A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
Via Daily Dharma: Life’s Common Thread
What is it that stamps all of experience? What feature does all experience have in common? All experience is groundless, open, empty.
—Ken McLeod, “The Way of Freedom”
—Ken McLeod, “The Way of Freedom”
Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - June 24, 2018
When
you begin to awaken, you are not coming from such a needy place when
you enter into a relationship, not looking to 'lock in' so quickly. Your
need is still there as a human incarnation – but you are not so
identified with that need because you are already resting in a place of
love...
- Ram Dass -
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Via Lion’s Roar / Surviving a toxic workplace
|
|||
SURVIVING A TOXIC WORKPLACE | |||
I’ve found myself working on a project with a toxic manager. (Don’t worry, it’s not here at Lion’s Roar!) This person is aggressive and adversarial, constantly questioning the professionalism of everyone on the team. Every time I get an email from her, I get a tension headache. When I walk in the building, my limbs feel heavy with dread. Her inner circle is cold and aloof to me. It makes my belly hurt.
I sure wish I was one of those people who could just slough it off, saying to myself, It’s her problem. Not mine. I am a pro, doing my work well, and treating people with respect and kindness. But, you know, I can’t just shrug it off. Instead, I am the kind of person who takes it on myself when others don’t like me, thinking I must deserve it. I obviously can’t change her, and I can’t abandon the project. So what can I do? So far, all I’ve come up with is drawing pictures of her as a monster and eating numerous tubs of Haagen-Dazs. Luckily, there are people in the world who can go beyond ice-cream and think a little more spaciously. First, Lama Tsultrim Allione offers a practice for working with demons — inner ones and outer ones (like this manager). In doing this practice, I realize that I have to be there for myself in the situation, working with everything that is arising. Once I have taken care of myself, I can look for ways to be helpful to others on my team. Michael Carroll offers some wisdom for creating a healthy work environment. And, last, using Lodro Rinzler’s Buddhist slogans for the office, maybe I can help create a space where the poison doesn’t take root so strongly in the first place. It’s a lofty goal, but if we pesky humans are trying to change the world for the better, we might as well dream big. Reading these articles helped my shoulders relax. And it made me grateful, once again, that my day job in the dharma can show me ways to work with other areas of my life, so I don’t end up spending my whole paycheck on macadamia nut brittle ice cream. Although, I can’t lie, ice-cream does help a little bit. —Lindsay Kyte, associate editor, Lion's Roar magazine |
How to Feed Your Demons |
Lama Tsultrim Allione teaches you an innovative technique to turn your inner demons into friends. |
In today’s world, we suffer from record levels of inner and outer struggle. We find ourselves ever more polarized, inwardly and outwardly. We need a new paradigm, a fresh approach to conflict. This strategy of nurturing rather than battling our inner and outer enemies offers a revolutionary path to resolve conflict and leads to psychological integration and inner peace. |
Via Tricycle: A Big Gay History of Same-sex Marriage in the Sangha
Buddhists were marrying members of the LGBTQ community long before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in 2015 (and not making a big deal about it).
Budddhist same-sex marriage was born in the USA. That’s a little known but significant fact to reflect on now, just after the Supreme Court has declared legal marriage equality throughout the country. Appropriately enough, it all started in San Francisco, and was conceived as an act of love, not activism.
It’s also part of the oldest Buddhist organization outside Hawaii: the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA), part of the Shin tradition of Pure Land Buddhism.
During the Nixon years, the LGBTQ rights movement was picking up, and San Francisco was one of the primary centers of both activism and community building. Located not far from the famously gay Castro District, the Buddhist Church of San Francisco (BCSF) was attended by singles and couples, gay and straight. As consciousness rose, people began to seek the same services that heterosexuals already enjoyed in American society.
A male couple in the congregation eventually asked Rev. Koshin Ogui, then assigned to BCSF, to perform their marriage. He readily agreed, and the ceremony was held in the main hall—identical to other marriages at the temple, except for the dropping of gender-based pronouns in the service. Without fanfare, history was made.
Soon other BCA temples were also conducting same-sex marriages, and by the time of my research into the subject in the early 2010s, I couldn’t find a single minister in the scores of BCA temples who was unwilling to preside over same-sex weddings. Indeed, BCA ministers had already performed marriages for gay and lesbian couples, bisexuals, transgender people, and polyamorous groups.
Many of these were interracial marriages, or carried out for non-Buddhists who had nowhere else to go, though most were for members of local BCA temples.
The BCA and its sister organization in Hawaii had gone on record years earlier in support of marriage equality, and even lobbied the government to change the law. This support for LGBTQ rights has been recognized by the Smithsonian, which collected a rainbow-patterned robe worn by the BCSF’s current minister for the museum’s permanent collection.
Related: Becoming Jivaka
I’m ordained in the Shin tradition, so I was already aware of Shin inclusivity. (Indeed, though I’m not gay myself, I would not have joined any organization that failed to support LGBTQ rights.) But the historian in me itched to explain this phenomenon more comprehensively. Why was the BCA the first Buddhist organization to move toward marriage equality, and why hadn’t this movement provoked rancor and conservative resistance, as we’ve seen in so many other American religious denominations?
In searching for answers, I came to several interrelated conclusions. First, the history of racial and religious discrimination that the originally Japanese-American BCA faced (everything from mob violence to WWII internment camps) instilled revulsion for discrimination in Shin circles. Second, since Shin ministers are not celibate (the tradition was founded by a married monk in 13th-century Japan), they share lifestyles similar to their parishioners, and thus readily empathize with them on matters of sexuality and social relationships, which may be more abstract to celibate monks and nuns.
But most importantly, what minister after minister told me was that the fundamental point of Shin Buddhism is that Amida Buddha embraces all beings without any exceptions, without any judgments, without any discrimination. Amida opens the way to the Pure Land (and thus liberation) to the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the good and the bad, the black and the white.
Therefore, Amida Buddha also embraces the gay and the straight, the gender-conforming and everyone else, without any hesitation. It is this spirit that led Shin ministers to open their doors to same-sex couples, led Shin temples to march in Pride parades across the country, to pass proclamations affirming same-sex rights and marriage in particular, and to carry out education programs in their own communities.
The Shin community hasn’t been alone in supporting LGBTQ communities in American Buddhist circles. Though not as quickly or comprehensively, many other Buddhist groups have also moved toward performing same-sex marriages and affirming the value of their LGBTQ members. In the 1980s, a handful of same-sex marriages were performed by non-BCA teachers, including Sarika Dharma of the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles. By the end of the 1990s, American Tibetan, Theravada, and Zen teachers had all performed the first same-sex marriages in those respective traditions as well, and Soka Gakkai had gone from seeing homosexuality as a condition to be cured through Buddhist practice to performing large numbers of same-sex marriages for its members.
All of this was taking place in a country without legal recognition for married same-sex couples. They performed those ceremonies even though they knew the state would not recognize them, because it was the right thing to do.
Today those marriages are equal to everyone else’s, and there are signs that marriage equality is gaining acceptance in parts of Buddhist Asia. Taiwan held its first Buddhist same-sex marriage in 2012, with two brides in white dresses and veils presided over by a traditional shaven-headed nun. In Kyoto, Japan, Rev. Kawakami Taka of Shunkoin temple not only performs same-sex marriages at his historic Rinzai Zen temple, but has also partnered with local hotel, flower, and similar vendors to provide wedding packages for same-sex couples arriving from around the world. Step by step, the movement continues.
Related: Working Through the Strong Emotions of Sexual Identity
On Saturday morning, June 27, I gave keynote address for a seminar at the New York Buddhist Church, “Embraced by the Heart of Amida Buddha: The LGBTQ Community and Shin Buddhism.” It’s part of an educational campaign that the BCA’s Center for Buddhist Education carries out every year in late June. Speakers talked about their experiences as gay, lesbian, and transgender Buddhists, and on Sunday we’ll walk in the New York Pride parade with members of the temple. We had no idea that our event would occur at such a historic moment, but now we know that we’ll be marching as an act of pure celebration, rather than hope and defiance.
Despite the positive record of many sanghas and individuals, discrimination and ignorance remain widespread in American Buddhism. That isn’t something that will change overnight with a single Supreme Court decision, no matter how momentous. But we can genuinely take heart that American Buddhists have been working for marriage equality for more than 40 years, and that Buddhists of many traditions spoke out for equality and contributed to the movement that led to today’s ruling.
[This story was first published in 2015]
Via Daily Dharma: The Joy of Concentration
Unlike
sensory pleasure that leads only to an instant of temporary happiness,
the joy we feel when we achieve deep concentration brings peace and
tranquillity.
—Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Desire and Craving”
—Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Desire and Craving”
Friday, June 22, 2018
Ilumina - Deva Premal
"Ó, grandioso sol, sol central
Ilumina, ilumina, ilumina, ilumina
Ó, grandiosa lua no céu
Ilumina, ilumina, ilumina, ilumina
Ó, grandiosa estrela no céu
Ilumina, ilumina, ilumina, ilumina
Ó, grandiosa rainha da floresta
Ilumina, ilumina, ilumina, ilumina"
Via Daily Dharma: The Mind’s Shimmering Reflection
Mind is thus neither the source of light, like a shining sun, nor the reflected light of something greater, like the moon, but a shimmering pool of contingent potential, capable of reflecting sun, moon, and any other object that happens to dance upon its surface.
—Andrew Olendzki, “Mind Like A Mirror”
—Andrew Olendzki, “Mind Like A Mirror”
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Via Daily Dharma: Why Less Is More
Doing
less helps us savor what we do accomplish. We learn to do less of what
is extraneous and engage in fewer self-defeating behaviors, so we craft a
productive life that we truly feel good about.
—Marc Lesser, “Do Less, Accomplish More”
—Marc Lesser, “Do Less, Accomplish More”
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - June 20, 2018
I’m
in traffic - somebody has just cut me off. I feel something, a thought
form is arising. Then I just start to follow my breath. I can feel that
at first I’m busy with my anger and busy with my driving. Then after a
little while, I start to really hear the breath. As I hear the breath, I
come back. As I hear the breath, I note the hand on the steering wheel.
Then I note the emotions. I just keep coming back into the thicker and
thicker richness of this moment...
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Undisturbed Awareness
Mindful
of a thought, like the momentary glimpse of a colorful sunbird flashing
through the light, the heart remains undisturbed, serene in its
sky-like presence. Whatever the circumstance, bodily movement or
stillness, feeling well or distressed, with good concentration or
scattered attention, everything can be brought back to awareness.
—Kittisaro, “Tangled in Thought”
—Kittisaro, “Tangled in Thought”
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Via Purple Buddha Project / 11 Quotes of the Day | Motivational & Inspirational Quotes
Life Quotes of the Day
|
|
|
Via Daily Dharma: The Moment of Inspiration
Once
we see that nothing happens in a vacuum, that’s the exact moment when
we are properly inspired to become accountable for our own mind.
—Ethan Nichtern, “Awake With Others”
—Ethan Nichtern, “Awake With Others”
Monday, June 18, 2018
Via Daily Dharma: Befriend Your Current Self
Meditation
practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become
something better. It’s about befriending who we are already.
—Pema Chödrön, “We Can Still Be Crazy”
—Pema Chödrön, “We Can Still Be Crazy”
Sunday, June 17, 2018
Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - June 17, 2018
Desirelessness is moksha (liberation). Desire is the creator, desire is the destroyer, desire is the universe. And when I see the desires that put me in this predicament at this moment, at one level I feel horror, but then I say even that's an attachment. All I can end up feeling is a great sense of the poignancy of the predicament. How poignant it is.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Practice as a Parent
The mutual care that family life expresses is our buddhanature, actualizing itself in its most palpable and tender ways.
—Lama Makransky, “Family Practice”
—Lama Makransky, “Family Practice”
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Via PURPLE BUDDHA PROJECT / 11 Inspirational Quotes of the Day - Motivational & Inspirational Quotes
Life Quotes of the Day
|
|
|
Via Daily Dharma: Just Do!
All that we should do is just do something as it comes. Do something! Whatever it is, we should do it, even if it is not-doing something. We should live in this moment.
—Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, “Breathing”
—Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, “Breathing”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)