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The Buddha said peace is the greatest happiness. We might call it a quiet joy, and that quiet joy can be underneath all the waves, because there will be waves—the ups and downs, times of exuberance and times when we’re feeling low.
...You look at decay, and it is beautiful. Laura Huxley, who is a very
dear friend, in her kitchen has these jars over the sink, and she takes
old beet greens and orange peels and things and sticks them in the water
in these long, beautiful pharmaceutical jars. Then they slowly start to
mold and decay, and there are these beautiful decaying formation of
mold. It’s really garbage… it’s garbage as art. We look at it and it’s
absolutely beautiful. There’s absolute beauty in that.
I’ve begun to expand my awareness to be able to look at the universe as
it is, and see what is called the horrible beauty of it. I mean, there’s
horror and beauty in all of it, because there is also decay and death
in all of it. I mean, we’re all decaying – I look at my hand and it’s
decaying. It’s beautiful and horrible at the same time, and I just live
with that. And also with it, I see and live with the beauty of it.
So we’re talking about appreciating what is. Not loving yourself, as
opposed to not liking yourself, but allowing yourself. As you allow, it
changes. I think that gets behind the polarities. I think that’s what’s
important.
- Ram Dass -
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Failures are not just inevitable, but are a necessary part of the process. A good mother is not one whose baby never cries, but one who knows how to respond and soothe her crying baby.
There are many levels at which you relieve suffering; you relieve
suffering at one level by giving food. You relieve suffering at another
level by giving the food in such a way that is draws people out of the
pain of their own separateness. This involves the idea of respect for
the people you’re serving, and dignity and really seeing.
You must be driven to work on yourself all of the time, so that your
acts of caring for other human beings are not toxic. If you want to help
other people, I would say, just look around, check out the bulletin
board at your local laundromat. It doesn’t matter where you plug into
the system; the issue is the quality of the behavior when you plug into
the system.
It’s not just doing the act, it’s the combination of doing the act with
the exercise of using the act to see the ways in which you’re ripping
off the act for your own psycho-dynamic needs. Without putting yourself
down for it, just appreciating the humanity of it, but also getting to
the next level of it, where you’re just doing it because you’re a part
of the dance, and you’re on the side of the angels. Gandhi said, “When
you surrender completely into God, you find yourself in the service of
all that exists.”
- Ram Dass -
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Meet America’s First Drag Queen for President
JOHN LYON BURNSIDE, inventor, gay American activist, born (d: 2008); John, or as he was known in Faerie circles “n’John” for his long-term relationship with Harry Hay – as in “Harry n’John”, was the inventor of the Teleidoscope and the Symmetricon, and was the partner of Mattachine and Radical Faerie founder, Harry Hay for 39 years.
Burnside was sent to an orphanage while still a child because he was caught in sexual play with another little boy. He served briefly in the Navy, and settled in Los Angeles in the 1940s. He married, but had no children. Burnside met Harry in 1962 at ONE Incorporated. They fell in love and became life partners. They formed a group in the early 1960s called the Circle of Loving Companions that promoted gay rights and Gay love.
In 1966 they were major planners of one of the first gay marches, a protest against exclusion of gays in the military, held in Los Angeles. In 1967, they appeared as a couple on the Joe Pyne television show. In the late 1970s, they founded, along with Don Kilhefner, the Radical Faeries. John died of brain cancer in San Francisco, where he had been tended to by members of the Circle of Loving Companions that had taken care of Harry in his final days.
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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute
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Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org
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