in the
sense of ‘I love you’, it's the sense that we are together in the space
of love.
- Ram Dass -
We
think we know our own life, but what we know is only an edited version,
colored by our emotions and narrow vision. How close can we come to the
original draft?
—Gregg Krech, “Naikan Therapy”
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It is vital to cultivate a good motivation, for this will profoundly influence the nature of your practice.
—B. Alan Wallace, “Tibetan Buddhist Meditation”
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Karma
teaches us that every action that we take has a very powerful impact.
It also reminds us that the state of consciousness in which we live has a
long-term impact on our own life as well as on the lives of the people
around us.
—Anam Thubten, “Karma: Not Just Action”
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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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| 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. |
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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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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).
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 -
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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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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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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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 -
