Wednesday, January 4, 2023
Via Daily Dharma: Separating Awareness
It is this capacity to separate awareness from the common reflex of continual judging that can be transformative.
Andrew Olendzki, “What’s in a Word? Sati”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Malicious Speech
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Tuesday, January 3, 2023
Via FB // “Our Lady of New Frontiers, Nichelle Nichols”
“Our Lady of New Frontiers, Nichelle Nichols”
My last painting of 2022, and I wanted it to be a painting carrying me into the new year, a tribute to an amazing and inspirational woman.
Star Trek has been a show I have watched since I was a wee one. I started with TNG as a child, but when I finally watched TOS in college, its impact was undeniable, both today and especially during the time it aired.
Although the famous speech says “final frontier”, Nichelle Nichols was a woman leading the way onto new frontiers, a beacon of hope, resilience and possibility. So that is what I wish to carry with me into the new year.
Via White Crane Institute // JAMES CATHERWOOD HORMEL
pool of blood.
1933 -
JAMES CATHERWOOD HORMEL, born on this dat (d: 2021)was an American philanthropist LGBT activist, diplomat, and heir to the Hormel meatpacking fortune. He served as the United States Ambassador to Luxembourg from 1999 to 2001, and was the first openly gay man to represent the United States as an ambassador.
Hormel was born in Austin, Minnesota. He is the grandson of George A. Hormel, founder of Hormel Foods. Hormel is the son of Germaine Dubois and Jay Catherwood Hormel, who served as president of Hormel Foods. Hormel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Swarthmore College and a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School. After law school, Hormel served as the dean of students and director of admissions at the University of Chicago Law School.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton considered Hormel for the ambassadorship to Fiji, but did not put the nomination forward due to objections from Fijian government officials. At the time, gay male sexual acts were punishable with prison sentences in Fiji and Hormel's being open about his sexuality would stand in conflict with "Fijian culture". Instead Hormel was named as part of the United Nations delegation from the United States to the Human Rights Commission in 1995, and in 1996 became an alternate for the United Nations General Assembly.
In October 1997 Clinton nominated Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg, which had removed laws prohibiting consensual same-sex acts between adults in the 1800s. This appointment was the first nomination or appointment of an openly LGBT person from the United States. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination with only Republican and conservative Senators Jesse Helms and John Ashcroft opposed. While his confirmation by the senate initially seemed certain, with only two senators—Tim Hutchinson and James Inhofe—opposing the nomination, subsequent revelations about Hormel's background led to more opposition from Republican senators, leaving Hormel's nomination in limbo. Among the points of contention were:
- The James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library, which Hormel funded, was found to contain pornographic materials and documents published by the pro-pedophilia advocacy group NAMBLA. Christian-based conservative groups like the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) and the Family Research Council (FRC) labelled Hormel as being pro-pornography, asserting that Hormel would be rejected in the largely Roman Catholic Luxembourg. It was later observed that much of the same material could also be found in the Library of Congress.
- The FRC distributed video tapes of a television interview with Hormel at the 1996 San Francisco Pride parade in which Hormel laughed at a joke about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of men who dress in drag as nuns "to mock religious conventions," as they passed by. The Catholic League took this as an indication of approval of what they characterized as an anti-Catholic group. In a meeting with Tim Hutchinson, Hormel declined to repudiate the Sisters. In an interview years later, Hormel objected to the idea that the video clip showed that he approved of the group and that he was anti-Catholic.
- It was revealed that Hormel had contributed $12,000 to fund the production of It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School, a video aimed at teaching tolerance of homosexuality to grade-school students. This especially inflamed Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, who was portrayed unflatteringly in the film. Smith contended that he opposed Hormel not because he was gay but because of his "advocacy of the gay lifestyle".
Trent Lott, the Republican majority leader, worked to block the vote and publicly called homosexuality a sin and compared it to alcoholism and kleptomania.
Concerns about Hormel's reception in Luxembourg were "blunted when officials of the country, which has laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation, indicated that he would be welcome." Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York found the obstruction of the nomination an embarrassment and urged that Trent Lott bring the issue up for a vote. When Lott continued to stall, Clinton employed a recess appointment on June 4, 1999. Hormel was sworn in as ambassador in June 1999. His partner at the time, Timothy Wu, held the Bible during the ceremony. Also in attendance were Hormel's former wife, his five children, and several of his grandchildren. The treatment of his nomination was referenced by Pete Buttigieg during his acceptance speech for his nomination as Secretary of the Department of Transportation on December 16, 2020.
In 1981, he was one of the founders of the Human Rights Campaign. He was a member of the boards of directors of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Hormel contributed $500,000 to fund the creation of the James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library in 1996 (renamed the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center in 2016).
Hormel participated in numerous events, including a conference organized in 2004 by Amnesty International in the frame of the Geneva Gay Pride. In 2010 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal Award by San Francisco Pride Board of Directors for his LGBT activism over several decades.
Hormel was married to Alice Turner, now a retired psychologist, for ten years before coming out of the closet. He had five children, fourteen grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. He lived in San Francisco, California, with his spouse Michael Peter Nguyen Araque. James Hormel died in San Francisco on August 13, 2021, at the age of 88.
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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 buddhist global relief®
May all beings be liberated from the suffering of poverty and hunger.
May all beings abide in a just world.
May all beings dwell in beloved community.
May all beings live in peace and harmony with one another and with the natural environment.
May all beings be free.
Via Daily Dharma: The Perfection of Generosity
The
perfection of generosity challenges us to identify our expectations,
projections, and attachments—those things we think we need or don’t need
in order to have a “perfect” life—and find a way to release and go
beyond them.
Lama Tsomo, “The Depth of Generosity: A Reflection for Giving Tuesday”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Compassion
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Via White Crane Institute // Today's Gay Wisd
Today's Gay Wisdom 
2022 -
After researching and writing this collection for more than a decade, it was a pleasant surprise to discover some new bit of Gay history one afternoon. Listening to All Things Considered on a drive home to upstate New York from Connecticut on New Year’s Day, we listened to author and biographer Mosette Broderick discussing her book, Triumvirate: McKim, Mead & White: Art, Architecture, Scandal, and Class in America's Gilded Age (Knopf ISBN-10: 0394536622), a multiple biography of the three architects who shaped the American architectural scene well into the 20th century (the firm still exists, though under a different name, now). I nearly drove off the road when she dropped this little tidbit into the conversation. “It’s quite clear from their letters that something happened between them while they traveled in Italy.” The “them” she refers to is no less than architect Stanford White and his longtime collaborator – and now, it would seem, lover – August Saint-Gaudens. Yes, Stanford White was eventually (and now one might suggest “ironically”) shot by the irate cuckolded husband of actress Evelyn Nesbitt, Philadelphia plutocrat Harry K. Thaw. And yes, August Saint-Gaudens was a married man. As the French say chacun à son goût! And as we say: Whatever. In the book Broderick goes into great detail about the relationship, but some particular things jump off the page to the careful reader. Though Saint-Gaudens was, indeed, married, it seems that this was a classic marriage of convenience, particularly for Saint-Gaudens for whom the marriage meant financial security found in the wealth of his wife and her family. When she attempted to make “an arrangement” for White with her own sister, White wrote to friends protesting, “’I am sure that she – or any other girl – is not for me.” Broderick goes on, “White’s remarks about women and marriage seem to indicate a lack of interest in any serious relationship. Indeed, beyond a generic reference to “pooty” girls, there is little other indication of ending his bachelor status.” Oh those bachelors! “Pooty” girls. Indeed. But perhaps the most telling…and dare we say romantic...story Broderick relates is of the two men’s sojourn together in Italy. “While in Italy alone with Gus [August Saint-Gaudens] who had been in Italy twice before and could act as a guide, something happened between the two of them that cannot be fully ascertained. White’s letters, which were carefully edited by his son in the Depression years, contain references to an incident that almost cost the men their friendship. With an ocean between them in the following months each writes the other admitting blame and urging the other not to be too serious about what happened. Gus seems to do the bulk of the apologizing for his behavior. The language used by the two—who address each other as “beloved” and even “doubly beloved” and sign their missives as “ever lovingly thine”—indicates a possible pass made at White by Saint-Gaudens. Although probably the act was rejected, an ambiguity toward homosexual moments appears in their letters from this point forward; both words and drawings seem to indicate a shared experience, and their old motto Kiss My Ass, used as an ending for letters, becomes more serious when signed with graphic cartoon drawings.” | ||
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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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Monday, January 2, 2023
Via Daily Dharma: Letting Go of Control
To
maintain a deep, sustained practice of mindfulness is to consistently
disidentify with the experience of self as willing agent, to let go of
the obsessive need to discriminate, judge, and choose.
C. W. Huntington, Jr., “Are You Looking to Buddhism When You Should Be Looking to Therapy?”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering
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Sunday, January 1, 2023
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - January 1, 2023 💌 🎆
The root of fear is the feeling of separateness that can exist here,
within oneself. The root of the fear is within the model one has of
oneself. That’s where fear starts. Once that feeling of separation
exists, then you process everything from either inside or outside in
terms of that model. It then keeps reinforcing the feeling of
vulnerability, because there are incredibly powerful forces moving both
inside and outside of you.
The transformative process of spiritual work is reawakening to the
innocence of going behind that model of separation that one has, that
cuts you off, that made you a tiny little fragile somebody. A lot of the
power comes from a freeing of our own fragility.
- Ram Dass -
Daily Dharma: We Practice Together
We always practice together. Even when we’re sitting alone, we’re practicing together.
Norman Fischer, “We Are Our Relationships”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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