Via LGBTQ Nation // Joe Biden issues executive order to fight conversion therapy & LGBTQ fostering discrimination

Joe Biden promised to work to get a law passed banning conversion therapy on the campaign trail. Now he's doing what he can on his own. 

 

 

Via Daily Dharma: Let the Mind Settle

 Our mind is analogous to a cup of muddy water. The longer you keep a cup of muddy water still, the more the mud settles down and the water will be seen clearly. Similarly, if you keep quiet without moving your body, your mind settles down and begins to experience the bliss of meditation.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Sitting Still”

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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, 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) When one knows covert speech to be true and correct but unbeneficial, one should try not to utter it. (MN 139)

Reflection

The main thing to look at when deciding if it is appropriate to speak or not is whether what you are saying is likely to be beneficial. Yes, it is important to speak the truth, but even when something is true it may not always be helpful to say it. By beneficial what is meant is, will it help a person move away from what is unhealthy and point them toward what is healthy? If so, then by all means speak up; if not, try to keep silent.

Daily Practice

Be careful what you whisper to others, making sure it is not a subtle form of false speech. Even if what you are saying is true, the fact that it is spoken in secret or covertly suggests there may be something about it unsuited to the light of day. Better to speak only what can be said openly whenever possible. Just ask yourself as you are about to speak: Is this helpful? Will this contribute in a beneficial way?

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

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - June 15, 2022 💌

 
 

Your anger and your inspiration are all inside you. They are just being who they are. Your reaction is your reaction. It is showing you your attachments and aversions.

- Ram Dass -

Via White Crane Institute // The Supreme Court ruled that a landmark civil rights law protects LGBT people from discrimination in employment,

 

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Noteworthy

2020 -

The Supreme Court ruled that a landmark civil rights law protects LGBT people from discrimination in employment, a resounding victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court. The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers.

The cases were the court’s first on LGBT rights since Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement and replacement by Kavanaugh. Kennedy was a voice for gay rights and the author of the landmark ruling in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States. Kavanaugh generally is regarded as more conservative.

The Trump administration had changed course from the Obama administration, which supported LGBT workers in their discrimination claims under Title VII. During the Obama years, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had changed its longstanding interpretation of civil rights law to include discrimination against LGBT people. The law prohibits discrimination because of sex, but had no specific protection for sexual orientation or gender identity.

In recent years, some lower courts have held that discrimination against LGBT people is a subset of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited by the federal law. Efforts by Congress to change the law had failed.

The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment discrimination after they lost their jobs.

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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!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Via Lion’s Roar - Practice for a World at Risk

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Lovingkindness

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Lovingkindness

Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis upon which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on lovingkindness, for when you develop meditation on lovingkindness, all ill will will be abandoned. (MN 62)  The purpose of lovingkindness is warding off ill will. (Vm 9.97)

Reflection

Our capacity for lovingkindness is one of the great resources we have as human beings. Yes, we can be nasty and feel ill will toward one another, but this can always be replaced by lovingkindness, at least in principle. Learning how to do this is both a challenge and an opportunity. Here we are told that if we are able to arouse and maintain a feeling of kindness, our minds will be immune, at least for the time being, from all aversion.

Daily Practice

Practice lovingkindness, if only as a protection from ill will. It is easy to get annoyed, to be bothered by people and things, to be surly and sour as you go through the day. But this is unhealthy, does not feel good, and infects the people around you. Look instead at others with goodwill and benevolence and kindness, even if this is difficult to do. You will not only release ill will toward others but also shield yourself from others' ill will toward you.

Tomorrow: Refraining from False Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Compassion

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

 

Via Daily Dharma: The Journey through Grief

 In grief we access parts of ourselves that were somehow unavailable to us in the past. With awareness, the journey through grief becomes a path to wholeness.

Mark Matousek, “A Splinter of Love”

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Via Sukhasiddhi Dag Shang Kagyu \ FB

Hoy (14/06/2022) es día 15 del cuarto mes del calendario lunar tibetano y para los practicantes budistas de todo el mundo es un día muy importante en el que se celebra la iluminación a la edad de 35 años en Bodhgaya y el paranirvana a los 80 en Kushinagara del Buda Shakyamuni, además es la gran super Luna Llena del mes de Saga Dawa y por ello las acciones que se realicen durante este día se multiplican enormemente.

La fortaleza, espiritualmente hablando, no procede de las capacidades físicas, sino más bien de una voluntad invencible 

 

 

 

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering

When people have met with suffering and become victims of suffering, they come to me and ask me about the noble truth of suffering. Being asked, I explain to them the noble truth of suffering. (MN 77) What is suffering? (MN 9) Despair is suffering. The trouble and despair, the tribulation and desperation of one who has encountered some misfortune or is affected by some painful state. (MN 9)

Reflection

We don't need to look deeply to understand what this text is pointing to. The human condition is laced with despair, as people regularly encounter misfortune and are constantly affected by painful states. The goal of these teachings and practices is not to avoid the difficult aspects of life but to see them clearly, understand them thoroughly, and pass through them (rather than around them) to the peace lying on the other side.

Daily Practice

When you encounter despair, do not be afraid of it and do not try to push it away or hide from it. It is just a mental state, just a passing condition of the mind and of the emotional life. It is okay to turn toward it and examine it, because that is just what is happening right now. Take heart in the knowledge that the Buddha is only pointing us toward suffering because he will go on to show how it can be brought to an end.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Lovingkindness
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Breathe with the Whole Body

 Think of the breath as a whole-body process. It’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s the flow of energy throughout the body, part of which is related to the flow of the blood and to the sense of aliveness in your nerves. Try to be sensitive to the whole body as you breathe in and breathe out.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Less Is More”

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Via White Crane Institute // RICHARD BARNFIELD

This Day in Gay History

June 13

Born

1574 -

RICHARD BARNFIELD, English poet, born (d: 1620); There are, as everyone knows, certain inseparable teams: Gilbert & Sullivan, Cheech and Chong, bagels and lox, ham and eggs, Sodom and Gomorrah. In classical mythology, as in ballet, there are Daphnis and Chloë, the Greek shepherd and his lady love – Daphnis and Chloë, as inseparable as yin and yang, gin and tonic, Ron and Nancy.

Not in Richard Barnfield, however. His Affectionate Shepherd (1594) scandalized Renaissance England by describing in florid detail the love of Daphnis and Ganymede, just a couple of guys, foolin’ around. What the fuss was all about is difficult to say since, in the absence of Chloë, Daphnis never exercised his shepherdly option of making it with his favorite sheep, choosing a boy instead. “If it be a sin to love a lovely lad,” wrote Barnfield, “Oh, then sin I.” He was not quite twenty-one when he wrote the poem. His obscure though close relationship with Shakespeare has long made him interesting to students.

Richard Barnfield was born in Staffordshire, England. In his youth, he was deeply influenced by Virgil’s work and the 1591 publication of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, which popularized the sonnet sequence. Best known for his poem “As it fell upon a day,” Barnfield is the only Elizabethan male poet apart from Shakespeare—whom he admired—to address love poems to a man.

Little is known about Barnfield’s life and career, but it is thought that his maternal aunt raised him and his sister after his mother died during childbirth. In 1592 he graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford. At the age of twenty-one he published his first two books, The Affectionate Shepherd (1594) and Cynthia (1595), both addressed to “Ganymede.” Originally published anonymously, The Affectionate Shepherd expands upon Virgil’s second eclogue, and its homoerotic themes made Barnfield’s poems controversial for his time.

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Today's Gay Wisdom

2018 -

Today's Gay Wisdom

Sonnet 16
By Richard Barnfield

Long have I long’d to see my love again,
    Still have I wished, but never could obtain it;
    Rather than all the world (if I might gain it)
Would I desire my love’s sweet precious gain.
Yet in my soul I see him every day,
    See him, and see his still stern countenance,
    But (ah) what is of long continuance,
Where majesty and beauty bears the sway?
Sometimes, when I imagine that I see him,
    (As love is full of foolish fantasies)
    Weening to kiss his lips, as my love’s fees,
I feel but air: nothing but air to bee him.
    Thus with Ixion, kiss I clouds in vain:
    Thus with Ixion, feel I endless pain.

Sonnet 17

By Richard Barnfield

Cherry-lipped Adonis in his snowy shape,
    Might not compare with his pure ivory white,
    On whose faire front a poet’s pen may write,
Whose roseate red excels the crimson grape,
His love-enticing delicate soft limbs,
    Are rarely framed to entrap poor gazing eyes:
    His cheeks, the lily and carnation dyes,
With lovely tincture which Apollo’s dims.
His lips ripe strawberries in nectar wet,
    His mouth a Hive, his tongue a honeycomb,
    Where Muses (like bees) make their mansion.
His teeth pure pearl in blushing coral set.
    Oh how can such a body sin-procuring,
    Be slow to love, and quick to hate, enduring? 

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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!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Magico (LGBTQ / Gay Short Film)

"Have you turned a straight guy?" | You Can't Ask That

Via ARISE Sangha

 

ARISE Sangha

Transforming the World's Divisions Through Love and Understanding

One branch of the International Plum Village Community tree that has sprung from Thay’s vision of inclusion is the ARISE (Awakening through Race, Intersectionality, and Social Equity) Sangha. ARISE works to address and heal wounds of racial injustice and social inequity, bridging mindfulness and social action in practice communities and in the larger world. ARISE offers special online gatherings, webinars, a newsletter, Dharma teachings, articles (like this one on Juneteenth), and opportunities for Engaged Buddhism, in-depth conversations, and mindfulness practices that uphold and honor historically underrepresented groups within the global Sangha. ARISE also speaks out on current events, including the recent gun violence that’s disproportionately affected people of color: “When one of us dies in the name of hatred, we do not condone, we transform through love,” part of a recent ARISE statement says.  For more information, visit the ARISE website or follow the Sangha on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And look to our next issue of The Raft for Dharma talks and further content recognizing Pride Month and supporting our LGBTQIA+ friends.

Learn More About ARISE

Via The Raft // Honoring Juneteenth

 “I am a drop in the ocean, but I'm also the ocean. I'm a drop in America, but I'm also America. And as I transform myself and heal and take care of myself, I'm very conscious that I'm healing and transforming and taking care of America.”  

Larry Ward, author of America's Racial Karma: An Invitation to Heal

Honoring Juneteenth A Spiritual Practice for Racial Healing  On June 19, the United States marks Juneteenth, which commemorates the freedom of enslaved people at the end of the Civil War. While 156 years have passed since the first Juneteenth celebration, black people and other people of color continue to experience ongoing, systemic, and disproportionate levels of racism, discrimination, poverty, and violence.  In a Dharma talk from Blue Cliff Monastery’s online Order of Interbeing retreat in 2020, Sister Peace says we must continue advocating for legal and social reforms that protect, honor, and celebrate members of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities. But she says people of all races and cultural backgrounds must also learn how to sit with our awareness of this vast sea of suffering to investigate its roots and discern its implications for our lives, first individually and then collectively.  “What's being requested is not with an intent of separation,” she adds, “because we all live and work and move and have our being within the beautiful arms of the Sangha. We need to do the work so that we can individually and collectively heal.”

Watch the Dharma Talk

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects

A person goes to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: “Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I am content.” (SN 47.10)   When the investigation-of-states awakening factor is internally present, one is aware: “Investigation of states is present for me.” When investigation of states is not present, one is aware: “Investigation of states is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen investigation of states occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen investigation-of-states awakening factor occurs, one is aware of that.  . . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is a mental object.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

The second of the seven factors of awakening is investigation of states. This is a kind of natural curiosity and interest that emerges when you become mindful of something. The heightened awareness leads to an increased inclination to investigate the nature of what is seen. It is like looking at something under a microscope or through a telescope—once it has been illuminated, you can begin the process of examining it carefully.

Daily Practice

Taking a keen interest in your own experience is not something that happens all the time but arises and falls away under various conditions, just like every other mental factor. It is something you can practice doing. It is a matter of amplifying your attention when it comes to bear on an object and then taking the awareness a step further, looking more closely or listening more carefully with open curiosity: What is this?

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna)

With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters upon and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4) One practices: "I shall breathe in, tranquilizing the bodily formation"; one practices: "I shall breathe out, tranquilizing the bodily formation." This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (SN 54.8)

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.