Friday, December 26, 2025

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Posten - When Harry Met Santa (Norwegian postal service's 2021 holiday ad)

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Via Daily Dharma: Be Mindful of Self-View

 

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Be Mindful of Self-View

Approaches focused on mindfulness invite a wonderful attention to the body, here and now, but often miss directing attention toward our dependent, selfless nature. Without this insight, we miss how the processes of craving and suffering are bound up with self-view.

Anshin Devin Ashwood, “Visiting Teacher: Anshin Devin Ashwood”


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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

 

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RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Harming Living Beings
Harming living beings is unhealthy. Refraining from harming living beings is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the harming of living beings, one abstains from harming living beings; with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, one abides with compassion toward all living beings. (MN 41) One practices thus: "Others may harm living beings, but I will abstain from the harming of living beings." (MN 8)

A person reflects thus: "I am one who wishes to live, who does not wish to die. If someone were to take my life, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to me. Now if I were to take the life of another, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to the other either. How can I inflict upon another what is displeasing and disagreeable to me?" Having reflected thus, one abstains from the destruction of life, exhorts others to abstain from it, and speaks in praise of abstinence from it. (SN 55.7)
Reflection
This is one way of stating the Golden Rule found the world over: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It requires that we consider the feelings of another to be as important as our own. Once this insight is well understood, it becomes a matter of following your own nature rather than following a rule. You become incapable of cruelty or selfish exploitation.
Daily Practice
The practice of non-harming (Sanskrit: ahimsa) consists first and foremost of caring for others to the extent that we cannot consciously want to harm them. But notice that this teaching goes farther, also encouraging us to speak openly about the value of abstaining from causing harm. The challenge is to do this with a mind of lovingkindness. How can we condemn the causing of harm without wishing harm to those who cause it? 
Tomorrow: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

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Thursday, December 25, 2025

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Via White Crane Institute //

White Crane InstituteExploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989
 
This Day in Gay History

December 25

 


Noteworthy
The Unconquered Sun
2021 -

SOL INVICTUS ("the Unconquered Sun") or, more fully, Deus Sol Invictus ("the Unconquered Sun God") was the late Roman state sun god. The cult was created by the emperor Aurelian in 274 CE and continued until the abolition of paganism under Theodosius I. The Romans held a festival on December 25 called Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, "the birthday of the unconquered sun."

The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the patron god of Emperor Aurelian (270-274); and Mithras. Oh, and a Jewish upstart named Jesus.

December 25th was also considered to be the date of the winter solstice, which the Romans called bruma. It was therefore the day the Sun proved itself to be "unconquered" despite the shortening of daylight hours. (When Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar in 45 B.C.E., December 25th was approximately the date of the solstice. In modern times, the solstice falls on December 21st or 22nd.)

The Sol Invictus festival has a "strong claim on the responsibility" for the date of Christmas, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. Solar symbolism was popular with early Christian writers as Jesus was considered to be the "sun of righteousness."

The date for Christmas may also bear a relation to the sun worship. According to the scholiast on the Syriac bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi, writing in the twelfth century:

"It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day." (cited in "Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries", Ramsay MacMullen. Yale:1997, p155)


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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

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Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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