Sunday, October 12, 2025

Via A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment \\ Laurie Anderson’s Buddhism: Art, Meditation, and Death as Adventure

Via NPR \\ NPR readers share their coming out stories for LGBTQ+ History Month

by Brittney Melton

October 12, 2025

Good morning. This week, gold hit $4,000 per ounce for the first time ever, Planet Money’s book became available for preorder, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Robert Roberson, whose case drew national attention over disputed medical evidence, a stay of execution.

Being true to you

National Coming Out Day was recognized yesterday. But coming out is not something that can be encompassed in a day. It is a process a person continuously does throughout their life. When thinking of this day, which is all about celebrating the lives of the many LGBTQ+ individuals who have decided to take that step and let someone into this intimate, vulnerable portion of their lives, I reflected on all the times someone has come out to me.

Left to right: Mel Barkalow, Winnie Aghenu, Anu Gupta and Ash Schade.

I have had family and friends come to me and trust me enough to tell their story. Their openness is something I don’t take for granted. I remember hearing the hesitation they sometimes had in their voices, and how sometimes they could not directly look me in the eyes when they shared the news. But I also remember people who stood tall as they told me, as if we were just trading conversations about how our day went.

Regardless of how my loved ones decided to inform come out, it is a significant feat to face possible rejection head-on. They likely realized that their decision this could change my relationship with them for the rest of our lives.

To me, that is bravery. And to honor that bravery, the Up First newsletter team asked NPR readers and listeners to share their coming out stories. More than 170 people responded, telling beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking stories of how they came out. They also shared advice, in hopes of helping the next person who is ready to tell their full story.

Anu Gupta talked about how, there wasn’t a word in his native Hindi language that expressed how he felt as a queer man growing up in America. Through meditation, he started to find love and acceptance, leading to him coming out to his family.

Winnie Aghenu decided to use April Fools’ Day as the perfect opportunity to share with her younger brother that she is a lesbian. If it didn’t go well, well … she would have an out. Luckily, she didn’t need one.

These are just two of the stories we featured, showcasing how impactful coming out can be. One of the most common themes in the responses was to make sure you come out when it is right for you. It was beautiful to read about people who came out as a teen as well as people who did it later in life.

Only you know when you are ready, and only you can live your life.

Read more of the wide range of voices that decided to share their stories here.

VIa Them \\ SCOTUS Appears Poised to Strike Down Conversion Therapy Bans. Here's What We Know From Opening Arguments In Chiles v. Salazar, the future of bans against the harmful practice could be in jeopardy.

Via Daily Dharma: Don’t Become Cynical

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Don’t Become Cynical

Letting go of expectations and recognizing the nature of cyclic existence do not entail becoming cynical. Derisively thinking “I can’t expect anything of anyone” is not a virtuous or realistic attitude that helps us on the path to enlightenment!

Ven. Thubten Chodron, “A Buddhist Antidote to Betrayal”

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Blind Passions
By Mark Unno

Discover how to see clearly… that you’re a fool.

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RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling

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)

When feeling a common neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling, one is aware: “Feeling a common neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling.” When feeling an uncommon neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling, one is aware: “Feeling an uncommon neither-pleasant-nor-painful feeling.”. . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is feeling.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

A feeling tone accompanies every moment of experience, and it changes at every moment. We generally just accept this and are influenced by it but without conscious awareness. The stream of feelings flows as constantly as the stream of consciousness, and modulates on a spectrum from extremely pleasant through moderately pleasant, mildly pleasant, neutral, mildly painful, and moderately painful to extremely painful.

Daily Practice

The second of the four foundations on which mindfulness practice is established is the mindful awareness of feeling tones. This requires isolating them in your experience, since they are usually blended in with everything else. Make a point of selecting just the strand of experience that carries a feeling tone—good, bad or neutral. Not whether you like it or not, just how it feels. You will learn with practice how to focus on this regularly.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION
Approaching and Abiding in the Second Phase of Absorption (2nd Jhāna)

With the stilling of applied and sustained thought, one enters upon and abides in the second phase of absorption, which has inner clarity and singleness of mind, without applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of concentration. (MN 4)

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna

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Via Wired \\ Inside Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession

Inside Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession

How the billionaire’s apocalyptic beliefs are quietly influencing American politics.

Wired

Via White Crane Institute \\ 1998 - MATTHEW SHEPARD

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989

This Day in Gay History

October 12

Died Matthew Shepard 1998 - MATTHEW SHEPARD, American murder victim died (b. 1976) a Gay American student at the University of Wyoming who was fatally attacked near Laramie, on the night of October 6 – October 7, 1998 in what was widely reported by international news media as a savage beating because of his sexuality. Shepard died from severe head injuries at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, on October 12, 1998. His murder brought national attention to the issue of hate crime legislation at the state and federal levels. His two assailants were convicted of the crime and imprisoned One is currently serving two consecutive life sentences and the other is serving the same but without the possibility of parole. On October 26, 2018, Mr. Shepard was interred at the Washington National Cathedral, the neo-Gothic, Episcopal house of worship that is a fixture of American politics and religion. The ceremony was a public service in the morning, and then his ashes were interred privately. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde presided over the service alongside the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, who became the first out gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in 2003. Noteworthy 1681 - A London woman is publicly flogged for the crime of "involving herself in politics"
\|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 Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - October 12, 2025 🍁

"When you stand back far enough, all of your life experiences, independent of what they are, are all learning experiences. From a human point of view, you do your best to optimize pleasure, happiness, all the nice things in life. From your soul’s point of view you take what comes down the pike. So from the soul’s perspective, you work to get what you want and then if you don’t, ‘ah, so, I’ll work with what I’ve got.’ "