Thursday, June 29, 2023

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Mental Action

 


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RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Mental Action
However the seed is planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing good deeds, bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too mental action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61)

When you are doing an action with the mind, reflect upon that same mental action thus: “Does this action I am doing with the mind lead to both my own affliction and the affliction of another?” If, upon reflection, you know that it does, then stop doing it; if you know that it does not, then continue. (MN 61)
Reflection
Just as you can train yourself to be aware of the inbreath and outbreath moment by moment as you breathe, so also you can learn to be aware of your mind both taking in information and responding outwardly to events. It is more difficult, because the mind is subtle, but the principle is the same. Here we are being asked to take some responsibility for what unfolds in our mind, steering it toward what is healthy.

Daily Practice
Notice the texture of thoughts as they arise and pass away in the mind. Be aware of them as events occurring and fading, rather than focusing on the content of the thought. The mind is a process and can be carefully observed. Notice also the quality of this activity, whether it is laced with ill will or aversion or selfishness, or if it is accompanied by good will, kindness, and concern for others. Gently guide your mind toward the good.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures
One week from today: Reflecting upon Social Action

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Via Daily Dharma: The Insight of Interconnectedness

 

The Insight of Interconnectedness

When you understand interconnectedness, it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying. 

Robert A. F. Thurman, “Rising to the Challenge: Cool Heroism”


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Wednesday, June 28, 2023

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - June 28, 2023 💌


 

"The cosmic humor is that if you desire to move mountains and continue to purify yourself, you will ultimately arrive at the place where you can move mountains. But to arrive at this position of power, you will have to give up being he-who-wanted-to-move-mountains so that you can be he-who-put-the-mountain-there-in-the-first-place. The humor is that when you finally have the power to move the mountain, you are the person who placed it there - so there the mountain stays."

- Ram Dass -

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Harsh Speech

 



RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from Harsh Speech
Harsh speech is unhealthy. Refraining from harsh speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning harsh speech, one refrains from harsh speech. One speaks words that are gentle, pleasing to the ear, and affectionate, words that go to the heart, are courteous, and are agreeable to many. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak harshly, but I shall abstain from harsh speech.” (MN 8)

How does there come to be insistence on local language and overriding of normal usage? In different localities they call the same thing by different words. So whatever they call it in such and such a locality, one speaks accordingly, firmly adhering to that word and insisting: “Only this is correct; anything else is wrong.” (MN 139)
Reflection
One way of refraining from harsh speech is to be adaptable to different modes of speech and not insist on your own particular way of stating things. In ancient India the Buddha moved from one region to another and encountered local variations of dialect. Today also we often move in different circles and encounter different populations, and it would help facilitate effective communication if we remained flexible in our speech.

Daily Practice
Try as a practice reframing your own thoughts and words in the vernacular of another. Today this seems especially important. Each person and each community has their own particular way of perceiving and expressing things, and we can only learn from each other if we are open to different modes of speech. Notice when you restate something said by another, perhaps diminishing their voice, and learn not to do this.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Mental Action
One week from today: Refraining from Frivolous Speech

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Via Daily Dharma: Getting to the Source

 

Getting to the Source

We usually take our habitual thoughts and emotional reactions as a given, an inevitable part of our experience. But investigating the mind at the subtlest level lets us see how emotions and thoughts begin in our very first reaction to what we perceive.

Tara Bennett-Goleman, “Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart”


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Via White Crane Institute // STONEWALL

 

Noteworthy
1970 -

On the one-year anniversary of the STONEWALL RIOTS more than 2,000 people march in New York City as part of the first Gay Pride march in the United States. On several occasions, the President of the United States has officially declared a Pride Month. First, President Bill Clinton declared June "Gay & Lesbian Pride Month" on June 2, 2000. Then, in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 President Barack Obama declared June Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. Must have slipped Boss Tweet's mind, but President Biden has renewed the tribute and even lit inside corridors of the White House in rainbow colors.

In 2016 Pride was marked by the naming of the Stonewall Inn as a National Monument to be administered by the National Park Service.

Alternative marches, seeking a less corporate-infused, commercial event, and to recognize that the origin of the action was not a "parade" but a march, have been quite successful and well-attended. Other parallel marches include the Dyke March and Drag Fest, as well as hundreds of other observations internationally.

Now more than ever...we must march. Make the streets run with rainbows.


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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 // DAVE KOPAY

 This Day in Gay History

June 28

Born
Dave Kopay by George Duran
1942 -

DAVE KOPAY, professional football player, born; A former American football player in the National Football League who in 1975 became one of the first professional athletes to come out as Gay. After he retired from the NFL, he was considered a top contender for coaching positions, but he believes he was snubbed by professional and college teams because of his sexual orientation. He went to work as a salesman/purchaser in his uncle's floor covering business in Hollywood. He is also a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation. His 1977 biography, The David Kopay Story, written with Perry Dean Young, offers insights into the sexual proclivities of heterosexual football players and their homophobia. In 1986, Kopay also revealed his brief affair with Jerry Smith (1943–1986), who played for the Washington Redskins from 1965–1977 and who died of HIV-AIDS without ever having publicly come out of the closet.


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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, June 27, 2023

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Appreciative Joy

 


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RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Appreciative Joy
Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis on which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on appreciative joy, for when you develop meditation on appreciative joy, any discontent will be abandoned. (MN 62) 

The purpose of appreciative joy is to ward off discontent. (Vm 9.97)
Reflection
It is so easy to feel discontent. There are lots of things, both within and around us, with which we can find fault. But the mind does not have to go there. It may do so on its own, but we can intervene and change the focus of our mind. Choose to turn your attention to all the things within and around you about which you can feel good. Seek out goodness and you will find it. This is a practice in itself.

Daily Practice
The next time you experience discontent, deliberately cultivate appreciative joy—gladness at the good fortune of others—as an antidote. Everything need not always be about us. Other people deserve to feel happy and have good fortune, and even if we ourselves are in the doldrums for some reason we can vicariously experience the well-being of others. Appreciative joy is always accessible; we merely need to reach for it.    

Tomorrow: Refraining from Harsh Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Equanimity

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
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Questions?
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89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003

Via Daily Dharma: No Mine, No Me

 

No Mine, No Me

If there is no regarding of phenomena as “mine,” then the self who suffers is not constructed.

Andrew Olendzki, “A Universal Formula”


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Via White Crane Institute // EMMA GOLDMAN

 This Day in Gay History

June 27

Born
Emma Goldman
1869 -

EMMA GOLDMAN, anarchist and feminist (d. 1940); An anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches. She was lionized as a free-thinking "rebel woman" by admirers, and derided as an advocate of politically motivated murder and violent revolution by her critics. Although she was hostile to first-wave feminism and its suffragist goals, Goldman advocated passionately for the rights of women, and is today heralded as a founder of anarcha-feminism, which challenges patriarchy (Harry Hay preferred the term “androarchy” as the rule was by men, not fathers necessarily) as a hierarchy to be resisted alongside state power and class divisions. In 1897 she wrote: "I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood."

A nurse by training, she was an early advocate for educating women concerning contraception. Like many contemporary feminists, she saw abortion as a tragic consequence of social conditions, and birth control as a positive alternative. Goldman was also an advocate of free-love, and a strong critic of marriage. She saw early feminists as confined in their scope and bounded by social forces of Puritanism and capitalism. She wrote: "We are in need of unhampered growth out of old traditions and habits. The movement for women's emancipation has so far made but the first step in that direction."

Goldman was an outspoken critic of prejudice against homosexuals. Her belief that social liberation should extend to Gays and Lesbians was virtually unheard of at the time, even among anarchists. As Magnus Hirschfeld wrote, "she was the first and only woman, indeed the first and only American, to take up the defense of homosexual love before the general public."

In numerous speeches and letters she defended the rights of Gays and Lesbians to love as they pleased and condemned the fear and stigma associated with homosexuality. As Goldman wrote in a letter to Hirschfeld,

"It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life."


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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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