Sunday, May 2, 2021
Via Tricycle
Threading the Needle
By James Shaheen
|
Via Daily Dharma: Becoming a Place of Rest
May I become an island for those seeking dry land
A lamp for those needing light,
A place of rest for those who desire one,
And a servant for those needing service.
—Shantideva, “May I Become an Island”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via White Crane Institute // BENJAMIN SPOCK
The go-to pediatrician BENJAMIN SPOCK was born (d: 1998). Before there was Vulcan "Spock" there was Dr. Spock. His book, Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. Its revolutionary message to mothers was that "you know more than you think you do."
Spock was an early advocate for the rights of LGBT people. He was also the People's Party candidate in the 1972 United States presidential election on a platform which called for free medical care, the repeal of "victimless crime" laws, including the legalization of abortion, homosexuality, and marijuana, a guaranteed minimum income for families and the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from foreign countries. He died in 1998.
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 2, 2021 💌
See your spiritual practice as one of relinquishing definitions of yourself in order to come into the present.
See the spiritual journey as one of coming into the space of love. Look
at the people you don’t love and see them as an exercise for you to open
your heart.
-Ram Dass -
Saturday, May 1, 2021
Via Tricycle // Shantideva on Mental Discipline
By Khenpo David Karma Choephel
|
Via Daily Dharma: Acting with Love and Wisdom
If
we act motivated by greed, hatred, or delusion, we are planting the
seed of suffering; when our acts are motivated by generosity, love, or
wisdom, then we are creating the karmic conditions for abundance and
happiness.
—Joseph Goldstein, “Cause and Effect”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Friday, April 30, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Keep a Fluid Mind
If
the mind congeals in one place and remains with one thing, it is like
frozen water and is unable to be used freely: ice that can wash neither
hands nor feet. When the mind is melted and is used like water,
extending throughout the body, it can be sent wherever one wants to send
it.
—Takuan Soho, “The Right Mind and the Confused Mind”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via White Crane Institute // ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN
ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN, English poet died (b. 1859); A. E. Housman's poetry is inextricably rooted in homosexual experience and consciousness and is also a significant reflector of gay history. In 1942 A.E. Houseman’s brother, Laurence Housman, deposited an essay entitled "A. E. Housman's 'De Amicitia'" in the British Library, with the proviso that it was not to be published for 25 years. The essay discussed A. E. Housman's homosexuality and his love for Moses Jackson. Given the conservative nature of the times it is not surprising that there was no unambiguous autobiographical statement about Housman's sexuality during his life.
It is certainly present in A Shropshire Lad, for instance #30 Others, I am not the first / have willed more mischief than they durst', in which 'Fear contended with desire', and in #44, in which he commends the suicide, where 'Yours was not an ill for mending'... for 'Men may come to worse than dust', their 'Souls undone, undoing others': he has died 'Undishonoured, clear of danger, / Clean of guilt..'.
More Poems was more explicit, as in no. 31 about Jackson 'Because I liked you better / Than suits a man to say', in which his feelings of love break his friendship, and must be carried silently to the grave. His poem 'Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?', written after the trial of Oscar Wilde, addressed more general societal injustice towards homosexuality. In the poem the prisoner is suffering 'for the colour of his hair', a natural, given attribute which - in a clearly coded reference to homosexuality - is reviled as 'nameless and abominable' (recalling the legal phrase 'peccatum horribile, inter christianos non nominandum', 'the horrible sin, not to be named amongst Christians').
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Adjust the Description
If
the world is difficult and life is difficult, it may not be that there
is something wrong with life or the world—it may be that there is
something wrong with our descriptions.
—Norman Fischer, “Beyond Language”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE