Via White Crane Institute // John RUFUS GIFFORD

 

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Ambassador Rufus Gifford and husband Dr. Stephen DeVincent

1974 -

John RUFUS GIFFORD, is an American politician, diplomat, and reality television personality, who currently serves as the chief of protocol of the United States. Between 2013 and 2017, he was the United States Ambassador to Denmark.

Gifford is the son of Charles K. Gifford, a banker who is the chairman emeritus of Bank of America. He grew up in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. He graduated from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire in 1992 and he received his B.A. from Brown University in Rhode Island.

After college, Gifford moved to Hollywood and served as an assistant to producer John Davis. During his time there, he became the associate producer for Daddy Day Care, Life or Something Like It, and Dr. Dolittle 2, and appeared as an actor in the films Garfield: The Movie and The Hiding Place.

In 2012, Gifford was Finance Director for Barack Obama's presidential re-election campaign. Once re-elected, Obama nominated him to be the United States Ambassador to Denmark, a post he held until the end of Obama's presidency. After returning to the United States, he was a candidate for the House of Representatives in 2018, running in Massachusetts's 3rd congressional district. Gifford lost in the Democratic primary to Lori Trahan, who would go on to win the general election.

He was Deputy Campaign Manager for Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign.

In August 2013, Gifford's nomination from President Obama to be the next United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark was confirmed by the United States Senate. He was sworn into the role on August 15, 2013, and presented his credentials to the Queen of Denmark on September 13, 2013.

In his capacity as the Ambassador, he helped modernize the transatlantic relationship through youth engagement and institution-building, among other bilateral and global issues. He outlined a diplomatic strategy that prioritized non-traditional audiences and people-to-people relationships. As part of a never-before-seen public diplomacy strategy, he was the subject of the documentary series I am the Ambassador. The documentary TV series about his life as an ambassador ran for two seasons, winning the Big Character award at the 2015 TV-Prisen award-show.

As Ambassador, he traveled to Greenland for bilateral meetings on climate change, promoted counter-extremism initiatives and Danish–American trade, and worked to maintain Danish military support in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2016, he accompanied U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, several American mayors (including current U.S. Secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg), as well as Danish Transport Minister Hans Christian Schmidt on a bike ride around Copenhagen to showcase its success as a "cyclist-friendly city."

Gifford was an integral part of bringing the American art form of Long Form Improvisation to Denmark. In September 2016, he was in the opening show at the first improv theatre in Denmark, Improv Comedy Copenhagen, and said, "No matter what you are doing, you always have to allow time to laugh, smile and have fun. And creating that balance is incredibly important." Gifford served as an honorary board member of the American-Danish Business Council.

In January 2017, Gifford was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog by Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark for his "meritorious service to the Kingdom of Denmark."

Gifford is out gay, and commentators from GQ, Huffington Post, and L.A. Weekly referred to him as Barack Obama's informal "ambassador to the gay community." He married his husband, Dr. Stephen DeVincent, a veterinarian, in October 2015 in a ceremony at Copenhagen City Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark. They live in Concord, Massachusetts. In 2016, Gifford co-wrote a cookbook with his husband, called The Ambassador's Kitchen. He is a Federal Club Member of the Human Rights Campaign and a Partner in Conservation for the World Wildlife Fund.

Ambassador Gifford is currently the chief of protocol of the United States for the Biden administration.

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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: Generating Awareness

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Generating Awareness In forgoing our most basic desires, we greatly heighten our ability to see them, and by seeing them, to do the work of freeing ourselves from them. This doesn’t mean eliminating them or never enjoying things. It means giving ourselves the level of awareness that lets us choose. Bhikkhu Santi, “The Sign of the Renunciant” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

What Is Vipassana Meditation? By Tricycle The history and practice of this popular Buddhist meditation technique. Read more »

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

 

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects 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)   When the awakening factor of joy is internally present, one is aware: “Joy is present for me.” When joy is not present, one is aware: “Joy is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen joy occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen awakening factor of joy occurs, one is aware of that . . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is a mental object.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection Mindfulness practice is about looking very closely at the details of our experience. Every single moment something different is happening, and we train our mind to notice as much as we can, rather than running on automatic or making educated guesses. Here we are selecting one particular emotion, joy, and observing the dynamics of its arising and passing away and how it can be encouraged and developed with practice. Daily Practice Get in touch with the sensations that well up when you experience joy. To do this, call to mind something joyful and see how it feels. Remember: Joy is an emotion with mental as well as physical manifestations in experience. Then notice when these sensations are not present, when joy is absent. This is the kind of detailed investigation mindfulness practice entails. But remember not to cling to anything—just watch it pass through. RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna) With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters upon and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure      and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4) One practices: “I shall breathe in liberating the mind”;  one practices: “I shall breathe out liberating the mind.” This is how concentration through mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated       so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (A 54.8) Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering  One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - August 4, 2024 💌

 

There is a way of shifting consciousness so that you see that you're one in the form of many. You understand that a starving person or a dying person or a frightened person is you. Then the whole trip of, "What's good for me? What do I want? What do I need?" becomes less interesting. And that changes the universe.

- Ram Dass

Via GBF // "The Sacred Tapestry of Your Life" with Dorothy Hunt

Our latest dharma talk is now available. Here's a 60-second audio preview

 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Fc-AZMs64co

 

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"The Sacred Tapestry of Your Life"

If we are an expression of the whole, why does life feel so personal?  

In a talk that examines duality, Dorothy Hunt asks us who and what we really are. Is our awareness something that belongs to us as a separate 'me', or is it instead something that arises from our experience of reality?

She likens reality to an enormous unending tapestry on a loom, consisting of interwoven strands that give rise to the whole.   

The vertical cords are the 'warp' - the stable structure that determines the shape of the tapestry, akin to our true nature -- that unchanging awareness for which each person is a vehicle. 

The horizontal threads, known as the 'weft,' constantly change to provide color, texture and variety, much like the moment-to-moment experiences, thoughts and words in our lives.

Just as a wave cannot be separated from the ocean, no single thread can be removed without affecting the whole. 

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You can watch or listen to the talk on our website or YouTube:

The Sacred Tapestry of Your Life – Dorothy Hunt | Gay Buddhist Fellowship 

The Sacred Tapestry of Your Life - Dorothy Hunt - YouTube

or listen on your favorite podcast player.

Via Queerty // How James Baldwin’s life & legacy can help us navigate the problems of today

 

Via White Crane Institute //

 

RUDOLF BRAZDA, (b: 1913) believed to be the last surviving man to wear the pink triangle — the emblem sewn onto the striped uniforms of the thousands of homosexuals sent to Nazi concentration camps, most of them to their deaths — died  on this date. Mr. Brazda, who was born in Germany, had lived in France since the Buchenwald camp, near Weimar, Germany, was liberated by American forces in April 1945. He had been imprisoned there for three years. It was only after May 27, 2008, when the German National Monument to the Victims of the Nazi Regime was unveiled in Berlin’s Tiergarten park — opposite the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe — that Mr. Brazda became known as probably the last gay survivor of the camps. Until he notified German officials after the unveiling, the Lesbian and Gay Federation believed there were no other pink-triangle survivors. Mémorial de la Déportation Homosexuelle, a French organization that commemorates the Nazi persecution of gay people, said that Mr. Brazda “was very likely the last victim and the last witness” to the persecution. “It will now be the task of historians to keep this memory alive,” the statement said, “a task that they are just beginning to undertake.” One of those historians is Gerard Koskovich, curator of the  Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender History Museum in San Francisco and an author with Roberto Malini and Steed Gamero of A Different Holocaust (2006). Pointing out that only men were interned, Mr. Koskovich said, “The Nazi persecution represented the apogee of anti-gay persecution, the most extreme instance of state-sponsored homophobia in the 20th century.” During the 12-year Nazi regime, he said, up to 100,000 men were identified in police records as homosexuals, with about 50,000 convicted of violating Paragraph 175, a section of the German criminal code that outlawed male homosexual acts. There was no law outlawing female homosexual acts, he said. Citing research by Rüdiger Lautmann, a German sociologist, Mr. Koskovich said that 5,000 to 15,000 gay men were interned in the camps and that about 60 percent of them died there, most within a year. “The experience of homosexual men under the Nazi regime was one of extreme persecution, but not genocide,” Mr. Koskovich said, when compared with the “relentless effort to identify all Jewish people and ultimately exterminate them.” Still, the conditions in the camps were murderous, said Edward J. Phillips, the director of exhibitions at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Men sent to the camps under Section 175 were usually put to forced labor under the cruelest conditions — underfed, long hours, exposure to the elements and brutal treatment by labor brigade leaders,” Mr. Phillips said. “We know of instances where gay prisoners and their pink triangles were used for guards’ target practices.” Two books have been written about Mr. Brazda. In one, “Itinerary of a Pink Triangle” (2010), by Jean-Luc Schwab, Mr. Brazda recalled how dehumanizing the incarceration was. “Seeing people die became such an everyday thing, it left you feeling practically indifferent,” he is quoted as saying. “Now, every time I think back on those terrible times, I cry. But back then, just like everyone in the camps, I had hardened myself so I could survive.” Rudolf Brazda was born on June 26, 1913, in the eastern German town of Meuselwitz to a family of Czech origin. His parents, Emil and Anna Erneker Brazda, both worked in the coal mining industry. Rudolf became a roofer. Before he was sent to the camp, he was arrested twice for violations of Paragraph 175. After the war, Mr. Brazda moved to Alsace. There he met Edouard Mayer, his partner until Mr. Mayer’s death in 2003. He has no immediate survivors. “Having emerged from anonymity,” the book “Itinerary of a Pink Triangle” says of Mr. Brazda, “he looks at the social evolution for homosexuals over his nearly 100 years of life: ‘I have known it all, from the basest repression to the grand emancipation of today.’ ” He died on August 3, 2011 in Bantzenheim, in Alsace, France. He was 98.

|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! www.whitecraneinstitute.org |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|

Via Tricycle //

 

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August 3, 2024 Eradicating Anger Through Emptiness In difficult times, it’s easy to turn to anger. But is it productive?  According to Tibetan Buddhist nun Venerable Thubten Chodron, anger is never useful. In her book, Working with Anger: Buddhist Teachings on Patience, Acceptance, and Transforming Negativity, she draws from the teachings of the 8th-century Buddhist philosopher Shantideva to offer practical tools for uprooting anger. By seeing that ignorance of our interconnectedness is at the root of anger, we can respond with an understanding of emptiness. “When we can develop the wisdom that sees that what ignorance is holding as true is not true, then ignorance collapses,” says Venerable Chodron. “When ignorance collapses, then its offshoots like anger, greed, hostility, arrogance, jealousy, these things all collapse. That’s how when we realize the ultimate nature, which means how things really exist, then that works to diminish this anger on the conventional level.” Venerable Chodron joined Tricycle’s Editor-in-Chief, James Shaheen, on the latest episode of Tricycle Talks to discuss these facets of anger and how we can cultivate peace and compassion. Listen to the episode »

Via Daily Dharma: Inclining Toward Nirvana

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Inclining Toward Nirvana Just as the Ganga slants, slopes, and inclines toward the east, so too a practitioner who develops and cultivates the four meditations slants, slopes, and inclines toward nirvana. Gautama Buddha, “The Buddha on Jhana” CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE