Via Tricycle // Working with the Five Remembrances

 

Working with the Five Remembrances
By Tina Lear

These five ancient reminders have remained relevant through the ages. In this time of crises, they are more important than ever to take up as a practice.

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Via Tricycle // Ocean Vuong

 

Why Buddhist Poet Ocean Vuong Practices a Death Meditation
With Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong discusses Buddhist rituals of mourning and how his practice supported him in the aftermath of his mother’s death.

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We Lived in a Sacred Village in Guatemala

Via White Crane Institute // 9/11 - Today's Gay Wisdom

 

Today's Gay Wisdom

Tim Miller

2021 -

It is the 20th anniversary of the terror attack on the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and on fellow citizens of this country. The Bush administration began planning war even before the tragic events of 9/11/01, but that it was the causus belli for which they were waiting and the day after 9/11 they went to work to weave the web of lies they used to bring us into an unjust and even more tragically, unnecessary war.

As the shadows of war slowly began to spread across our country, White Crane offered an issue devoted to the spiritual idea of “Resistance.” Performance artist and author, Tim Miller spoke about the role resistance played in his art.

The rise of Fascism and Racism and the plutocracy of the Republicans has made resistance new again. If not “new” then as pressing as ever. The war that was started twenty years ago still rages on, chewing up blood and treasure in its belligerent maw. We live in the Chinese curse of “interesting times.” I don’t hesitate to say it’s scary.

So in observation of 9/11, now more than a decade later, and in light of current events, it  is a idea and a discussion worth revisiting.

Art of Resistance

Tim Miller

Even more than in my performances, I think I have been able to explore and dismantle the worst of our patriarchal legacy as men through the Gay men's performance workshops I teach. For almost twenty years I have been leading performance workshops for groups of men all over the world. These workshops have been a place for men to resist the patriarchal legacy by physically exploring in full-color real time their most intimate narratives, memories, dreams and possibilities with one another.

While I have often done this work with mixed groups of straight, bi-sexual and Gay men, the majority of my efforts have been within the diverse Gay men's communities in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. A constant focus, the base note as it were, of all this work, has been a commitment to discovering a more authentic and individualized way of being present within our deeply problematized men's psyches and bodies. I have taught such workshops in contexts as varied as at the Men & Masculinities conference that was sponsored by the National Organization of Men Against Sexism (NOMAS) in Johnstown, Pennsylvania to hundreds of performance workshops for Gay men in cities from Sydney, Australia to Glasgow, Scotland. .

In the work I do with groups of Gay men, I have learned that finding a way to be more present in our embodied selves and open to the narratives that we carry in our queer flesh and blood is the quickest route to discovering the revelatory material about what it just might mean to be human. Claiming this kind of psychic space to explore our most queeny, spiritual or erotic selves as Gay men is to me a profound act of resistance.

In 1994 frayed from the culture war and onslaught of AIDS, I made a show called Naked Breath in which I wanted to write a sexy and highly personal story about how two men, one HIV-positive and one negative, managed to connect. After several years in the late 80's and early 90's of shouting in front of government buildings or being dragged by cops down the asphalt on the streets of Los Angeles or Houston or San Francisco or New York with ACT-UP, I felt called to really honor the quiet human-size victories that are available to us.

To model the resistance to fear of each other’s bodies across sero-status, but also to perform the resistance to the virus' negative effects to our psychic and emotional health as we did this. I wanted to try to locate what has happened to us during the AIDS era and hold up the hopeful fact that men were still able to get close to one another there amid the swirl of blood within and the cum smeared on our bodies. In Naked Breath I am surrounded by both these bodily fluids; I wanted to get wet in this performance. I also wanted that we could do this safely and full of respect for each other's bodies.

My new show Us is full of nascent little queer boy resistance, but my show GLORY BOX has my favorite example. I tell a funny story in GLORY BOX about asking a boy to marry me when I was nine years old. He beats me up and tells me to "take it back". I do "take it back—that I wanted to marry him—but I cross my fingers behind me before I do! Maybe that was the beginning of my resistance and activism! That gave me the basic dissatisfaction with stuff that just isn't fair.

I do think though, that Gay Americans are ready to submit to a basic disrespect to their humanity that Gay people in other western countries would find unacceptable. We have accommodated to sodomy laws, Gays not allowed in the military etc. We have that damn radical religious right in the U.S. that other countries just don't have. It infects everything. If queer folks in America would actually be prepared to resist we could change so much that messes with our community. That old devil of internalized homophobia gets in our way.

I keep trying to stay close to that little nine-year old who knew that it just wasn't fair that he couldn't marry another boy! This is very much connected to the story I tell in Us about relating to Oliver Twist in the film musical as a little queer activist. He, too, wanted some "more!” That crucial act: wanting to marry another boy, of claiming space and agency as a little nine-year-old Gay boy, that resistance to the heterosexual narrative, is the place from where all my other activism around lesbian and Gay civil marriage and immigration rights leaps.

Tim Miller is the author of SHIRTS AND SKINS and BODY BLOWS. In 1990 he was awarded an NEA Solo Performance Fellowship which was overturned under political pressure from the Bush I White House. As part of the NEA 4 Miller successfully sued the federal government for violation of First Amendment rights and won. Though this decision was later partially overturned by the Supreme Court, Miller continues his fight for freedom of expression and Gay rights.   

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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 Daily Dharma: The Radiance of Liberation

Gratitude, the simple and profound feeling of being thankful, is the foundation of all generosity.

—Sallie Tisdale, dharma teacher and author 

 

The Buddha’s teaching that “Nothing whatsoever is worth clinging to” doesn’t entail a loss or a diminishing of anything other than greed, hate, and delusion. It points to the radiance of liberation, far beyond the practice of mindfulness.

Gil Fronsdal, “When Mindfulness Is Too Much”

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Body

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)   One acts with full awareness: When eating, drinking, tasting, defecating, and urinating . . . one is just aware, just mindful: “There is a body.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

So much of the time we engage in everyday actions without paying much attention to what we are doing. Indeed the mind and body are capable of doing most of what they need to do without any mindfulness at all. This is why establishing mindfulness in every little thing we do is a deliberate practice that takes some effort and commitment. By cultivating conscious awareness over automatic reaction, we gain important insights.

Daily Practice

Over a century ago the king of Burma said he was so busy that the only time he could practice mindfulness was when he went to the toilet—which he did with full awareness. We too are often busy, but never so busy that we cannot make the effort at every opportunity to attend carefully to what we are doing while we are doing it. Mindfulness practice is always accessible. Let’s act with full awareness, not clinging to anything.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the First Phase of Absorption (1st Jhāna)

Having abandoned the five hindrances—imperfections of the mind that weaken wisdom—quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, one enters and abides in the first phase of absorption, which is accompanied by applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of seclusion. (MN 4)

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - September 11, 2022 💌

 
 

One time I had a moment with Maharajji when I was sitting across the courtyard from him – he was talking to a group of people and I was watching everybody fawn all over him asking questions, and I thought, “What a bunch of crap.” You know, “What am I doing here? I don’t care if I never see this guy again.” And I felt immediately guilty about the thought.

Then Maharajji turned and looked over at me and then grabbed an old man, this old fellow, and he whispered to him and sent him flying, the guy came running across to me, bent down and touched my feet, and said, “Maharajji said, ‘Ram Dass and I understand each other perfectly.’"

- Ram Dass -

Via Facebook

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT
Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States

Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders unhealthy states, one has abandoned healthy states to cultivate unhealthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to unhealthy states. (MN 19) Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to restrain the arising of unarisen unhealthy mental states. One restrains the arising of the unarisen hindrance of doubt. (MN 141)

Reflection

Unhealthy mental states can erupt at any time, and it is prudent to be on guard against them. The best defense is to not allow them to arise in the first place, and there are ways to help with that. Faith or trust is the antidote to doubt, and if you are capable of cultivating trusting confidence, debilitating doubt will find no foothold in your mind. If you make an effort to think and ponder with trust, the hindrance of doubt will not arise.

Daily Practice

It is always possible to be doubtful of oneself, of others, of what you think you know or what you are doing. And there is a place for honest questioning of your assurances. But doubt can also be crippling, preventing you from moving forward. See if you can gain confidence through faith in the teachings and the value of mindfulness and use that to hold yourself in such a way that doubt does not penetrate your mind.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna
One week from today: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Learning the Difference Between Focusing and Fixating

 How is it possible to maintain your focus, to “keep your eyes on the prize,” without getting fixated on results? As you go about your activities, pay attention to the difference between having a goal and being taken over by your hopes, fears, and speculations.

Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Abandon Any Hope of Fruition”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Upworthiest /// Hobbit actors share perfect response to racial grumblings

 

1 Hobbit actors share perfect  response to racial grumblings over 'Rings of Power' casting The Fellowship of the Ring has banded together once again in the name of solidarity and standing up for what’s right. In response to racially centered backlash for the diverse casting choices in the new Amazon series “Rings of Power” (a situation disappointingly common for many modern fantasy franchises) the trilogy’s original Hobbits Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan took to social media—about as treacherous as Mordor, some might say—to show their support. Each actor wore a clothing item displaying a row of elf ears in different skin tones along with a message in Elvish that translates to “You Are All Welcome Here.” The coolest, most LOTR way to rebel possibly ever. Read the story

Via Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation

 

The Way Out Is In

How to be Free From Views in a Polarized World

Photo: A still from the film Walk With Me from SpeakIt Films. Each day, we read headlines about political violence, war, racism, and disputes between neighbors that boil over. Often, the problem can be traced to a difference of opinion, a misunderstanding, or wrong perceptions. What begins as a thought can quickly escalate into words and actions that harm not only those involved, but can sweep up entire communities and even nations. Thay taught that cultivating Right View, or insight, is key to maintaining our happiness and the happiness of those around us. “Touching reality deeply—knowing what is going on inside and outside of ourselves—is the way to liberate ourselves from the suffering that is caused by wrong perceptions,” Thay writes in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation. “Right View is not an ideology, a system, or even a path. It is the insight we have into the reality of life, a living insight that fills us with understanding, peace, and love." In Episode 36 of The Way Out Is In, podcast hosts Brother Phap Huu and Jo Confino explore Right View, which is part of the Buddha’s teachings on the Noble Eightfold Path. “As humans, we have so many views, and because of our views, and because we live with certain views, we trap ourselves in a lifestyle, in a way of being, that can offer suffering or offer happiness,” Brother Phap Huu says. “So the first wing of meditation is learning to stop. And the second wing is to learn to look deeply. “If we don’t ever have a chance to reflect on our own way of how we see life, how we see our sources of joy, our sources of happiness, then we will never have a chance to broaden and be open to our own awakening. So practicing Zen, practicing Buddhism, is learning to be more open and more free of views because it can be such an obstacle to happiness, as well as an obstacle to peace.”

Listen to the Podcast

Via LGBTQ Nation // Queen Elizabeth II, a quiet supporter of LGBTQ rights, has died at age 96

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Harming Living Beings

Harming living beings is unhealthy. Refraining from harming living beings is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the harming of living beings, one abstains from harming living beings; with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, one abides with compassion toward all living beings. (M 41) One practices thus: “Others may harm living beings, but I will abstain from the harming of living beings.” (MN 8) This is something that leads to the welfare and happiness of a layperson in this present life: balanced living. Here, a person knows their wealth coming in and their wealth going out, and leads a balanced life, being neither too extravagant nor too frugal, [knowing that] “in this way my income exceeds my expenditures, and my expenditures do not exceed my income.” (AN 8.54)

Reflection

Indian culture is deeply rooted in commerce, as its early civilizations seem to have flourished on trade, and many of the Buddha’s followers were merchants. He thus had respect for commercial life, and the economic balance he mentions here can be seen as a middle-way lifestyle for the layperson. Just as a monk lives being neither too indulgent nor too ascetic, so also a layperson should live a financially balanced life.

Daily Practice

Right living for a householder or layperson involves prudence, self-control, and a balanced lifestyle. Notice the negative psychological effect when you are in debt or living beyond your means, and notice also the harmful effects of extravagance and self-indulgence. Contrast these to the sense of contentment and security that comes from living in equilibrium, when your income and expenses are in harmony with each other.

Tomorrow: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given

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

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Why Recognize Impermanence?

 If we’re really reflecting on impermanence, then we can see that the important things are compassion and loving others—giving to others and taking care of others—because everything else becomes meaningless, in a sense.

Anyen Rinpoche and Allison Choying Zangmo, “Living and Dying with Confidence”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via White Crane Institute // From Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love

 

Today's Gay Wisdom

Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love

2004 -

From Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love

by Will Roscoe,

originally in White Crane issue #63, winter 2005, Totems and Animal Wisdom:

In 1979, I attended a retreat where Hay passionately presented his idea concerning subject-Subject consciousness and called on us as Gay men to foster it. At that event I discovered I was not alone in yearning to incorporate a spiritual outlook into my life. For many of us, a spiritual inclination began in childhood with a fantasy life that included talking to trees and animals, and inventing rituals. As we shared these experiences at the 1979 retreat, we realized that Gay spirituality begins with reclaiming the child-like awareness we had before the crippling and stifling influence of homophobia penetrated our lives. Whitman had a similar intuition and frequently celebrated boyhood. In “There was a Child Went Forth,” he describes the child’s awareness in terms that resonate with Hay’s concept of subject-subject:

There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,

And that object became part of him

But in 1979 adhesive love and subject-subject consciousness were ideals not realities. In those years, it was difficult to see anything redeeming in the way that Gay men were pursuing love. The activist, experimental era of Gay liberation was over. A grassroots movement of volunteer and self-help organizations was being replaced by agencies staffed with professionals. Gay marches had become Gay parades, and Gay social life was shifting from public and community-organized events to commercial venues.

Discussions of Gay love gave way to a narrower focus on sexuality. Self-identified sex radicals claimed that simply having Gay sex challenged the social system, while moderates claimed that sex was the only thing that distinguished lesbians, Gay men, and bisexuals from heterosexuals, and, since it was a private act, it was an invisible difference. In either case, sex was the lynchpin of Gay identity. To be Gay or bisexual was to have sex. At the same time, many Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals were rejecting the idea advanced by earlier liberationists that they might be gender different. The assimilationist mantra took its place: “We’re no different from heterosexuals except for what we do in bed.”

In the 1970s, to live up to their image as sexual athletes, Gay men began using drugs and alcohol at rates far in excess of the general population. Our sexual experiences became increasingly intense, but they occurred in contexts that attributed them with no particular significance. Gay men began referring to sex as “play”—it became a form of recreation, to be consumed much as entertainment or travel or fashion. Far from posing a challenge to the social order, it turned out that a sexual minority community whose identity was derived from what it consumed was perfectly compatible with postindustrial capitalism.

All this occurred as an organized anti-Gay opposition was emerging. In 1977, Anita Bryant’s campaign in Dade County, Florida overturned legislation to protect Gays from discrimination. Soon Gay civil rights protections were being repealed throughout the country. Heterosexual Americans were not ready to see Gay lifestyles or relationships as equal to theirs in any way, nor were they willing to entertain the possibility that Gays were different in ways that might be beneficial. Indeed, Gays themselves increasingly rejected such speculations as elitist, throwbacks to a discredited model of homosexuality as inborn and essential. Lesbian and Gay intellectuals, under the influence of Michel Foucault and the theory of social constructionism, not only decried the idea of queer differences, the very desire to explore the meaning of one’s sexual identity was dismissed out of hand.

In 1982, at the same time I was reading Clement of Alexandria, I decided to write an essay expressing my dismay at the role of sexual objectification in the Gay men’s community. Instead of healing the wounds inflicted on us by a homophobic society, we were perpetuating low self-esteem. And the consequences of this, I argued, could be seen in a growing range of health problems appearing among Gay men—from alcoholism to sexually transmitted diseases to recent reports of a new and mysterious illness that was taking Gay men’s lives.

My essay, titled “Desperate Living” (after a popular John Waters’ film), was published about the same time that I put down Smith’s book. Our extended stay with Harry and his partner John in Los Angeles was over. Brad and I were still young, in our twenties, and life flowed in strong currents. We found ourselves back in San Francisco, immersed in new jobs and new projects.

Fifteen years passed before I took up Smith’s book again. It was 1997, and I had been invited to speak at Gay Spirit Visions, an annual conference held outside Atlanta, Georgia. The theme was mentoring. As I thought about this topic, it occurred to me that Gay men needed not only mentors—teachers, guides, role models—but also some form of initiatory experience to mark their passage from the closet to community and from Gay childhood to Gay adulthood.

Then I remembered the mystical rite of initiation uncovered by Morton Smith. As I began re-reading his book, I saw connections that had escaped me before. I realized how Jesus’ secret baptism drew on ideas and images with a long history, and how it was that same-sex love could be part of, indeed, give rise to, visionary experiences. I realized as well that the insights I was having now were the result of what I had experienced in the fifteen years since I last picked up Smith’s book.

Those were the years when the AIDS epidemic swept through our lives like wildfire, whisking away acquaintances, friends, and lovers—and, eventually, my own life partner.

Excerpt reprinted from Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love by Will Roscoe (Suspect Thoughts Press) courtesy of the author.

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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 Daily Dharma: Keep Your Aim in Mind

 It’s not about how successful we are right now, but what we aim at that is most important.

Mingyur Rinpoche, “The Easy Middle”

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