Via Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation // Support for our LGBTQIA+ Friends and Allies

Practitioner Resources

Support for our
LGBTQIA+ Friends and Allies

 

To support our LBTQIA+ community and our aspiration to deepen our understanding of interbeing, particularly around questions of sexual orientation and gender identity, here are several helpful resources:

• Dharma talk by Sister Boi Nghiem at a Wake Up Earth Retreat last year about the importance of supporting the LGBTQIA+ community. In a section of the talk on gender inclusivity (around minute 41), she says: “Our society has hurt you enough. You seek to come to the Plum Village tradition to find peace, love, and refuge.”

• Sister The Nghiem (Sister True Vow) Dharma talk: Given at Blue Cliff Monastery in 2018 during the LGBTQIA+Wake Up retreat, “For a future to be possible.”

• In this article from the Plum Village Newsletter, Brother Chan Troi Bao Tang (Brother Treasure) explains the value and benefit of the Rainbow Family: communities of LGBTQIA+ people within the Plum Village tradition.

• Plum Village App-Rainbow Family, a special section within the mobile app, includes a collection of Dharma talks and guided meditations from and in support of the LGBTQIA+ community, allies, and friends.

Via Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation // The Raft: Be a Beautiful Lotus Flower

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don't try to be a magnolia flower.” 

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Art of Power

Via Daily Dharma: The Constellation of Mind

 Right understanding (and right functioning) of the mind does not come from thinking, but from actively and attentively observing the complex constellation of energies and activities of mind.

Stuart Smithers, “Minding the Storehouse”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

What is the cessation of suffering? It is the remainderless fading away and ceasing, the giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting of craving. (MN 9) When one knows and sees feeling tone as it actually is, then one is not attached to feeling tone. When one abides unattached, one is not infatuated, and one’s craving is abandoned. One’s bodily and mental troubles are abandoned, and one experiences bodily and mental well being. (MN 149)

Reflection

Feeling tones, the raw sensations of pleasure and pain, are not in themselves a problem. The problem comes from attachment to them—the craving for good feelings to persist and bad feelings to stop that naturally arises in response to those feelings. Craving is the cause of suffering, not feeling. The key challenge is how to separate the two: How can we experience both positive and negative feelings without giving rise to craving?

Daily Practice

The short answer to that question is mindfulness. Mindfulness allows us to know and see feeling tone as it actually is, in which case, the texts tell us, we will not be attached to it. Clear awareness is one thing, and attachment is something else. They cannot occur simultaneously. Practice knowing and seeing feeling as it actually is by regarding it with equanimity. This is what is happening now, and this is how it actually feels.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Appreciative Joy
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling

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 feeling a mental painful feeling, one is aware: “Feeling a mental painful feeling”. . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is feeling.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Just as physical pleasure and pain are inevitable, so too are mental pleasure and pain. There is no use in trying to avoid mental pain, since it is an integral part of our experience, but it need not inevitably lead to suffering. Just as you might be aware of the pain of a stubbed toe and yet retain your mental and emotional balance, you can also turn toward and experience mental pain and hold it with healthy equanimity.

Daily Practice

Mental pain includes such things as sorrow and unhappiness. When we think about the loss of someone we care about, it hurts. When we open to the suffering of others, it hurts. Such pain is an intrinsic part of the human condition and is not to be avoided. Allow yourself to feel sorrow or even unhappiness and notice that it need not evoke unhealthy emotions such as despair or anguish. This too can just be held in awareness.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)

With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4) One practices: “I shall breathe in experiencing pleasure"; one practices: “I shall breathe out experiencing pleasure.” 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 the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via White Crane Institute // Feast Day of SAINTS JOHN AND PAUL

 

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Saints John and Paul

2018 -

It is the Feast Day of SAINTS JOHN AND PAUL, martyred lovers According to their Acts, which are of a legendary character and without recorded historical foundation, the martyrs were eunuchs (Galli) of Constantina daughter of Constantine the Great, and became acquainted with a certain Gallicanus, who built a church in Ostia. At the command of Julian the Apostate, they were beheaded secretly by Terentianus in their house on the Cælian, where their church was subsequently erected, and where they themselves were buried. Galli (singular Gallus) was the Roman name for castrated followers of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, which were regarded as a third gender by contemporary Roman scholars, and are in some ways like transgendered people in the modern world. The chief of these priests was referred to as a battakes, and later as the archigallus.

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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 White Crane Institute // Obergefell v Hodges

 

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Jim Obergefell

2015 -

The Supreme Court of the United States, in a landmark 5-4 decision, Obergefell v Hodges, rule that the Constitution of the United States assures the right to MARRIAGE EQUALITY FOR LGBT PEOPLE and that every state in the union must recognize and respect same-sex marriages. Heterosexual marriages begin crumbling…oh wait…that didn’t happen. Nevermind.

 

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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 Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - June 26, 2022 💌

 

"A couple of years ago I stopped lecturing and I just hung out at my house in Boston, taking care of my father. I wasn't full-time doing that. I was just part-time. But I was sort of helping do that. And there were many days each week when I would wake him up, take him to the bathroom, bathe him, toilet him, dress him, feed him, hang out with him. These were extraordinary periods for me, because in my mind somewhere was the idea of, how is this an Upaya, or a spiritual method? I went through so many. I went through so many...

What I did was I kept a diary of what it felt like to do this each day. To see if I could see through the veils that were created. First of all, the relationship between my father and I has changed so much over the years. We never touched each other when we were young. Now I hold him, I massage him, I dress him. When I'm putting on his socks, he pats me on the back and my heart just opens. It's so beautiful..."

Explore a new teaching article + video from Ram Dass: Caring for Family as a Spiritual Practice from a 1985 lecture at the SEVA Foundation Benefit.

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Kamishikimi Kumanoimasu Shrine in Kyushu by Kohei Yamakawa

Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 445 – Transcendental Meditation with David Lynch

  Mindrolling – Raghu Markus – Ep. 445 – Transcendental Meditation with David Lynch
June 23, 2022 Legendary filmmaker, David Lynch, joins Raghu for a chat on finding true happiness, creativity and peace through Transcendental Meditation. David Lynch is a filmmaker,...

Listen Now

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT
Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

Whatever a person frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks and ponders upon unhealthy states, one has abandoned healthy states to cultivate unhealthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to unhealthy states. (MN 19) Abandoning ill will, one abides with a mind free from ill will, compassionate for the welfare of all living beings; one purifies the mind of ill will. (MN 51) Just as a person who had been bound in prison would get free of prison, so would one rejoice and be glad about the abandoning of ill will. (DN 2)

Reflection

Ill will, along with its synonyms hatred and aversion, can be likened to a disease from which we need to recover. It roils the mind like the boiling of water, preventing us from seeing clearly what arises in the mind, unlike water that is calm and therefore reflective of whatever stands before it. Here ill will is compared with being in prison: hatred has a way of trapping the mind and denying it the freedom it is capable of when unbound.

Daily Practice

When ill will comes up in your mind, abandon it. Just let it go. Anger and hatred are only sustained if we feed them. Since all mental and emotional states are transient, we need simply to allow them to pass through the mind unhindered. Normally we ruminate on what someone said or did and thereby sustain and amplify our ill will. Instead, watch ill will come up, notice that it is unhelpful and unhealthy, and let it go.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna
One week from today: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

NO KINK AT PRIDE!

LONESOME International Trailer

Via Tumblr

 

Via Daily Dharma: A Welcome Detour

 What we call self-awareness comes via the detour we take when we encounter others, who show us to ourselves from a new angle. The differences we find in our world, then, offer us the priceless opportunity to become something more than we are now.

Kurt Spellmeyer, “Globalism 3.0” 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Lama Rod Owens

 

One of the things that drove me into activism and service in my teens was realizing that I was born into a culture that was trying to annihilate my body, spirit, and mind. I was pissed and heartbroken over this and I learned to channel this intense energy into spiritual practice and deeper activism. 

 

Right now I am remembering and calling on all the great beings who came before me and who are still with us now to remember my sacred commitment to never allow the darkness of hate, violence, state and systematic suppression to consume me. I will survive peoples’ weaponizing of their insecurity, narcissism, and trauma against me and my communities. I will not be quiet nor will I disappear. 

 

I am urging all you spiritual leaders, healers, mystics, intuitives, magik practitioners, and yogis to remember your power and confirm your allegiance to light, love, compassion, and community and disrupt this darkness and start acting up. Now is not the time to get more holy. Now is the time to get clear about protecting everyone’s right to be safe, happy, and resourced.

 

- Lama Rod Owens

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Via Lama Rod