Revoked

Friday, April 22, 2022

Via Daily Dharma: Just Keep Practicing

Remember, if you miss a day or two, your cushions will forgive you. They are ready to get back to work as soon as you get back on track. You’re already good at this. Just keep practicing.

Gregg Krech, “Meditating Every Day and What to Do When You Don’t”

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Via White Crane Institute / Earth Day

Noteworthy

2021 -

EARTH DAY is a name used for two different observances, both held annually during spring in the northern hemisphere, and autumn in the southern hemisphere. These are intended to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth and its environment. The United Nations celebrates Earth Day, which was founded by John McConnell in 1969, each year on the March equinox, while a global observance originated by Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in, and since January 1970 also called Earth Day, is celebrated in many countries each year on April 22.

More information here: https://www.earthday.org/

April 22 was chosen as the date to maximize participation on college campuses for what he conceived as an "environmental teach-in". He determined the week of April 19–25 was the best bet as it did not fall during exams or spring breaks. Moreover, it did not conflict with religious holidays such as Easter or Passover, and was late enough in spring to have decent weather. More students were likely to be in class, and there would be less competition with other mid-week events—so Wednesday, April 22 was chosen. The day also fell after the anniversary of the birth of noted conservationist John Muir. The National Park Service, John Muir National Historic Site, has a celebration every year on or around Earth Day (April 21, 22 or 23), called Birthday-Earth Day, in recognition of Earth Day and John Muir's contribution to the collective consciousness of environmentalism and conservation.

Unbeknownst to those making the decision, April 22, 1970, was coincidentally the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin, when translated to the Gregorian calendar (which the Soviets adopted in 1918). Time Magazine reported that some suspected the date was not a coincidence, but a clue that the event was "a Communist trick", and quoted a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution as saying, "subversive elements plan to make American children live in an environment that is good for them." FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, may have found the Lenin connection intriguing; it was alleged the FBI conducted surveillance at the 1970 demonstrations. The idea that the date was chosen to celebrate Lenin's centenary still persists in some quarters, an idea borne out by the similarity with the subbotnik instituted by Lenin in 1920 as days on which people would have to do community service, which typically consisted in removing rubbish from public property and collecting recyclable material. Subbotniks were also imposed on other countries within the compass of Soviet power, including Eastern Europe, and at the height of its power the Soviet Union established a nationwide subbotnik to be celebrated on Lenin's birthday, April 22, which had been proclaimed a national holiday celebrating communism by Nikita Khrushchev in 1955.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
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Thursday, April 21, 2022

The Lion’s Roar Podcast: Mindful Money with Spencer Sherman

Via NPR Code Switch /// Race, queerness, and superpowers in 'Everything, Everywhere, All at Once'

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Bodily Action

RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Bodily Action

However the seed is planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing good deeds; bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too bodily action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61)

When you have done an action with the body, reflect upon that same bodily action thus: “Has this action I have done with the body led to the affliction of another?” If, upon reflection, you know that it has, then tell someone you trust about it and undertake a commitment not to do it again. If you know it has not, then be content and feel happy about it. (MN 61)

Reflection

While contemplative practice emphasizes remaining in the present moment, there is also value in the skillful use of memory. Reflecting upon past actions is one form of this, when you can review whether you have acted appropriately or not in the past. When you admit your mistakes, you can undertake a commitment to act differently in the future. It is a way of openly acknowledging that you have learned from your mistakes.

Daily Practice

It is healthy to be truthful with yourself about actions you have done in the past that may have caused harm. A sure way to get such deeds out of the shadows and into the light is to share them openly with someone you trust. It is not that the other person will absolve you in some way, but by bringing things into the open you unburden yourself. Try admitting a misdeed to a good friend and see how it makes you feel. It will lighten the load.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings
One week from today: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Daily Dharma: Level the Playing Field

Compassion is not condescension, but a leveling of the playing field, a recognition of yourself in others and an acceptance that their stress is your stress, that their happiness is your own.

Stephen Schettini, “What to Expect When You’re Reflecting”

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Via White Crane Institute // The first “SIP-IN”

1966 -

The first “SIP-IN” held at Julius’s bar in Greenwich Village. The MATTACHINE SOCIETY in hopes of overturning the State Liquor Authority's regulations against serving homosexuals in bars staged a direct action they called “a sip-in” inspired by the Black civil rights movement successes in lunch bars and transportation. While there was no law on the books against such a thing, the SLA often penalized bars that served homosexuals on the grounds that their gatherings were "disorderly." Bartenders ordered patrons to sit facing away from other customers to prevent cruising, denied them drinks, or just kicked them out as precautionary moves under the SLA's watch. At the same time, bars frequented by gays were often targeted by police in entrapment schemes.

By 1965, influenced by Frank Kameny’s addresses in the early 1960s, Dick Leitch, the president of the New York Mattachine Society, advocated direct action, and the group staged the first public homosexual demonstrations and picket lines in the 1960s. Frank Kameny, founder of Mattachine Washington in 1961, had advocated militant action reminiscent of the black civil rights campaign, whilst also arguing for the morality of homosexuality. The State Liquor Authority of New York State did not allow homosexuals to be served in licensed bars in the state under penalty of revocation of the bar's license to operate. This denial of public accommodation had been confirmed by a court decision in the early 1940's. A legal study, commissioned by Mattachine New York on the city’s alcohol beverage law concluded that there was no law that prohibited homosexuals gathering in bars but that there was a law that prohibited disorderly behavior in bars, which the SLA had been interpreting as homosexual behavior.

Leitsch, then, announced to the press that three members of Mattachine New York would turn up at a restaurant on the lower east side, announce their homosexuality and upon refusal of service make a complaint to the SLA. This came to be known as the ‘Sip In’ and only succeeded at the third attempt in the Julius Bar in Greenwich Village. The ‘Sip In’, though, did gain extensive media attention and the resultant legal action against the SLA eventually prevented them from revoking licenses on the basis of homosexual solicitation in 1967. In the years before 1969 the organization also was effective in getting New York City to change its policy of police entrapment of gay men, and to rescind its hiring practices designed to screen out Gay people. There is a delightful article on this early demonstration in the New York Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/nyregion/before-the-stonewall-riots-there-was-the-sip-in.html?_r=0

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

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Via White Crane Institute // JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

1946 -

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES died on this date. Keynes was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. He built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential economists of the 20th century and the founder of modern macroeconomics. His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynsian economics and its various offshoots.

Keynes's early romantic and sexual relationships were exclusively with men. Keynes had been in relationships while at Eton and Cambridge; significant among these early partners were Dilly Knox and Daniel Macmillan. Keynes was open about his affairs, and from 1901 to 1915 kept separate diaries in which he tabulated his many sexual encounters. Keynes's relationship and later close friendship with Macmillan was to be fortunate, as Macmillan’s company first published his tract Economic Consequences of the Peace

Attitudes in the Bloomsbury Group, in which Keynes was avidly involved, were relaxed about homosexuality. Keynes, together with writer Lytton Strachey, had reshaped the Victorian attitudes of the Cambridge Apostles: "since [their] time, homosexual relations among the members were for a time common", wrote Bertrand Russell. The artist Duncan Grant, whom he met in 1908, was one of Keynes's great loves. Keynes was also involved with Lytton Strachey, Though they were for the most part love rivals, not lovers. Keynes had won the affections of Arthur Hobhouse, and as with Grant, fell out with a jealous Strachey for it. Strachey had previously found himself put off by Keynes, not least because of his manner of "treat[ing] his love affairs statistically".

Political opponents have used Keynes's sexuality to attack his academic work. One line of attack held that he was uninterested in the long term ramifications of his theories because he had no children.

Keynes's friends in the Bloomsbury Group were initially surprised when, in his later years, he began dating and pursuing affairs with women, demonstrating himself to be bisexual. Ray Costelloe (who would later marry Oliver Strachey) was an early heterosexual interest of Keynes. In 1906, Keynes had written of this infatuation that, "I seem to have fallen in love with Ray a little bit, but as she isn't male I haven't [been] able to think of any suitable steps to take."

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Compassion and Setting Boundaries | Lama Rod Owens

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Stephen Fry Interviews The Most Homophobic People In The World | Out The...

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from False Speech

RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from False Speech

False speech is unhealthy. Refraining from false speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning false speech, one dwells refraining from false speech, is a truth-speaker, one to be relied on, trustworthy, dependable, not a deceiver of the world. One does not in full awareness speak falsehood for one’s own ends or for another’s ends or for some trifling worldly end. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak falsely, but I shall abstain from false speech.” (MN 8)

Such speech as you know to be true, correct, and beneficial, and which is welcome and agreeable to others—know the time to use such speech. (MN 58)

Reflection

Of course it is important to refrain from false speech, but even right speech is to be wielded carefully. Generally it is appropriate to speak when what you are saying is beneficial—that is, when it is helping people emerge from what is unhealthy and become established on a healthy course. But even in this case there is something to be said for knowing when to speak up and when to remain silent.

Daily Practice

As you pay attention to your own speech patterns, notice if you ever find yourself praising people or telling them what they want to hear as a way of seeking favor. It is good to say things that please people, especially when it is true and beneficial, but you should still take care not to do so frivolously. The basic message here is just to take care to speak skillfully, even when you have positive things to say.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Bodily Action
One week from today: Refraining from Malicious Speech

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: The Source of Our Yearning

Why is it that we yearn to be more or other than we are? It so rarely occurs to us that what we are looking for may be—indeed, always is—already within us, simply undiscovered.

Toinette Lippe, “Between Eternities”

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Via White Crane Institute // 420, 4:20, or 4/20 (pronounced "four-twenty")

Noteworthy

2021 -

420, 4:20, or 4/20 (pronounced "four-twenty") is a code-term that refers to the consumption of cannabis, especially smoking cannabis around the time 4:20 p.m./a.m. (or 16:20 in some European nations) and smoking and celebrating cannabis on the date April 20 (which is 4/20 in U.S. form).

The origin of the term 420, celebrated around the world by pot smokers every April 20th, has long been obscured by the clouded memories of the folks who made it a phenomenon. Depending on who you ask, or their state of inebriation, there are as many varieties of answers as strains of medical bud in California. It’s the number of active chemicals in marijuana. It’s teatime in Holland. It has something to do with Hitler’s birthday. It’s those numbers in that Bob Dylan song multiplied.

In reality it was more of a New Age Where’s Waldo?”

A group of five San Rafael High School friends known as the Waldos - by virtue of their chosen hang-out spot, a wall outside the school – are credited with coining the term in 1971. The Waldos were all athletes and agreed to meet at the statue of Louis Pasteur outside the school at 4:20, after practice, to begin the hunt.

The Waldos also have proof that they used the term in the early ‘70s in the form of an old 420 flag and numerous letters with 420 references and early ‘70s post marks. They also have a story.

It goes like this: One day in the Fall of 1971 - harvest time - the Waldos got word of a Coast Guard service member who could no longer tend his plot of marijuana plants near the Point Reyes Peninsula Coast Guard station. A treasure map in hand, the Waldos decided to pluck some of this free bud.

The Waldos were all athletes and agreed to meet at the statue of Louis Pasteur outside the school at 4:20, after practice, to begin the hunt.

There was Waldo Steve, Waldo Dave and Dave’s older brother, Patrick: “We would remind each other in the hallways we were supposed to meet up at 4:20. It originally started out 4:20-Louis and we eventually dropped the Louis,” Waldo Steve

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Via White Crane Institute // GEORGE TAKEI

1937 -

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).

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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