Sunday, August 23, 2020
Via Lion's Roar // How to Practice Zazen
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| Jules Shuzen Harris teaches the meditation practice at the heart of Zen Buddhism. | ||
There
has been a lot of attention recently on the many practical benefits of
meditation. It reduces stress, lowers blood pressure, and is effective
in working with depression, anxiety, and anger. These are all good
reasons to meditate, but ultimately Buddhists practice zazen and other
meditations to realize what Buddhism calls our true nature, which is
beyond self-identity with its self-imposed limitations. From a Buddhist
perspective, our main problem is attachment to our deluded idea of who
we are, and what we need to do to maintain this delusion.
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Via Lion's Roar // How to Practice Shamatha Meditation
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| Shamatha meditation — mindfulness or concentration — is the foundation of Buddhist practice. Lama Rod Owens teaches us a version from the Vajrayana tradition. | ||
Shamatha
meditation allows us to experience our mind as it is. When we practice
shamatha, we are able to see that our mind is full of thoughts, some
conducive to our happiness and further realization, and others not. It
is not extraordinary that our minds are full of thoughts, and it is
important to understand that it is natural to have so much happening in
the mind.
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Via Lion's Roar: How to Practice Walking Meditation
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| Step-by-step — pun-intended — instruction from Leslie Booker. | ||
Walking meditation is often described as a meditation in motion.
In this practice, you place your full attention on the process of walking — from the shifting of the weight in your body to the mechanics of placing your foot. Walking meditation is an integral part of retreat life in many traditions and is used to offset and shift the energy of sitting practice. It is a bridge to integrate practice into daily life and can be more accessible than a sitting practice for many people. |
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Via Daily Dharma: Weaken the Power of Anger
Patience
is the only thing that defeats anger. Don’t be disappointed if you
can’t do it right away. Even after years of practice you may find that
you’re still losing your temper. It’s all right. But you will also
notice that the power of anger has weakened.
—Nawang Gehlek Rimpoche, “Anger and Patience”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - August 23, 2020 💌
Saturday, August 22, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: How to Deal with Pain
We
can bring empathy to ourselves by meeting pain with embodied awareness,
curious about the sensations. It’s not that we long for the pain to
continue. We can aspire for a release from pain, but we bring kindness
and compassion to whatever is happening.
— Sebene Selassie, “Belonging in the Body”
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Friday, August 21, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Moving Out of Isolation
The
Buddha’s teaching moves us from a contracted, isolated entity called
“me” to the freedom and interdependence of our empty and selfless
nature, free of suffering.
—Rodney Smith, “From Thought to Stillness”
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Thursday, August 20, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Keep a Peaceful Mind
When
your mind is trained in self-discipline, even if you are surrounded by
hostile forces, your peace of mind will hardly be disturbed.
—H. H. the Dalai Lama, “The Enemy Within”
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Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Via Lion's Roar // Ask the Teachers: What is the Buddhist view of hope?
Oren Jay Sofer, Sister Clear Grace, and Ayya Yeshe look at the meaning of hope in Buddhism and what it means in today’s world.
From left to right: Oren Jay Sofer, Sister Clear Grace, and Ayya Yeshe. Photos by Lauren Rudser, Thay Yasha, and Ayya Yeshe.
Question: What is the Buddhist view of hope? Is it just another delusion that pulls us out of the present moment and causes suffering, or can it also motivate us to work in a way that creates a better future?
Oren Jay Sofer: The Buddha’s teaching is fundamentally hopeful. It affirms that there is a reliable way to release ourselves from suffering, to protect other beings, mitigate harm, and build a better world.
I suffered from chronic illness for a few years in my thirties. For the first few months, with each new doctor, my mind soared with hopeful expectation for promising treatments, then crashed in fearful despair when it failed to deliver. Those years taught me a lot about the difference between hope based on craving and the steady energy of wise aspiration.
This practical hope is the foundation of the path.
What we might call “ordinary hope” directs our longing for happiness in an unskillful way. It places our well-being on an uncertain, imagined future beyond our control, thereby feeding craving and fixation. When the wished-for outcome isn’t realized, we are crushed.
Dhamma practice channels our longing for happiness, harmony, and equity in a skillful way. This begins with saddha, most frequently translated as “faith” or “conviction.” Saddha refers to one’s aspiration and confidence in the path. It is the intuitive sense that there is something worthwhile about being alive, that inner freedom is available for each of us.
To avoid being co-opted by craving, aspiration is supported by refuge and guided by wisdom. Refuge connects us with a tangible sense of emotional, psychological, and spiritual safety here and now. Refuge protects the heart, helping us to engage with the world from a place of love and acceptance rather than fear, anger, or reactivity. Those years of illness demanded I learn to touch this place of refuge amidst pain and uncertainty.
From there, it takes wisdom to meet life and respond to challenges without betting on fantasy, burning out, or sinking in despair. The wisdom of equanimity understands that we choose neither the circumstances of our life, nor the results of our actions. Both are beyond our control. What we can choose is how we relate, and how we respond.
Right View understands that actions have results. What we say and do right now, how we respond with our mind and body, matters. We can affect change—both internally and externally.
All of these factors work together to form what we might call realistic or practical hope. It’s a stable outlook that starts from where we are, acknowledges the reality of what’s happening, and assesses our own internal resources to respond.
This practical hope is the foundation of the path. When our actions are guided by wisdom and compassion, we can grow in resilience and in our capacity to serve. And we can steer toward inner freedom, clarity, and well-being.
Sister Clear Grace: In the Anguttara Nikaya 3:13, the Buddha teaches us that there are three kinds of people in the world: “The hopeful, the hopeless, and the one who has done away with hope.”
My very existence stands on the back of hope, a hope dependent upon a complicated reality of causes, conditions, and context. I am here today partially because of the seeds of hope for emancipation. Those before me tell of great songs sung to acquire hope, songs like “We Shall Overcome” and “A Change is Gonna Come.” They tell of political slogans, like King’s “I Have a Dream” and Obama’s “Yes We Can.” They tell of poetry, like Langston’s “I, Too” or Maya’s “Caged Bird.” They tell of Biblical passages once used to oppress, turning instead into paths of freedom, giving enslaved Africans a profound sense of hope of overcoming in the midst of suffering. This sort of transcendent hope can be a way of relating to suffering amidst continuity and change. In this way, hope sustains life or becoming, and offers a belief in the possibility of positive outcomes that help us develop intention in the face of obstacles.
Hope acquired through direct experience gives us insight into change.
In the wake of Covid-19 there is much to feel hopeless about: the senseless murders of Black bodies, xenophobia, classism, and racism. These realities are not to be denied and did not just arrive with the pandemic. For many, the virus has only re-exposed a divide or a type of social distancing that has been amongst us all along. The racial, economic, gender, citizenship status, and class disparities have exacerbated the very inequalities that Black, Indigenous, People of Color, elders, migrant workers, incarcerated, and detained people have always actively opposed in the hope of creating a better or more equitable future. As people rush to return to “normal,” many of us are concerned that our imperfect past will evolve into an imperfect new normal. We must take care that our hopes for a different now or a better future don’t lead us to fall into despair.
Hope acquired through direct experience gives us insight into change, rather than just the wanting of change. This wise hope can allow us to see things as they are—that nothing is inherently permanent or fixed. The Buddha directs us to a path that is wishless or without expectation. It is from this very space that we are then able to create and be the very hope that we wish to see.
Ayya Yeshe: Hope may seem like a very Christian concept, and a dualistic one at that. Hope is often tied into desire and craving, which Buddhists regard as a form of suffering. Hope (for happiness) and fear (of suffering), fame and infamy, praise and blame, gain and loss are the eight worldly dharmas—states of mental grasping that keep us locked into deluded ways of being.
But what if we look at hope as something different from desire? What if we acknowledge that we are not enlightened yet, and that hope as resilience—a long-term commitment to practice and social justice and compassion, equanimity, and watering the seeds of joy and happiness in ourselves—is a necessary part of the courage, strength, and endurance needed to become bodhisattvas, to become enlightened, and to create a more just world? Equanimity does not mean apathy, it means a balanced mind that can see the bigger picture, a calm and objective mind open to different points of view.
We must keep alive hope.
For someone deeply involved in meditation and concentrative states who has gone far on the path of dharma, hope probably is not that important. When we see that wisdom and joy are our natural state, the clarity beneath our projections, and our rich fundamental nature, there is no need to grasp for something good coming in the future, because we are already complete. However, we are not always connected to that big awakened mind. So in the meantime, we need a bit of happiness, self-care, humor, and kindness as well as a long-term vision. Hope could be compared to relative bodhicitta (the compassionate wish to liberate all beings including yourself from suffering and rebirth)—the mind that has not yet realized emptiness or perfect compassion but has a glimmer that such joyful natural goodness is possible. It’s like the great sun on the horizon, even as our heart is moved by the mess and suffering of the world. We hold both realities in our heart, the mess and the potential to awaken. Moving into ultimate bodhicitta (the realization of emptiness and true interconnectedness of all that is), one can leave behind smaller pleasures and the need for hope; one is complete, joyous, and free of duality. The gap between these two bodhicittas could be months, years, or lifetimes. We practice the six perfections (generosity, morality, patience, energy, concentration, wisdom), and we keep going. Because we have tasted peace and compassion and we know a better world, our better natures are possible—within and without.
In his final speech, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. took a long-term view of hope: “I’ve been to the mountaintop …Like anybody, I would like to live a long life … I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” We must keep alive hope, not because we need illusions to comfort us in this cruel world, but because separation and cruelty are the illusion—and we need to wake up. More than that, we need to act for justice.
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Via White Crane Institute // MARK THOMPSON
Mark Thompson
MARK THOMPSON, American activist, author and editor, was born on this date (d: August 23, 2016); Mark Thompson was born and raised on the Monterey Peninsula, California, during the 1950s and '60s. In 1973, Thompson helped found the Gay Students Coalition at San Francisco State University, where he was a journalism student, and has worked for Gay causes since that time.
He began his writing career at the national Gay and Lesbian news magazine The Advocate in 1975, reporting on culture and politics in Europe. Thompson continued to serve the publication during the next two decades in a number of capacities--as a feature writer, photographer, and Senior Editor. In 1994, he completed his tenure at the magazine by editing Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement (St. Martin's Press), a massive volume of half a million words and over seven hundred images documenting the Gay and Lesbian struggle for civil rights. The book was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards.
Thompson is best remembered, however, for his influential trilogy of books dealing with Gay spirituality. The first in the series, Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning (White Crane Books) was published in 1987. The anthology has been acclaimed around the world and was recently included on a list compiled by the Lambda Book Report of the "100 Lesbian and Gay Books That Changed Our Lives." The Los Angeles Times called Gay Spirit an "exciting challenge to conventional thinking."
Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit and Nature (HarperSan Francisco) followed in 1994. The Lambda Literary Award-nominated book consists of in-depth conversations and photographs with sixteen prominent writers, teachers, and visionaries. "Gay Soul is an outpouring of much-needed love--from new kinds of 'fathers'," commented poet Judy Grahn. Christine Downing, author of Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love, described the book as "a wake-up call to Gay souls." Robert Goss, author of Jesus Acted Up said, "I came away with a great deal of hope, for Gay spiritualities have the potentiality for profound cultural transformation."
The trilogy was completed in 1997 with the publication of Gay Body: A Journey Through Shadow to Self (St. Martin's Press), an autobiographical memoir combining elements of Jungian archetypes, Gay history and mythology, and New Age spirituality. The Washington Post said "the road Thompson travels is fascinating, as he unlocks closets within closets." Library Journal called the Lambda Literary Award-nominated book "a provocative work, seamlessly woven."
Mark and Malcolm gave a substantive interview about their twenty-year relationship in the fall 2005 issue of White Crane. Thompson latest book, Advocate Days, is a memoir about about LGBT activism in the 1970s. He was the co-editor of The Fire In Moonlight: A Radical Faerie Reader with this writer and Richard Neely.
He lived in Los Angeles with his life partner, Episcopal priest and author Malcolm Boyd who died the year prior to Mark. Mark had moved to Palm Springs after Malcolm’s passing. He suffered a heart attack swimming in his pool.
Via White Crane Insitute // GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA
Gustavo Santaolalla
GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA, born; Argentine film composer, born; composed the Academy-award winning soundtrack for Brokeback Mountain.
Argentine musician Gustavo Santaolalla began his musical career with the band Arco Iris. His love and commitment to music must have been strong: As he shares in this week's Alt.Latino, he was arrested and harassed by the authorities numerous times until, fed up, he finally left the country. Arco Iris has since become recognized as a pioneer in Latin rock.
Santaolalla's
career only moved uphill from there. He went on to produce albums that
became the canon of Latin rock, for artists such as Molotov, Maldita
Vecindad, Café Tacvba, Calle 13 and Bersuit Vergarabat. His own work as
an artist with groups like Bajofondo won him accolades, but he's best
known in many circles for his soundtracks: The Motorcycle Diaries, and the Oscar-winning scores for Brokeback Mountain and Bab
Via Daily Dharma: Achieving the Goals of Practice
The
goal should be reflected in the means, in the practice. If the goal is
to be at peace, some form of peacefulness should be a part of the
practice. To become compassionate, practice compassion. To be generous,
practice generosity. To be free, don’t let the practice or attainments
be objects of grasping.
—Interview with Gil Fronsdal by James Shaheen, “Living Two Traditions”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - August 19, 2020 💌
Dwelling in the moment is dwelling in the soul, which is eternal presence. When we're outside of time, there's no subject or object; it's all just here. The thinking mind deals only with subject and object. But from within here and now, you watch time go by. You are not being in time. You be, and time goes by, as if you were standing on a bridge and watching it all go by.
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Via QSpirit // Joseph and the queer Biblical princess coat
Joseph, a popular figure in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, can be seen as a gender-nonconformist who inspires LGBTQ people today.
Queer Bible scholars focus on how Joseph wore a robe that is usually known in English as a “coat of many colors,” but could be translated as a “princess coat.” The story of Joseph and his princess coat (Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28) will be read at many churches worldwide on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020.
Joseph’s father, Jacob, loved him more than any of this other children, so he had a special robe made for him. In Hebrew the robe is called “ketonet passim.” Its meaning is considered unclear by many traditional Bible scholars. Various translations use terms such as “a robe with long sleeves,” “an elaborately embroidered coat” or “a varicolored tunic.”
The only other use of the term is in II Samuel 13, where princess Tamar wears a “ketonet passim” and the author helpfully explains that this is “how the virgin daughters of the king were clothed in earlier times.”
Traditional Bible scholars found it confusing that Joseph would wear an article of female clothing, the meaning is clear enough to today’s queer people of faith.
From a queer perspective, it’s not surprising that when Joseph’s 11 brothers saw him in the princess coat, they got so upset that they attacked him and sold him into slavery. The Bible story goes on to tell how Joseph triumphed in the end, rising to become Egypt’s second most powerful man and rescuing his family from starvation during a famine.
Via Daily Dharma: Feeling Gratitude for What We Rely On
We
depend through the whole of life on the support of others—upon the
natural world, upon other people, and, spiritually, upon the tradition
of wisdom that has come down to us through human history. In the
traditional Buddhist way, our dependency is not a cause for despair but
rather leads to a sense of wonderment and gratitude.
—Dharmavidya David Brazier, “Living Buddhism”
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