Via White Crane Institute / This Day in Gay History: BAYARD RUSTIN

March 17 Born Bayard Rustin 1912 - BAYARD RUSTIN American civil rights activist, born (d: 1987) Largely behind the scenes in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and earlier, and one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, it was Bayard Rustin who counseled Martin Luther King Jr. on the techniques of nonviolent resistance. For much of his career, Rustin lived in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, in the union-funded Penn South complex, from 1978 with his partner Walter Naegle. He became an advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes in the latter part of his career; however, his sexuality was the reason for attacks from within the civil rights movement as well as from many governmental and other interest groups. A year before his death in 1987, Rustin said: "Twenty-five, thirty years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves Gay, homosexual, or Lesbian."

Via Daily Dharma: Where Fear Should Be Felt

We should not be afraid of suffering. We should be afraid of only one thing, and that is not knowing how to deal with our suffering.

—Thich Nhat Hanh, “Why We Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Suffering”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 15, 2020 💌

For many of us, the thought of death, thinking of when we or someone we love is going to die, keeps us from being here now. When will we die? How will we die? What will happen after we die? What will happen to our loved ones? What about all the things we hoped to accomplish? These deep fears and anxieties about our survival keep us from living fully in the present moment.
Most of us are convinced that we are our egos, which is who we think we are. The ego is part of our incarnation. It dies with the body, which is why we are so afraid of death. Death scares the hell out of who you think you are, especially if you think you are this body. Being around death forces you to open to a deeper part of yourself. The shadow, especially the shadow of death, is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light.
When you are fully present in the moment, there is no anticipatory fear, no anxiety, because you are living here and now, not in the future.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Seeing Worth in All Things

The sensitive, mindful heart perceives value and worth in all things. It does not rely upon drama or intensity to feel awake and alive, but draws upon receptivity, stillness, and a present moment wholeheartedness.

—Christina Feldman, “Brief Teachings”

Via Daily Dharma: Be Aware of Becoming Unaware

Every time you recognize that you have lost awareness, be happy. The fact that you have recognized that you lost awareness means that you are now aware.

—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, “The Art of Investigation”

Via Daily Dharma: Your Practice Is Always Present

We are not separate from our practice, and so no matter what, our practice is present.

—Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, “Like a Dragon in Water”

Geopolitical and Personal Nonkilling Choices in Times of Collapse by Manuel Casal Lodeiro

Presentation by Manuel Casal Lodeiro (Instituto Resiliencia and Centro de Saberes para a Sustentabilidade) at Åbo Akademi University in Vasa during the Fifth international “Explorations in Peace & Conflict Research” conference on March 13, 2020 focusing on the topic “Nonkilling Responses to Climate Crisis”. Co-organized by the Center for Global Nonkilling and the Programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research at Åbo Akademi University.

Via Daily Dharma: How Mindfulness Leads to Autonomy

Mindfulness is not only about paying attention and being aware but also about deciding where we want to put our attention.

—Interview with Gina Biegel by Wendy Joan Biddlecombe Agsar, “How to Support Your Teen’s Meditation Practice”

Via Daily Dharma: How to Cultivate Relationships with Obstacles

When challenges or obstacles arise for us, we don’t have to get so intimidated; we can say, “Yes, it’s an obstacle, but it is not intrinsically bad; it’s not going to destroy me.” To create a relationship with the obstacle, learn about it, and finally overcome it … gives us a chance to cultivate wisdom and skillful means.

—Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, “Old Relationships, New Possibilities”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 11, 2020 💌

Until you can allow your own beauty, your own dignity, your own being, you cannot free another; so if I were giving one instruction, I would say: Work on yourself, have compassion for yourself, allow yourself to be beautiful and all the rest will follow.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Becoming Free from Thoughts

If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view. If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought.

—Norman Fischer, “Beyond Language”

Via Daily Dharma: Meaning Is Relative

Meaning is relative and always in flux, part of a chain of reference that never comes to an end.

—David Loy, “The Dharma of Deconstruction”

Via Daily Dharma: Working with Anger

We can try, in a spirit of simple curiosity, to get so close to our anger that we no longer know or feel it as anger. Cause and object, the self being angry, and the anger itself all drop away, and all that remains is the precious energy, freed at last.

—Roshi Nancy Mujo Baker, “Precious Energy”

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation / Words of Wisdom - March 8, 2020 💌

First rule: listen to your inner voice.
Second rule: be honest with yourself.
The predicament is that you listen to your inner voice, and it leads you to a path, and then you outgrow it. And you don't want to admit that you've outgrown it because you've made a big investment in it. But you must be willing to let go, to stand as naked as a newborn child, again and again, and again.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Take Destiny into Your Own Hands

The events and circumstances of our lives do not happen by accident; rather they are the result of certain causes and conditions. When we understand the conditions necessary for something to happen, we can begin to take destiny into our own hands.

—Joseph Goldstein, “The Evolution of Happiness”

Via White Crane Institute / Gay Wisdom: GLENN GREENWALD

Glenn Greenwald

1967 -

GLENN GREENWALD is an American lawyer, journalist and author born on this date. He was a columnist for Guardian US from August 2012 to October 2013. He was a columnist for Salon.com from 2007 to 2012, and an occasional contributor to The Guardian. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator.

At Salon he contributed as a columnist and blogger, focusing on political and legal topics. He has also contributed to other newspapers and political news magazines, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The American Conservative, The National Interest and In These Times. In 2014 he became, along with Laura Poitrasand and Jeremy Scahill, one of the founding editors of The Intercept.

Greenwald was named by Foreign  Policy Magazine as one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013" and The Advocate named him as one of the "50 Most Influential LGBT Persons in 2014".

Four of the five books he has written have been on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Greenwald is a frequent speaker on college campuses, including Harvard Law, Yale Law, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, UCLA School of Law and the University of Wisconsin. He frequently appears on various radio and television programs.

In June 2013 Greenwald became widely known after The Guardian published the first of a series of reports detailing United States and British global surveillance programs, based on classified documents disclosed by Edward Snowden. The series on which Greenwald worked, along with others, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

His reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA) won numerous other awards around the world, including top investigative journalism prizes from the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting, the 2013 Online Journalism Awards, the Esso Award for Excellence in Reporting in Brazil for his articles in O Globo on NSA mass surveillance of Brazilians (becoming the first foreigner to win the award), the 2013 Libertad de Expresion Internacional award from Argentinian magazine  Perfil, and the 2013 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Greenwald lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the hometown of his partner, David Michael Miranda. Greenwald has said his residence in Brazil was the result of an American law, the Defense of Marriage Act, barring federal recognition of same-sex marriages, which prevented his partner from receiving a visa to reside in the United States with him.

Via Daily Dharma: Paying Attention Changes the World

Attention changes what kind of a thing comes into being for us: in that way it changes the world.

—Iain McGilchrist, “Examining Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: Paying Attention Changes the World

Attention changes what kind of a thing comes into being for us: in that way it changes the world.

—Iain McGilchrist, “Examining Attention”

Via Daily Dharma: What Makes an Enlightened Life?

If I had to summarize the entirety of an enlightened
person’s life in a few words,
it would be complete acceptance of what is.
As we accept what is, our minds are relaxed
and composed
while the world changes rapidly around us.

—Haemin Sunim, “The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down”