Monday, September 20, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Bountiful Space
When
we can step back and see everything, that’s when we start experiencing
realization and enlightenment. We see the nature of everything because
we have the flexibility and the adaptability; we can spread out.
—Interview with Lama Rod Owens by Nina Herzog, “A Love Song to My Anger”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - September 19, 2021 💌
Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Awaken To Joy
Awakening
to your own joy can be as simple as taking delight in a gorgeous
blooming flower, hearing the sound of your beloved’s voice, or noticing
the way your favorite song soothes your heart.
Saturday, September 18, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Make Practice Your Own
Enlightenment
and mastery are great goals, but not required to reap the benefits of
Buddhism. The main thing is to have a practice, and to keep it alive,
personally relevant, and engaged. Make it your own, and bring it with
you everywhere.
Via Tricycle // White House Hosts Its First Vesak
White House Hosts Its First Vesak
By Alison Spiegel
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Via Tricycle // Meditation Month 2021: Silent Illumination: Guo Gu
Meditation Month 2021: Silent Illumination
Guo Gu
Relax and Connect
Meditation Month is back! Join us for our annual challenge to commit to a daily meditation practice throughout the month of March. This year, our Meditation Month teacher Guo Gu will guide us through the Chan (Zen) practice of silent illumination, which reveals our innate capacity for awakening. A new video will be released each week introducing an approach to meditation and building on the previous weeks’ teachings. These instructions and tips from Guo Gu are designed to help you develop a regular practice and connect to your experience at each moment. Guo Gu will introduce fundamental relaxation and awareness practices then progressing to silent illumination.
Guo Gu (Dr. Jimmy Yu) is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center and Dharma Relief, a socially engaged intra-denominational Buddhist organization. He is a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at Florida State University. Guo Gu was a monk for nine years and one of the late Master Sheng Yen’s senior and closest disciples. He is the author of Silent Illumination (2021), The Essence of Chan (2020), and Passing Through the Gateless Barrier (2016). To connect with Guo Gu, visit GuoGuLaoshi.com.
Friday, September 17, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Relax Into Awareness
To be fully awake is the normal
human condition. It expresses the deepest truth of our nature, our
oneness with the energy of the universe. We meditate and study and
practice to penetrate into, or relax into, this awareness.
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Finding Direction
Even our worst failures and misdeeds point us in the right direction.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Via Studies in Comparative Religion
The Mystery of the Great Labyrinth, Chartres Cathedral
by
John James
Source: Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 11, No. 2. (Spring, 1977). © World Wisdom, Inc.
www.studiesincomparativereligion.com
Found here:
Via Facebook // When IGNORANCE SCREAMS, intelligence moves on.
The donkey told the tiger, "The grass is blue."
The tiger replied, "No, the grass is green ."
The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, so they approached the lion.
As they approached the lion on his throne, the donkey started screaming: ′′Your Highness, isn't it true that the grass is blue?"
The lion replied: "If you believe it is true, the grass is blue."
The donkey rushed forward and continued: ′′The tiger disagrees with me, contradicts me and annoys me. Please punish him."
The king then declared: ′′The tiger will be punished with 3 days of silence."
The donkey jumped with joy and went on his way, content and repeating ′′The grass is blue, the grass is blue..."
The tiger asked the lion, "Your Majesty, why have you punished me, after all, the grass is green?"
The lion replied, ′′You've known and seen the grass is green."
The tiger asked, ′′So why do you punish me?"
The lion replied, "That has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green. The punishment is because it is degrading for a brave, intelligent creature like you to waste time arguing with an ass, and on top of that, you came and bothered me with that question just to validate something you already knew was true!"
The biggest waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who doesn't care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his beliefs and illusions. Never waste time on discussions that make no sense.
There are people who, for all the evidence presented to them, do not have the ability to understand. Others who are blinded by ego, hatred and resentment, and the only thing that they want is to be right even if they aren’t.
When IGNORANCE SCREAMS, intelligence moves on.
Via Lion´s Roar // Resilience: Self-Care for Tough Times
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Via LION´S ROAR // Wherever You Are, Enlightenment Is There
“Even in our imperfect practice enlightenment is there,” says Suzuki Roshi. “We just don’t know it.”
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Via White Crane Institute // PERRY BRASS
1947 -
American author, poet and activist, PERRY BRASS was born today Brass grew up in Savannah, Georgia grew up in the 1950s and 60s in equal parts Southern, Jewish, economically impoverished, and very much gay. To escape the South’s violent homophobia, he hitchhiked at age 17 from Savannah to San Francisco — an adventure, he recalls, that was “like Mark Twain with drag queens.” He has published fourteen books and been a finalist six times in three categories (poetry; gay science fiction and fantasy; spirituality and religion) for national Lambda Literary Awards.
One of the main themes in his writing has been the integration of sexuality and the religious or spiritual impulse, as exemplified in his novels Albert: or, The Book of Man, Angel Lust, and Substance of God. His writings have attempted to answer questions such as: Why are so many gay men religious and political conservatives? Why is the need for God so important to us? What is our own place in nature and the world?
Among the early anthologies that included Brass's work were The Male Muse, the first anthology of openly gay poetry ever published, edited by Ian Young; The Gay Liberation Book from Rolling Stone Press, including work by John Lennon; The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse; and Gay Roots from Gay Sunshine Press. His work can be found in over 20 anthologies of poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs, and other writings. A poetry cycle called "Five Gay Jewish Prayers" was used as part of the high holiday service at New York's Beth Simchat Torah congregation. The text of this poem was accepted (in 1985) as one of the first gay Jewish documents in the YIVO Archives of Jewish history. This poem was set to choral music by Chris De Blasio, as "Five Prayers," which has been sung by several gay choruses.
In 1984, his play Night Chills, an early play dealing with the AIDS crisis, won a Jane Chambers International Gay Playwriting Award. Brass’s collaborations with composers include the words for "All the Way Through Evening," a five-song cycle set by DeBlasio, which was featured on the AIDS Quilt Songbook CD from Harmonia Mundi, France, and Heartbeats from Minnesota Public Radio; "The Angel Voices of Men" set by Ricky Ian Gordon and commissioned by the Dick Cable Musical Trust for the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, which has featured it on its CD Gay Century Songbook; "Three Brass Songs" with Grammy-nominated composer Fred Hersch; and "Waltzes for Men" also commissioned by the DCMT for the NYC Gay Men’s Chorus and set by Craig Carnahan.
Brass's non-fiction book, How to Survive Your Own Gay Life (Belhue Press, 1999) deals with the psychic and physical survival of gay men, with their spiritual and psychological growth, and with achieving happiness and maturity. It was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in religion and spirituality, and has been the basis for many LGBT discussion and support groups, classes, and workshops.
Via White Crane Insitute // Ann Weldy,
1932 -
Ann Weldy, better known by her pen name ANN BANNON, born on this date, is an American author who, from 1957 to 1962, wrote six lesbian pulp fiction novels known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. The books' enduring popularity and impact on lesbian identity has earned her the title "Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction". Bannon was a young housewife trying to address her own issues of sexuality when she was inspired to write her first novel. Her subsequent books featured four characters who reappeared throughout the series, including her eponymous heroine, Beebo Brinker, who came to embody the archetype of a butch lesbian. The majority of her characters mirrored people she knew, but their stories reflected a life she did not feel she was able to live. Despite her traditional upbringing and role in married life, her novels defied conventions for romance stories and depictions of lesbians by addressing complex homosexual relationships.
Her books shaped lesbian identity for lesbians and heterosexuals alike, but Bannon was mostly unaware of their impact. She stopped writing in 1962. Later, she earned a doctorate in linguistics and became an academic. She endured a difficult marriage for 27 years and, as she separated from her husband in the 1980s, her books were republished; she was stunned to learn of their influence on society. They were released again between 2001 and 2003 and were adapted as an award-winning Off-Broadway production at the New York Theater Workshop. They are taught in Women's and LGBT studies courses, and Bannon has received numerous awards for pioneering lesbian and gay literature. She has been described as "the premier fictional representation of US lesbian life in the fifties and sixties", and it has been said that her books "rest on the bookshelf of nearly every even faintly literate Lesbian"
Ann Bannon retired from teaching and college administration at California State University, Sacramento, in 1997, but tours the country visiting paperback-collecting conventions and speaking at colleges and universities about her writings and experiences. She was a guest of National Public Radio's Peabody Award-winning talk show "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, and has also been featured in Gross's book, All I Did Was Ask, a collection of transcripts from the show. Bannon also speaks at gay-themed events around the country and is working on her memoirs.
In a recent editorial written by Bannon in Curve, she discussed how her books survived despite criticisms by censors, Victorian moralists, and purveyors of literary "snobbery" in writing, "To the persistent surprise of many of us, and of the critics who found us such an easy target years ago, the books by, of and for women found a life of their own. They—and we—may still not be regarded as conventionally acceptable 'nice' literature, as it were—but I have come to value that historical judgment. We wrote the stories no one else could tell. And in so doing, we captured a slice of life in a particular time and place that still resonates for members of our community.
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