Sunday, October 22, 2023

Via Daily Dharma: The Fifth Precept

The Fifth Precept

Intoxicants take you away from reality; meditation takes you toward reality. Which do you want? You are already intoxicated by ignorance, anger, and attachment and suffer as a result. Why do you want to take more intoxicants?

Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, “The Fifth Precept”


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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation //


The next message you need is always right where you are. 

- Ram Dass -

Saturday, October 21, 2023

Via Esther Perel // A Translation


 

Tenha o cuidado em separar as pessoas das políticas de seus governos. Tenha o cuidado de separar as pessoas das ações dos terroristas que vivem entre elas.  

 

Tenha cuidado para não reduzir a história e o contexto a uma interpretação restrita. Tenha cuidado para não evitar a complexidade e as nuances em prol da memeificação. 

 

Tenha o cuidado em reconhecer que a dor de um lado não significa ódio ao outro lado. Tenha o cuidado em compreender que o apoio a um lado não significa ódio ao outro lado. 

 

Tenha cuidado com a manipulação em nível de massa: desinformação e a negação da perda. Tenha cuidado para não descartar a dor excruciante e real dos outros. 

 

Não torne as coisas piores. Tenha cuidado para não dizer coisas online que você não diria para alguém na vida real. Tenha cuidado para não adicionar ódio ao ódio, pois estamos todos sendo esmagados sob o seu peso crescente. 

 

Tenha cuidado para não perder a empatia por aqueles de quem você discorda. Tenha cuidado para não desumanizar os outros, pois fazer isso desumaniza você.

 

Não perca o contato com as suas partes que você mais precisa: Sua compaixão. Sua humanidade. Seu cuidado.

Via LGBTQ Nation // What is gay math?


 

Via GBF / Dhammachari Danadasa


 

Via [GBF] Opening the Heart to Joy & Sorrow - with Danadasa

 A new dharma talk has been added to our website and podcast:


"Opening the Heart to Joy & Sorrow" - with Dhammachari Danadasa
When we open our heart, we open it to all experiences: our greatest joys and our deepest sorrows.
Danadasa shares an image that represents the meaning of Vadrasana - the "Diamond Throne," on which the Buddha is said to have gained enlightenment under the bodhi tree at Bodhgaya, India. Not just a literal place, the Vadrasana also resides within each of us, as a place that we can come to in order to experience awakening.
Danadasa shares that we must move beyond pursuing only the fruits of our meditative practice. It is only when we address those aspects that may distress us that we begin to recognize injustice, anger, grief and sorrow.
Danadasa e compares the wisdom that results from striving upward with that which arises from below. Striving upward does work, but then we have no roots. We must become open to just receiving without trying to achieve something. This is what happens when we learn from experiences that distress us; it gives rise to emotional resilience.

Via Listen to this week’s podcasts from the Be Here Now Network

 

Thank you for listening to our podcasts every week! We truly appreciate your support. Here are the episodes that went out this week.

Listen now to our most recent episodes!
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Raghu Markus – Mindrolling – Ep. 513 – Practicing Paramitas with Tenzin Palmo
October 20, 2023
“During our daily life, we have so much opportunity to practice. To practice being generous, to practice being patient in the face of other...
Listen Now

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

 

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RIGHT EFFORT
Developing Unarisen Healthy States
Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders healthy states, one has abandoned unhealthy states to cultivate healthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to healthy states. (MN 19)

Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to develop the arising of unarisen healthy mental states. One develops the unarisen awakening factor of equanimity. (MN 141)
Reflection
We all have the capacity for generosity, kindness, and wisdom. Some would even say these are more fundamental to our nature than their harmful opposites: greed, hatred, and delusion. All these mental and emotional traits remain dormant until one or another of them is roused into becoming an active mental or emotional state. Instead of waiting passively to see what emerges, take the lead and call up the good stuff.
Daily Practice
Take a few moments from time to time to “stir up energy” and develop one or more of the healthy states that lie sleeping as healthy traits in your unconscious mind. Make them conscious by deliberately invoking generosity or kindness or equanimity, and see how you can induce these states more or less at will. It is a healthy skill to learn. Arousing equanimity is particularly useful in situations where you are challenged.
Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna
One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

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 Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
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© 2023 Tricycle Foundation
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Via Daily Dharma: Each Moment is Enough

Each Moment is Enough

A wonderful result of letting go is to experience each moment as being enough, just as it is. It allows us to be present for our experience here and now with such clarity and freedom that this very moment stands out as something profound. 

Gil Fronsdal, “What We Gain When We Learn to Let Go”


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Via FB //


“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

― Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac
March 12, 1922 - October 21, 1969

 

Via White Crane Institute //

 


Faygele BenMiriam
1944 -

FAYGELE BENMIRIAM, was born on this day (d:2000) . A Seattle civil-service worker who made news in 1972 when he lost his job because he was gay, but who in 1978 convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the firing, wore his beliefs proudly. An ardent crusader for gay, racial and religious rights, he organized national men's meetings and took part in the 1987 Lesbian and Gay March on Washington, D.C.

He helped found Seattle's Gay Community Social Services, which opened the Gay Community Center and produced the first gay country-music album, "Lavender Country."

In 1971, with then-partner Paul Barwick, he was part of the first King County couple to apply for - and be denied - a license to marry someone of the same sex.

"Faygele never looked at things from a standardized viewpoint," said friend Duane West, who in the 1970s marched with benMiriam at an anti-gay-harassment rally at the home of Seattle police Chief George Tielsch. "From the early days he and others did a lot of work, and now police march in gay-pride parades."

Born John Singer in New York, Mr. benMiriam in 1973 changed his first name to Faygele — Yiddish for "little bird" and "gay person." He changed his surname to benMiriam — "son of Miriam."

Even in childhood he was an activist. He refused to pray with the rest of his class at public school in the 1950s. He attended several colleges, served as a Vista volunteer for civil-rights causes in the mid-1960s, applied for conscientious-objector status and served as an Army medic in Germany.

In 1970 he earned a liberal arts degree at City College of New York. He worked in a San Francisco bank before moving to Seattle. He got a job as a clerk-typist with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1971, openly declaring his homosexuality. He got excellent work reviews but wore capes and dresses to work and was fired a year later. The American Civil Liberties Union took his case and they pursued it up to the Supreme Court.

The high court vacated his firing and ordered the Civil Rights Commission to reconsider in light of new federal civil-service regulations of 1975. Those regulations require that people not be disqualified from federal employment solely on the basis of sexual preference.

Mr. benMiriam got back pay but chose to work for the U.S. Department of Labor, from which he retired in 1995. He served on the National Board of the New Jewish Agenda, worked with the International Jewish Peace Union and was active in Kadima of Seattle. He loved baking and knitting gifts for others.

Faygele benMiriam died of lung cancer.


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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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Friday, October 20, 2023

IQBC

IQBC - What it Means to Me | International Queer Buddhist Conference

International Queer Buddhist Conference
October 27th, 2023 at 9:00am ET
Online


Lama Rod will offer the keynote on Real Change in Times of Apocalypse at the 3rd annual IQBC, founded by Dr. Jampa Wurst with the mission to create a safe space for all 2SLGBTQIA+ people. The virtual conference also includes music, film, art/drawing, social gatherings, and more.


















The IQBC are meant to be a safe and protected space, no matter which sexuality, gender, color oder culture you belong.

For more information, visit our website:

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

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RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures
Sensual misconduct is unhealthy. Refraining from sensual misconduct is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning sensual misconduct, one abstains from misbehaving among sensual pleasures. (MN 41) One practices thus: “Others may engage in sensual misconduct, but I will abstain from sensual misconduct.” (MN 8)

Mental states cognizable by the mind are of two kinds: those to be cultivated and those not to be cultivated. Such mental states as cause, in one who cultivates them, unhealthy states to increase and healthy states to diminish, such mental states are not to be cultivated. But such mental states as cause, in one who cultivates them, unhealthy states to diminish and healthy states to increase, such mental states are to be cultivated. (MN 114)
Reflection
Because of the basic principle that what you attend to will flourish and what you neglect will atrophy, the issue of what internal states you cultivate becomes a matter of great importance. Some patterns of thought encourage the growth of mental and emotional states that contribute to our overall well-being, while others have the opposite effect, digging us deeper into the hole, so to speak. It helps to see and understand this. 
Daily Practice
Sensual pleasures are alluring, and all things being equal, we don’t want to live such an austere life that we deny ourselves simple pleasures. But we all know there are dangers here, and our best defense is knowing what to cultivate and what not to cultivate. Look into this matter directly, and see for yourself what states of mind are healthy and unhealthy for you. Then undertake a commitment to cultivate your own health.
Tomorrow: Developing Unarisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Intoxication

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

Questions?
 Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
Tricycle is a nonprofit and relies on your support to keep its wheels turning.
© 2023 Tricycle Foundation
89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003
Maturing into Ease

A mature practice offers us a wiser, more spacious way of being with every single thing our life offers, with clarity, wisdom, compassion, balance, and a deep sense of ease. It’s an unshakeable and profound okayness with things as they are. 

Mark Van Buren, “Sitting with the Things I Came to Practice to Get Away From”


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