Via White Crane Institute

 

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989
This Day in Gay History
December 01 Noteworthy World AIDS Day 2021 - WORLD AIDS DAY: dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people, with an estimated 38.6 million people living with HIV, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. Despite recent, improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claimed an estimated 3.1 million (between 2.8 and 3.6 million) lives in 2005 of which, more than half a million (570,000) were children. The concept of a World AIDS Day originated at the 1988 World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programs for AIDS Prevention. Since then, it has been taken up by governments, international organizations and charities around the world. From its inception until 2004, UNAIDS spearheaded the World AIDS Day campaign, choosing annual themes in consultation with other global health organizations. In 2005 this responsibility was turned over to World AIDS Campaign (WAC), who chose Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise as the main theme for World AIDS Day observances through 2010, with more specific sub-taglines chosen annually. This theme is not specific to World AIDS Day, but is used year-round in WAC's efforts to highlight HIV/AIDS awareness within the context of other major global events including the G* Summit. World AIDS Campaign also conducts “in-country” campaigns throughout the world, like the Student Stop AIDS Campaign, an infection-awareness campaign targeting young people throughout the UK. |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 Daily Dharma: One with the Universe

 

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One with the Universe If we open the hand of thought, we are one with the whole universe. This truth leads to the crucial point for us of what role we should be playing right now, right here. Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, “Tending the Practice-Ground” CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: The Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering

 

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RIGHT VIEW Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering What is the origin of suffering? It is craving, which brings renewal of being, is accompanied by delight and lust, and delights in this and that: that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for non-being. (MN 9) When one does not know and see visual forms as they actually are, then one is attached to visual forms. When one is attached, one becomes infatuated, and one’s craving increases. One’s bodily and mental troubles increase, and one experiences bodily and mental suffering. (MN 149)

Reflection Once you have recognized an aspect of suffering in your own lived experience, the next step is to come to understand that it has a specific origin. All suffering is rooted in some form of craving or attachment, some wanting for things to be different than they are. The senses are not entirely passive, but "reach out" in some way to pursue the objects (in this case sights) that it favors and avoid those with which it is not comfortable. Daily Practice The Buddhist approach to suffering is not theoretical or conceptual but profoundly experiential. We will explore the origin of suffering by reviewing each of the senses in turn, looking for a particular cause of a particular instance of suffering. We easily become attached to and infatuated with visual forms and yearn to see some things and not others. Look in your own experience for the tendency to favor some sights over others.  Tomorrow: Cultivating Compassion One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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 Real transformation always begins from the inside.

Not through pressure from others,

not through external circumstances,

not through force or fear—

but through inner awakening.

When life crushes you from the outside, you feel destroyed.

But when you break open from within, you are reborn.

Greatness doesn’t come from outside approval.

Healing doesn’t come from waiting for someone else.

Growth doesn’t come from changing your surroundings.

It comes from changing yourself.

Your mindset, your habits, your choices, your awareness.

Everything you want—

peace, strength, confidence, clarity, wisdom—

begins inside your own heart and mind.

Buddha’s Teaching on Inner Development

The Buddha taught that all suffering and all happiness arise from the mind.

External conditions shape circumstances,

but your inner state determines your life experience.

He said:

“As the mind is, so the world becomes.”

“Train your mind, and everything will change.”

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

Inner development is the foundation of a better life because:

A calm mind sees clearly.

A disciplined mind makes wise choices.

A compassionate mind builds healthy relationships.

A mindful mind breaks unhealthy patterns.

No amount of external change matters if the internal world remains chaotic.

Great things don’t begin outside you.

They begin inside you —

in your thoughts, your awareness, and your willingness to grow.

Via GBF: Letting Go Into Wholeness – Jokai | Gay Buddhist Fellowship

The latest dharma talk has been added to the GBF website, podcast and YouTube channel:

Letting Go Into Wholeness – Jokai | Gay Buddhist Fellowship

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In this quietly powerful talk, Jokai Blackwell reflects on how Zen practice invites us into a deeper intimacy with life — not by escaping discomfort, but by softening our resistance to it. He shares personal stories and teachings from Zen and early Buddhism that reveal how clinging to control or certainty only increases suffering.

Instead, Jokai encourages listeners to cultivate a practice of surrender: of returning, again and again, to the grounded experience of the body, breath, and present moment. This embodied awareness becomes a gateway to wholeness — not a fixed state, but a dynamic unfolding that includes everything, even the messy and uncertain.

He outlines several key teachings to support this shift toward presence:

• Wholeness is not perfection: It's the capacity to include and be with whatever arises.

• Grasping and aversion fragment our experience: They reinforce the illusion of separation.

• The body is a reliable refuge: Returning to bodily sensations helps us drop into direct experience.

• Letting go is active, not passive: It's a courageous practice of turning toward, not away.

• Practice is relational: Awakening unfolds in connection — with self, others, and life itself.

Jokai’s words are both spacious and grounded, inviting listeners into a felt sense of trust — not in outcomes, but in the wisdom of showing up fully to the life that’s already here.

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Enjoy 850+ free recorded dharma talks at https://gaybuddhist.org/podcast/

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation //

 

“Once the seed is planted, you don’t have any choice – its karma. Once you have seen what it all is like you can’t just go back to playing bridge, it just doesn’t cut it. When you sense that possibility, once you feel that other thing inside of you, you begin this unconscious searching and looking for the next message. The interesting thing is that there is always a next message, and it is always available to you.”   Source: Ram Dass – Here and Now – Ep. 10 – Through Illusions

Via Daily Dharma: Trample Your Limitations

 

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Trample Your Limitations It is by trampling on whatever our unique limitations are that we find the freedom to compassionately understand others with this all-encompassing wisdom of human conditions. Anam Thubten, “Trample on What Challenges You” CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and the First Jhāna

 

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Body 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)   Mindful, one breathes in; mindful, one breathes out. . . . One is just aware, just mindful: "There is body." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection The path factor of right mindfulness will be explored by going carefully through the meditation instructions found in the classic text Satipatthāna Sutta, or Establishment of Mindfulness Discourse. The first thing we notice about it in this introductory section is how deliberate and intentional the practice is: one goes to a quiet place, sits down, and engages deliberately in the establishment of mindfulness. Daily Practice Mindfulness of the body begins with breathing. Take some time to sit quietly and just breathe in and out. Breathing mindfully simply means bringing full awareness to the various micro-sensations that accompany every in-breath and out-breath. As the refrain prompts us, see if you can attend to these sensations directly, without thinking about them and without clinging in any way by favoring or opposing any sensation.  RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the First Phase of Absorption (1st Jhāna) Having abandoned the five hindrances, imperfections of the mind that weaken wisdom, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, one enters and abides in the first phase of absorption, which is accompanied by applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of seclusion. (MN 4) Reflection Since there are seven days in the week and eight path factors, we dedicate Sundays to practicing both kinds of meditation: mindfulness and concentration. Concentration practice involves focusing the mind on a single object, such as the breath, and returning attention to this focal point whenever it wanders off, which it will do often. All forms of meditation involve some level of concentration, so it is a good thing to practice. Daily Practice Formal concentration practice, involving absorption (Pali: jhāna) in four defined stages, requires more time and sustained effort than occasional practice generally allows and would benefit from careful instruction by a qualified teacher. You may begin on your own, however, simply by practicing to abandon the five hindrances, since jhāna practice only really begins when they temporarily cease to arise.  Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and Abiding in the Second Jhāna Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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