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.
Thursday, June 9, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Social Action
Reflecting Upon Social Action
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One week from today: Reflecting upon Bodily Action
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
Via Daily Dharma: Seeing into Compassion
The
practice of seeing clearly is what finally moves us toward kindness.
Seeing, again and again, the infinite variety of traps we create for
seducing the mind into struggle, seeing the endless rounds of
meaningless suffering over lusts and aversions (which, although
seemingly urgent, are essentially empty), we feel compassion for
ourselves.
Sylvia Boorstein, “The Wisdom of Discomfort”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via White Crane Institute \\ Alain Locke
ALAIN LEROY LOCKE died on this date (b: 1885); Locke was an American, writer, educator, and patron of the arts, distinguished as the first African-American Rhodes Scholar in 1907. Locke is widely cited as the philosophical architect —the acknowledged "Dean"— of the Harlem Renaissance. On March 19, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed: "We're going to let our children know that the only philosophers that lived were not Plato and Aristotle, but W.E.B. DuBois and Alain Locke came through the universe."
Alain Locke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 13, 1885 to Pliny Ishmael Locke and Mary Hawkins Locke. He was the only child of a well-to-do family with significant pedigree. His mother Mary, who was a teacher, and with whom he lived until her death, incited in him his passion for education and literature. In 1902, he graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia, second in his class. He also attended Philadelphia School of Pedagogy.
Locke returned to Harvard in 1916 to work on his doctoral dissertation, The Problem of Classification in the Theory of Value. In his thesis, he discusses the causes of opinions and social biases, and that these are not objectively true or false, and therefore not universal. Locke received his PhD in philosophy in 1918.
Locke returned to Howard University as the chair of the department of philosophy. During this period, he began teaching the first classes on race relations, leading to his dismissal in 1925. After being reinstated in 1928, Locke remained at Howard until his retirement in 1953. Locke Hall, on the Howard campus, is named after him.
In 1907, Locke graduated from Harvard University with degrees in English and philosophy, and was honored as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and recipient of the prestigious Bowdoin Prize. After graduation, he was the first African-American selected as a Rhodes Scholar (and the last to be selected until 1960). At that time, Rhodes selectors did not meet candidates in person, but there is evidence that at least some selectors knew he was African-American.
On arriving at Oxford, Locke was denied admission to several colleges, and several Rhodes Scholars from the American South refused to live in the same college or attend events with Locke. He was finally admitted to Hertford College, where he studied literature, philosophy, Greek, and Latin, from 1907–1910. In 1910, he attended the University of Berlin, where he studied philosophy.
Locke promoted African-American artists, writers, and musicians, encouraging them to look to Africa as an inspiration for their works. He encouraged them to depict African and African-American subjects, and to draw on their history for subject material.
He was the guest editor of the March 1925 issue of the periodical Survey Graphic titled "Harlem, Mecca of the New Negro", a special on Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance, which helped educate white readers about its flourishing culture. In December of that year, he expanded the issue into The New Negro, a collection of writings by African Americans, which would become one of his best known works. A landmark in black literature (later acclaimed as the "first national book" of African America), it was an instant success. Locke contributed five essays: the "Foreword", "The New Negro", "Negro Youth Speaks", "The Negro Spirituals", and "The Legacy of Ancestral Arts".
Locke was Gay, and encouraged and supported other Gay African-Americans who were part of the Harlem Renaissance. However, he was not fully public in his orientation and referred to it as his point of "vulnerable/invulnerability",
Locke died at Mount Sinai Hospital, of heart disease. Howard University officials initially considered having Locke's ashes buried in a niche at Locke Hall on the Howard campus, similar to the way that Langston Hughes' ashes were interred at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City in 1991. But Kurt Schmoke, the university's legal counsel, was concerned about setting a precedent that might lead to other burials at the university. After an investigation revealed no legal problems to the plan, university officials decided the remains should be buried off-site. At first, thought was given to burying Locke beside his mother, Mary Hawkins Locke. But Howard officials quickly discovered a problem: She had been interred at Columbian Harmony Cemetery in Washington, D.C., but that cemetery closed in 1959 and her remains transferred to National Harmony Memorial Park—which failed to keep track of them. (She was buried in a mass grave along with 37,000 other unclaimed remains from Columbian Harmony.)
Howard University eventually decided to bury Alain Locke's remains at historic Congressional Cemetery, and African American Rhodes Scholars raised $8,000 to purchase a burial plot there. Locke was interred at Congressional Cemetery on September 13, 2014. His tombstone reads:
1885–1954 - Harlem Renaissance - Exponent of Cultural Pluralism
On the back of the headstone is a nine-pointed Baha'i star (representing Locke's religious beliefs); a Zimbabwe Bird, emblem of the nation Locke adopted as a Rhodes Scholar; a lambda, symbol of the Gay Rights movement; and the logo of Phi Beta Sigma, the fraternity Locke joined. In the center of these four symbols is an Art Deco representation of an African woman's face set against the rays of the sun. This image is a simplified version of the bookplate that Harlem Renaissance painter Aaron Douglas designed for Locke. Below the bookplate image are the words "Teneo te, Africa" ("I hold you, my Africa")
A new biography of Locke by Jeffrey Stewart "The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke," was released in February 2018.
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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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Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Via White Crane Institute \\ ALAN TURING
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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 White Crane Institute \\ KENNETH LEWES
KENNETH LEWES was an Renaissance scholar who became a psychologist who went on toe question modern psychoanalysis of homosexuality. He was born on this date and grew up in a post-World War II working-class neighborhood of the northeast Bronx, the son of an immigrant couple who never got beyond grade school. He guessed even before he entered junior high school that he was gay.
But it wasn’t until he was nearly 50 — and publishing what would become a critically acclaimed takedown of post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories of homosexuality — that he confided his sexual orientation to his parents.
“I remember finding my way to the local public library and checking out books on psychology and human development,” he said in an interview in 2019 with the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, “in hopes of finding some reassurance that my interest in handsome boys was only a stage that I would soon pass through.”
Dr. Lewes was married at 23 and divorced by 32 — the age when he had his first homosexual experience. “It seemed only natural for me to be out of the closet to my friends, colleagues and family,” he said, “with the important exception of my parents, who, it had become clear over the years, did not want to hear anything on that particular subject. I came out to them almost 15 years later.”
In his signal book, Dr. Lewes took on the psychoanalytic establishment over what he called its “history of homophobia.” He concluded, “Many analysts have violated basic norms of decency in their treatment of homosexuals.” Dr. Lewes’s major work, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Male Homosexuality (1988), traced the evolution of the prevailing view that homosexuality was a curable illness and explored what he called the psychoanalytic establishment’s “century-long history of homophobia.” The book’s title was changed to Psychoanalysis and Male Homosexuality in later editions.
Drawing on some 500 primary sources, Dr. Lewes’s book, which expanded on his doctoral dissertation, found that most analysts had adhered to “popular prejudice” against gay people and clichés about them. “Many analysts,” he concluded, “have violated basic norms of decency in their treatment of homosexuals.”
He said he had been unable to find a single analysis of the subject written by a psychoanalyst who identified as gay.
Dr. Lewes found that the Oedipus complex could lead to 12 alternative resolutions, six of them heterosexual and six homosexual. “All results of the Oedipus complex are traumatic,” he wrote, “and, for similar reasons, all are ‘normal.’”
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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 Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - June 8, 2022 💌
My own strategy is to keep cultivating the witness, that part of me that notices how I’m doing it—cultivate the quiet place in me that watches the process of needing approval, of the smile on the face, of the false humility, of all the horrible creepy little psychological things that are just my humanity. And watching them occur again and again and again.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: We Lack Nothing
You
lack nothing. You lack nothing of the wisdom and perfection of the
Buddha, right at this moment. Hearing, breathing, you don’t differ even
one drop from hearing, breathing Buddha.
Elihu Genmyo Smith, “No Need to Do Zazen, Therefore Must Do Zazen”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Frivolous Speech
Refraining from Frivolous Speech
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One week from today: Refraining from False Speech
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Tuesday, June 7, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Equanimity
Cultivating Equanimity
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One week from today: Cultivating Lovingkindness
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
Via Daily Dharma: Let Passing Thoughts Pass
We
have no control over what confronts us when we step out our door. We
don’t blame ourselves when the weather is bad; we didn’t cause the
weather and thus don’t feel responsible for it. But when passing
thoughts appear in our mind, we often take them personally, as though we
were the owner and controller of such thoughts.
Haemin Sunim, “Three Methods for Letting Go of Thoughts”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Monday, June 6, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering
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One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
Via Daily Dharma: The Work to Transform
As
long as we’re using up our energy to resist our circumstances, we won’t
be able to dedicate it to the work of true transformation.
Vanessa Zuisei Goddard, “The Gift of Contemplation”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Sunday, June 5, 2022
Via Facebook \\ Sukhasiddhi Dag Shang Kagyu
Kyabje Karma Rangjung Khunkyab, Kalu Rinpoche:
Indian Buddhist master Shantideva emphasized in one of his works, that this precious human existence, with the opportunity and freedom for spiritual development, is very difficult to obtain, and if we have obtained it and do not make proper use of it How can we expect to get such an opportunity on the future? The question is that the human rebirth we are experiencing now, is not something random that takes place without meaning, nor effort. "It is something that happens with great difficulty, something that rarely happens."
Nineteen & Two
By Sofía Aguilar
I am
mourning nineteen children I never knew.
I am mourning untied shoelaces and velcro straps,
unzipped backpacks and incomplete homework.
Their
good grades in school
and the poor ones too.
Their gold stars and the bad marks,
their hair braided so tight with bolitas
before breakfast their head ached until dinner.
How
they scrunched up their faces at their baby studs and communion shoes,
straps marking their ankles skin-red.
How when crossing a street,
seeking solace from their fear
their fingers already knew
to clutch tight to another’s.
I am mourning their two teachers
who
looked like my mother my tías
my abuelas
in an earlier life,
younger
faces of the people I love. I am mourning the lost lunches and the lesson plans
left, laid out on their desks.
The
notes and suggestions to their students,
spare thoughts they scribbled to themselves. Every day’s outfit planned before
the week began ironed by hand and hung there in the closet,
the clothes they will never wear again.
In passing,
my father berates the Texas police
their lack of urgency
their defense of handcuffing
parents
families
tasing their bodies
to stop them from begging, ripping free
or breaking down the school doors in their fury.
I want
to ask him,
If everyone had been white inside that school,
all blonde locks and fair faces,
the kind easily found and easily missed,
would the police have intervened?
Would they have risked their lives
to save a child they didn’t claim?
Or would they still have left nineteen children
and their two teachers for dead?
But already I know these are not the right questions. Instead,
What do we do
when we’re dying at the hands
of a shooter who was one of our own?
A boy who shared the rhythm of our name
and spoke the same language with
the same tongue in his mouth,
rather than a white man
with a colonized mind
and a gun in his hands
this country deems his right to wield?
I do not mourn him.
I
don’t know how.
I mourn a community breaking from bullets
death
decay
deportation
assimilation
alienation
segregation
punishment for seeking a better life only to have it taken away instead.
I mourn the children who lived. Who remember those who didn’t.
Who now carry the burdens alone.
Sofía Aguilar is a Chicana poet based in Los Angeles and author of the forthcoming collection “STREAMING SERVICE: season two.” @sofiaxaguilar
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third Jhāna
Establishing Mindfulness of Mind
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One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and Abiding in the Fourth Jhāna
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.