To experience emptiness is not a descent into an abyss of nothingness but a recovery of freedom.

—Stephen Batchelor, “Nagarjuna’s Verses from the Center”

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Via Radical Dharma

 

Via Tumblr

 

 

Via Tumblr

 

Via Tumblr

 

Harvey Milk Day SingOut

Viking Homosexuality

THE BEACH MAN - full movie (romantic, drama)

Beyond the fields - a short movie by C. Melvil et F. Cavacas - LGBT - Fu...

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Seeing a Broader Perspective

It is very important to see your life not only from the narrow view of your egoistic telescope but also from the broad view of the universal telescope called egolessness. This is why we have to practice.

—Dainin Katagiri Roshi, “Time Revisited”

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VESAKA

 

Via FB // LGBTQIAS World

 

Via Daily Dharma: Developing Compassionate Boundaries

In the process of developing compassion, we need to become skillful at knowing when to apply boundaries and when to relax or release them.

—Lorne Ladner, “Taking a Stand”

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - May 23, 2021 💌

 

 

When I perform a wedding ceremony, the image I invoke is of a triangle formed by the two partners and this third force, which is the shared love that unites and surrounds them both. In the yoga of relationship, two people come together to find that shared love but continue to dance as two. In that union, both people are separate and yet not separate. Their relationship feeds both their unique individuality and their unity of consciousness.

Love can open the way to surrendering into oneness. It gets extraordinarily beautiful when there’s no more “me” and “you,” and it becomes just “us.” Taken to a deeper level, when compassion is fully developed, you are not looking at others as “them.” You’re listening and experiencing and letting that intuitive part of you merge with the other person, and you’re feeling their pain or joy or hope or fear in yourself. Then it’s no longer “us” and “them”; it’s just “us.” Practice this in your relationships with others.

At a certain point, you realize that you see only the projections of your own mind. The play of phenomena is a projection of the spirit. The projections are your karma, your curriculum for this incarnation. Everything that’s happening to you is a teaching designed to burn out your stuff, your attachments. Your humanity and all your desires are not some kind of error. They’re integral parts of the journey. 

 

- Ram Dass -

 

Excerpt from Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart

Via White Crane Institute / HARVEY MILK

 

The Harvey Milk Forever stamp

1930 -

Gay rights pioneer, martyr and San Francisco city supervisor HARVEY MILK was born on this date. Milk was an American politician and Gay Rights activist and the first openly Gay city supervisor of San Francisco, California. He was often called, "the first openly Gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet," though this slights others who were elected before him in cities not so associated with Gay life.

What is not as well-remembered was his amazing ability to bring communities and neighborhoods together for progressive ends. 

The U.S. Postal Service officially revealed the Harvey Milk Forever Stamp in 2015. The stamp’s official first-day-of-issue ceremony took place at the White House. The public was invited to attend the May 28 Harvey Milk Forever Stamp special dedication ceremony in San Francisco. Customers may order the Harvey Milk stamp now through this link for delivery following the May 22 stamp issuance.

The stamp image is based on a circa 1977 black and white photograph of Milk in front of his Castro Street Camera store in San Francisco taken by Danny Nicoletta of Grants Pass, OR. Antonio Alcalá of Alexandria, VA, was art director for the stamp.

Via Lion's Roar //

 

Mindfulness and the Buddha’s Eightfold Path

by Gaylon Ferguson| September 2, 2020

To understand how to practice mindfulness in daily life, says Gaylon Ferguson, we have to look at all eight steps of the Buddha’s noble eightfold path.

In his first teaching at Deer Park, the Buddha praised mindfulness: “The Noble Eightfold Path is nourished by living mindfully.”

From the beginning, the path of awakening includes all aspects of our human lives: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and social. The aim is a mindful life. This means that our relationship to our sexuality and our consumerist economic system, our parenting, and our politics are all part of the path.

This approach to living fully is outlined in the eightfold path. “Right mindfulness” is one aspect of this path, alongside right view, right intention, right effort, right meditative engagement, right speech, right livelihood, and right action. The Sanskrit word samyak—often translated as “right” or “perfect”—can also mean “complete.” Engaging mindfulness encourages complete engagement with life.

Let’s walk through these aspects of the Buddhist spiritual path, returning mindfulness to her rightful place among her seven less famous but equally important sisters and brothers.

 Make the Jump Here

 

Via Tricycle // Chanting in the Time of COVID-19

 

Chanting in the Time of COVID-19 Interview with Kanho Yakushiji by Koshin Paley Ellison

The Rinzai monk who made the Heart Sutra go viral believes in the power of chanting to change the world.

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Via Daily Dharma: Cultivating a Generous Spirit

 Through generosity, we cultivate a generous spirit. Generosity of spirit will usually lead to generosity of action.

—Gil Fronsdal,“The Joy of Giving”

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