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Friday, November 25, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Intoxication
Via Daily Dharma: Liberating Ourselves from Judgment
By
liberating our minds from ideas of “better than,” “worse than,” or “the
same as,” we liberate ourselves from all views of “self” and “other.”
Christina Feldman, “Long Journey to a Bow”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via White Crane Institute // YUKIO MISHIMA
Died 
1970 -
YUKIO MISHIMA, Japanese author, dies (b: 1925) Unlike the West, in Japan sex was not viewed in terms of morality, but rather in terms of pleasure, social position, and social responsibility. While modern attitudes to homosexuality have changed, this is frequently true even today. Like the pre-modern West, only sexual acts were seen as being homosexual or heterosexual, not the people performing such acts. The term gay is never used in discussing ancient and historical sources because of the modern, western, political connotations of the word and because the term suggests a particular identity, one with which homosexuals even in modern Japan may not identify. From religious circles, same-sex love spread to the warrior class, where it was customary for a young samurai to apprentice to an older and more experienced man. The young samurai would be his lover for many years. The practice was known as shudo, the way of youth, and was held in high esteem by the warrior class. Like the ancient Greeks, homosexual love was between an older man and an adolescent youth. And like the Greeks, the sexual relationship was expected to end when the youth came of age, at which time he would become the mentor in such a relationship. Just like the Greeks, the Samurai did not practice exclusive homosexuality or exclusive heterosexuality. They were also expected to marry and have children;only this came later in life. Unlike the Greek tradition, it was the younger man's duty to court the older man. Sometimes the mentor and mentee would remain close friends after the mentee came of age, and other times a homosexual relationship would not end despite the custom. While male love in Japan existed both before and after the Samurai, Shudo was introduced to the Samurai by Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi (the great master from Kobo). Kobo was the founder of a Japanese branch of Vajrayana Buddhism, and also the founder of the Shingon school at Mount Koya in 816 A.D. Legend has it that he learned all about nanshoku from China. Ancient China had a thriving homoerotic tradition, including homosexual marriages. Kobo's school at Mt. Koya became known for Shudo, and its homoerotic literary works. Shudo flourished among the Samurai between the 1200's and the 1600's, and declined after that as the Samurai themselves declined in importance. Before the Samurai, male love existed among Japanese Buddhist monks. It was widely held that their vows of chastity only applied to the opposite sex. After the Samurai, while Japan was in an era of relative peace, male love became more common among the general population and even became commercialized. When it did, male love lost touch with its warrior ideals and sense of honor. Mishima was devoted to the restoration of these ancient Japanese cultural ideals. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of the Tatenokai, under pretext, visited the commandant of the Ichigaya Camp - the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of Japan's Self-Defense Forces. Inside, they barricaded the office and tied the commandant to his chair. With a prepared manifesto and banner listing their demands, Mishima stepped onto the balcony to address the soldiers gathered below. His speech was intended to inspire a coup d'etat restoring the emperor to his rightful place. He succeeded only in irritating them, however, and was mocked and jeered. He finished his planned speech after a few minutes, returned in to the commandant's office and committed seppuku. The customary kaishakunin duty at the end of this ritual had been assigned to Tatenokai member Masakatsu Morita, but Morita, also known to have been Mishima's lover, was unable to properly perform the task: after several attempts, he allowed another Tatenokai member, Hiroyasu Koga, to do the task. Morita then committed seppuku, and then Koga beheaded him. Another traditional element of the suicide ritual was the composition of jisei (death poems), before their entry into the headquarters. Mishima prepared his suicide meticulously for at least a year and no one outside the group of hand-picked Tatenokai members had any indication of what he was planning. His biographer, translator, and former friend John Nathan suggests that the coup attempt was only a pretext for the ritual suicide of which Mishima had long dreamed. Mishima made sure his affairs were in order, even leaving money for the defense trial of the three surviving Tatenokai members.
Today's Gay Wisdom 
2017 -
Yukio Mishima's Death Poem Masurao ga | ||
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|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 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! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 | ||
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Thursday, November 24, 2022
Via White Crane Institute // The Wisdom of Baruch Spinoza
| This Day in Gay History | ||
November 24Born 
1632 -
BARUCH SPINOZA, Dutch philosopher was born (d.1677); One of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, he laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. By virtue of his magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, Spinoza is also considered one of Western philosophy's definitive ethicists. He was raised and educated in the Orthodox Jewish fashion, also studying Latin and was thoroughly familiar with European humanism. What exactly is it that caused him to be excommunicated from the synagogue when he was only twenty-four years old? Many scholars have speculated that the horror Spinoza inspired in the Jewish community may have come not only from his espousal of advanced economic theories, but from his espousal, as well, of "Greek love" among impressionable students in the liberal circle where he taught. A Dutch physician, J. Roderpoort, wrote at The Hague in 1897: “Spinoza excites the youth to respect women not at all and to give themselves to debauchery.” Was Spinoza merely teaching the Greek and Roman classics, with their inevitable passages on pederasty? What were Roderpoort’s motives for discrediting the Jewish philosopher? Was Spinoza, in fact a pederast? It’s all open to speculation.
Today's Gay Wisdom 
2017 -
The Wisdom of Baruch Spinoza God would say:
Stop praying.
What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy
your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made
for you.
Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built
yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in
the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I
express my love for you.
Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you
there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that
your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with
which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame
me for everything they made you believe.
Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing
to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the
look of your friends, in your son's eyes...you will find me in no book!
Stop asking me "will you tell me how to do my job?" Stop
being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get
angry, or bothered. I am pure love.
Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive.
If I made you... I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures,
feelings, needs, inconsistencies... free will. How can I blame you if
you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being
the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could
create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of
eternity? What kind of god would do that?
Respect your peers and don't do what you don't want for
yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that
alertness is your guide.
My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the
way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only
thing here and now and it is all you need.
I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record.
You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell.
I can't tell you if there's anything after this life but I
can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only
chance to enjoy, to love, to exist.
So, if there's nothing after, then you will have enjoyed
the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won't
ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask. Did you like it? Did you
have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?...
Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing,
imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in
you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you
tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in
the sea.
Stop praising me, what kind of egomaniac God do you think I am?
I'm bored being praised. I'm tired of being thanked.
Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your
relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise
me.
Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you've been taught about me.
What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations?
The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.
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|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 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! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 |
Via Daily Dharma: Remaining Like a Log
Remaining
like a log is neither passive nor pacifist. Rather it describes a state
of mind capable of making wise decisions, unplugged from the emotional
charge of compulsive reactivity.
Helen Tworkov, “Just Power”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting Upon Social Action
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Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Frivolous Speech
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Via Daily Dharma: Navigating Family Dynamics
Consider
the moments when you take on a specific role with your
loved ones. Notice that there’s some sense of space in
the actual seeing of the role and the experience. The act of
seeing the role could be the doorway into a different
relationship.
Bart van Melik, “A Simple Exercise for Navigating Family Dynamics Over the Holidays”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - November 23, 2022 💌
The way in which I look at the events of my life, the perceptual vantage point has significantly shifted over time, so that I am much more inclined now to see the events of my life as an unfolding before me of a lawful set of events, and see it as connected across much broader time perspectives.
- Ram Dass -
Via White Crane Institute // COLIN TURNBULL
1924 -
The famed British-American anthropologist COLIN TURNBULL was born on this date (d. 1994). Best known for this groundbreaking books The Forest People & The Mountain People, Turnbull was also one of the first anthropologists to work in the field of ethnomusicology an interest shared by Gay Rights pioneer, Harry Hay.
Turnbull was an unconventional scholar who rejected neutrality. He idealized the BaMbuti and reviled the Ik, and described the latter as lacking any sense of altruism, in that they force their children out of their homes at the age of three, and gorge on whatever occasional excesses of food they might find until they became sick, rather than save or share.
However, several anthropologists have since argued that a particularly serious famine suffered by the Ik during the period of Turnbull's visit may have distorted their normal behavior and customs, and some passages in his book make it clear that the behavior and customs of the Ik during the period he describes were drastically different from what was normal for them before they were uprooted from their original way of life.
In the US, he lived with his professional collaborator and partner of thirty years, the African American Dr. Joseph Towles, as an openly gay, interracial couple in one of the most conservative areas of the 1960s rural Virginia.
During this time he also took up the political cause of death row inmates. After his partner's death in 1988, Turnbull, strongly affected, gave all his belongings to the United Negro College Fund. In 1989, he moved to Bloomington, Indiana to participate to the building of Tibetan Cultural Center with his friend Thupten Jigme Norbu, elder brother of the 14th Dalai-lama. In 1991 - 1992, he moved to Dharamsala, India where he took the monks' vow of Tibetan Buddhism, given to him by the Dalai Lama. He was then given a buddhist name.
He died in Virginia in 1994, aged 69. Both Towles and Turnbull died from complications of AIDS.
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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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Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Via Daily Dharma: Start Your Practice with Joy
By
starting our meditation practice with joy in our hearts, we begin to
associate all dharma activity with joy and we will, in time, begin to
look forward to practice.
Pema Düddul, “Awakening to Joy”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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