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| Beginning Anew |
Thich Nhat Hanh on how to make the meaningful ceremony of “Beginning Anew” part of your life. |
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Via Lion's Roar // Beginning Anew
Via Daily Dharma: The Wisdom of Generosity
The
practice of generosity is a wisdom practice, because it’s aligning you
with the real truth of things: what you think of as yours, as part of
your identity, is only temporary.
—Subhadramati, “Cutting the Threads”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - December 30, 2020 💌
When you stop living by other people’s judgments or expectations, you start doing what you need to do. In trying to decide what you want to do with your life, listen to your heart. The program is much farther out than you ever thought it was. I never thought I’d be a yogi. Each of us has our unique karmic predicament, our individual work to do. Always choose that which you feel is most in harmony with the way of things.
- Ram Dass -
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Calm Your Breath
If
we examine the body and mind carefully, we notice a connection between
the breath and how we feel. When the breath is calm and relaxed, we
notice that the body’s energy is also calm.
—Anyen Rinpoche and Allison Choying Zangmo, “Tibetan Yoga Techniques for Better Breathing”
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Monday, December 28, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Staying on the Path
Once
you recognize that everyday reality is merely a reflection of some
deeper truth that’s close at hand but hidden from view, you’ve embarked
on a search that you can never really abandon, no matter how far you
seem to stray.
—Stephan Bodian, “Encountering the Gateless Gate”
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Sunday, December 27, 2020
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - December 27, 2020 💌
If you were awakened already, you wouldn’t do that, so my suggestion is you relax and don’t expect that you will always make the wisest decisions. Realize that sometimes you make a decision and, if it wasn’t the right one, you change it.
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Acknowledge Your Thoughts
Don’t
feel disturbed by the thinking mind. You are not practicing to prevent
thinking, but rather to recognize and acknowledge thinking whenever it
arises.
—Sayadaw U Tejaniya, “Observing Minds Want to Know”
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Saturday, December 26, 2020
Via Tricycle // Forgiveness
Forgiveness Is Not Buddhist
Buddhist teachings do not advise asking others to absolve us from our misdeeds. Instead, they outline a path to purification that will change our relationship to reactive patterns.
In contemporary Buddhist settings, forgiveness is interpreted in several ways. One is as a way of letting go of our expectations and disappointments in others—in other words, letting go of our attachment to a different past. Another interpretation is as an extension of lovingkindness. In the Tibetan tradition, it is sometimes presented as an extension of patience or of compassion. These are all key practices, and they appear in virtually every Buddhist tradition, but to call them forgiveness? Well, that may be unforgivable. As Idries Shah writes in Knowing How to Know: A Practical Philosophy in the Sufi Tradition, when you adopt the methods developed in another culture, those methods and the ways of thinking associated with them eventually take over, and you lose touch with your own understanding and training. In the same way, by importing the foreign (to Buddhism) notion of forgiveness, contemporary Buddhists are unwittingly importing a very different system of thought and practice and undermining the powerful mystical practices in Buddhism that may have inspired them in the first place.
Via Daily Dharma: Lead Yourself Toward Peace
The
content of life, the what, is always what it is at any given moment,
just the fact, but it’s how we relate to that moment that will either
lead us toward or away from more suffering.
—Mark Van Buren, “Relating to Life”
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Friday, December 25, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: The Gifts Beyond Gifts
When
someone gives you something precious it means that, beyond the
usefulness of the gift, you are precious. The gift marks a moment when
you are welcomed into the other person’s heart.
—John Tarrant, “The Erotic Life of Emptiness”
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Thursday, December 24, 2020
Lamp in the darkness ~ 17th Karmapa
Lamp in the darkness ~ 17th Karmapa https://justdharma.com/s/mdcw7
However much fighting there is in the world, however much darkness there is, we must be able to serve as small lamps in that darkness. – 17th Karmapa source: https://bit.ly/2JznYwH
17th Karmapa on the web: http://kagyuoffice.org http://kagyu.org http://kagyumonlam.org http://rumtek.org http://karmapa.justdharma.com
17th Karmapa biography: http://kagyuoffice.org/
Via Tricycle // Wholeness Is No Trifling Matter
Wholeness Is No Trifling Matter
By Ruth King
By Ruth King
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Via Daily Dharma: Remember You’re Always Connected
If
I ever find myself alone and feel a pang of fear that I have been cast
aside and removed from the world, I can remember that it is not even
possible for me to be completely alone. I am inextricably woven into an
ever-changing web of connections.
—Lauren Krauze, “Not Alone During the Holidays”
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Via White Crane Institute // On this day
Died
1994 -
JOHN BOSWELL, A groundbreaking American historian died on this date (b. 1947); A prominent historian and a professor at Yale University, many of Boswell's studies focused on the issue of homosexuality and religion, specifically homosexuality and Christianity.
A gifted medieval philologist who spoke (inter alia) fluent Catalan, he received his doctorate from Harvard in 1975, whereupon he joined the Yale history faculty as its rising star; he was made full professor in 1982. In 1987, Boswell helped organize and found the Lesbian and Gay Studies Center at Yale, which is now the Research Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies. He was named the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History in 1990, when he was also appointed to a two-year term as chair of the Yale history department.
Boswell was a gifted and devoted teacher. His undergraduate lectures in medieval history were renowned for their organization, erudition, and wit, with the course often making the "top 10" for highest enrollment. The multi-talented Boswell would pen his comments on student papers in perfectly executed medieval calligraphy.
Boswell was the author of the ground-breaking (one might say ground-moving) and, to some, controversial book Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (1980), which, according to Chauncey et al (1989), "offered a revolutionary interpretation of the Western tradition, arguing that the Roman Catholic Church had not condemned gay people throughout its history, but rather, at least until the twelfth century, had alternately evinced no special concern about homosexuality or actually celebrated love between men." The book was crowned with the American Book Award for History and the Stonewall Book Award in 1981.
He is known primarily, however, as author of The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe (New York: Villard, 1994), in which he argues that the adelphopoiia liturgy was evidence that attitude of the Christian church towards homosexuality has changed over time, and that early Christians did, on occasion, accept same-sex relationships.
Rites of so-called "same-sex union" (Boswell's proposed translation) occur in ancient prayer-books of both the western and eastern churches. They are rites of adelphopoiesis, literally Greek for “the making of brothers.” Boswell, despite the fact that the rites explicitly state that the union involved in adelphopoiesis is a "spiritual" and not a "carnal" one, argued that these should be regarded as sexual unions similar to marriage.
This is a highly controversial point of Boswell's text, as other scholars have dissenting views of this interpretation, and believe that they were instead rites of becoming adopted brothers, or "blood brothers." Boswell pointed out such evidence as an icon of two saints, Saints Sergius and Bacchus (at St. Catherine's on Mount Sinai), and drawings, such as one he interprets as depicting the wedding feast of Emperor Basil to his "partner", John. Boswell sees Jesus as fulfilling the role of the "pronubus" or in modern parallel, best man.
Boswell made many detailed translations of these rites in Same-Sex Unions, and claimed that one mass Gay wedding occurred only a couple of centuries ago in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral seat of the Pope as Bishop of Rome. Boswell's writings touched off detailed debate in The Irish Times, and the article that triggered off the debate, a major feature in the "Rite and Reason" religion column in the paper by a respected Irish historian and religious commentator, has been reproduced on many websites.
Boswell himself was throughout his life a devout Roman Catholic. Although he was orthodox in most of his beliefs, he strongly disagreed with his church's stated opposition to homosexual behavior and relationships. To a certain degree much of the work and research Boswell did regarding the Christian church's historical relationship with homosexuality can be seen as an attempt (which some regard as successful) to rationalize his own sexual orientation (as opposed to the “church fathers’” opposition being a way to rationalize theirs).
In Revolutions, Universals and Sexual Categories (1982, revised), Boswell compares the constructionist-essentialist positions to the realist-nominalist dichotomy. He also lists three types of sexual taxonomies:
- All or most humans are polymorphously sexual ... external accidents, such as socio-cultural pressure, legal sanctions, religious beliefs, historical or personal circumstances determine the actual expression of each person's sexual feelings.
- Two or more sexual categories, usually, but not always based on sexual object choice.
- One type of sexual response [is] normal ... all other variants abnormal.
Boswell died of complications from AIDS on December 24, 1994, age 47.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Honoring Loved Ones
You
hold the qualities of those who have passed away in your heart and
mind, and you also put those qualities into practice in the way that you
live.
—Guo Jun, “A Special Transmission”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - December 23, 2020 💌
Surrender to the One. Surrender to your atman, because you have
the One inside of you. That means you don’t surrender to the God with a
beard, you surrender to the God inside. My relationship with Maharajji
is an inside job. Once he left his body, I could very much identify him
inside of me, and I would surrender to that voice inside. That voice is
joyful, compassionate, loving, peaceful, and wise. I find it very
enjoyable to surrender to that God inside.
If you shift your identification into the atman, you will see what the
world looks like to the One. It’s quite different than the world you
perceive through your ego. It’s a fun thing to surrender.
- Ram Dass -
Via White Crane Institute // DANNY NICOLETTA
1954 -
DANNY NICOLETTA, is an American photographer and activist, born on this date: In 1975, when he was nineteen, he was hired by Harvey Milk and Scott Smith to work at Castro Camera, their camera store on Castro Street. The three became friends and Nicoletta worked with Milk on his political campaigns for office.
During this period of time, Nicoletta took many now well-known photographs of Milk. Once Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Milk became California's first openly Gay elected official and served for almost eleven months before he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White in City Hall on November 27, 1978.
After the death of Harvey Milk, Nicoletta worked to keep his memory alive. He was the installation coordinator of the Harvey Milk photographic tribute plaques installed at Harvey Milk Plaza and at the Castro Street Station, which featured his photographs as well as those of Marc Cohen, Don Eckert, Jerry Pritikin, Efren Ramirez, Rink, and Leland Toy. He was co-chair of the Harvey Milk City Hall Memorial Committee, and his photograph served as the basis for the bust of Milk that now resides in the rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall. His portrait of Milk was also used on the United States Postal Service's tribute stamp.
Daniel Nicoletta's photographs of Milk are featured prominently in the 1985 Academy Award-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Rob Epstein. In the feature film Milk, a biographical film based on the life of Harvey Milk directed by Gus Van Sant, Daniel Nicoletta is played by Lucas Grabeel. Nicoletta himself plays Carl Carlson and served as the stills photographer on the film.
Daniel Nicoletta was one of the founders of Frameline Film Festival. In 1977, while still working at Harvey Milk's photography shop, Nicoletta, along with David Waggoner, Marc Huestis, and others, began film screenings of their Super 8 films, called the Gay Film Festival of Super 8 Films, which evolved into the yearly festival.
As a photographer, Nicoletta has contributed to a number of films, as well as books and periodicals. His work is archived at the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library, at the Wallach Collection of Fine Prints and the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library and at Schwules Museum in Berlin, Germany.
His work has documented queer culture throughout the late 1970s into the 2000s and besides his historic photographs of Harvey Milk also include subjects such as the White Night Riots, the Castro Street Fair and the San Francisco Pride Parade, The Cockettes and the Angels of Light. Nicoletta’s first book, “LGBT San Francisco: The Daniel Nicoletta Photographs,” was released by Reel Art Press this summer (2017).
Via Daily Dharma: Ignite a Vibrant Energy Within
True
devotion does not actually drain us. It is a source of vibrant energy
that makes our commitments come alive and become a source of joy.
—Mindy Newman and Kaia Fischer, “The Karmic Power of Devotion”
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Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Monday, December 21, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Let the Ordinary Take Your Breath Away
As
our awareness deepens with practice, we find our breath being taken
away more and more by the ordinary experiences all around us and within
us. Nothing special—just a tiny life expressing itself—singing!—in
Winter’s frozen world.
—Sylvia Forges Ryan, “Bare Branches, Bare Attention”
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Saturday, December 19, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Learning to Live with Desire
Meditation,
if correctly wielded, is not about shoving desire to the side. It’s
about learning to live with and learn from desire.
—Mitch Abblett, “Slip Free of Craving”
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Friday, December 18, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Step Away from Fixations
Spiritual
practice is stepping out of the assumed reality of “me” by
understanding what the “me” is and withdrawing energy from its
perceptual fixations.
—Rodney Smith, “Undivided Mind”
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Thursday, December 17, 2020
Via Insight Meditation Society
Radiate boundless love towards the entire world — above, below, and across — unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.
—Metta Sutta
—Metta Sutta
Via Daily Dharma: Let Yourself Relax
Spiritual
practice is nutrition for the soul, and you can neither cook nor eat
while you are weeping. Cooking requires some happiness, and happiness
may require letting things slide from time to time, so that we can get a
little relief from the seriousness of our troubles.
—Norman Fischer, “Sailing Home”
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Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: When to Train Your Mind
The
good thing about mind training is that it can be practiced in all kinds
of situations. You do not have to wait for the right conditions to
arrive or make special arrangements in order to work with mind training.
The only rearrangement that needs to be made is to your own attitude.
—Judy Lief, “Train Your Mind: Don’t be swayed by external circumstances”
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Via Lion's Roar // A Fan’s Guide to Modern Buddhist Music
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| A Fan’s Guide to Modern Buddhist Music |
The
dharma speaks through music — it always has, it does today. From jazz
to metal to rap to emergent hybrid forms, Buddhism’s influence on the
musical realm can be discovered at almost every turn.
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - December 16, 2020 💌
You’ve lived your life with negative images of yourself, from childhood on, and you’ve built upon those images, and built upon them, and they became very heavy weights. These thoughts about you are a part of your ego, and they’re manifested through your roles as child or husband, wife, breadwinner, all of those roles. They’re built upon the thoughts of “I’m not truthful,” or “I’m not likable” or “I’m not good”—all of those negative images.
Once you identify with your soul, you start to taste the love in your true self, in your spiritual heart, and it’s different than all of the loves you’ve ever had. It’s just different; it’s unconditional love.
- Ram Dass-
Via Daily Dharma: Noticing the Power of Vows
When
you begin to look at life through the lens of vows, you are touched not
only by the dedication of human beings to form an aspiration to grow,
change, and overcome obstacles but also by their unselfish efforts to
dedicate themselves to a larger beneficial purpose.
—Jan Chozen Bays, “Brief Teachings”
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Via White Crane Institute // Today's Gay Wisdom
- Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
- Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others.
- History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.
- Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in the conclusions; their reasons are always different.
- Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them.
- The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.
- Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.
Via Daily Dharma: Observe Feeling with Full Awareness
The mind has to be fully aware of itself—all around, at all times—in its focused contemplation, to see feeling as empty of self.
—Upasika Kee Nanayon, “A Glob of Tar”
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Monday, December 14, 2020
Via Morning Star Zendo // Liberation from all Obstructions
Liberation from all Obstructions
In the presence of Sangha, in the light of Dharma, in oneness with Buddha
– may my path to complete enlightenment benefit everyone!
In this passing moment karma ripens and all things come to be.
I vow to affirm what is:
If there’s cost, I choose to pay. If there’s need, I choose to give.
If there’s pain, I choose to feel. If there’s sorrow, I choose to grieve.
When burning, I choose heat. When calm, I choose peace.
When starving, I choose hunger. When happy, I choose joy.
Whom I encounter, I choose to meet. What I shoulder, I choose to bear.
When it’s my birth, I choose to live. When it’s my death, I choose to die.
Where this takes me, I choose to go. Being with what is, I respond to what is.
This life is as real as a dream; the one who knows it cannot be found;
and truth is not a thing, therefore I vow to choose THIS Dharma entrance gate!
May all Buddhas and Wise Ones help me live this vow.
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Radiate Peace to Whomever You Meet
We
can radiate peacefulness to the people we meet. We’re all part of an
invisible emotional economy, a give-and-take of feelings.
—Interview with Daniel Goleman by Sharon Salzberg, “I Feel Your Brain”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - December 13, 2020 💌
Meditative awareness has a clarity that lays bare both the workings of your mind and the other forces at work in a situation. This clarity allows you to see the factors that determine your choices from moment to moment... In this inner stillness and clarity you are fully aware of the entire gestalt, the whole picture. With no effort your response is optimal on all levels, not just mechanically reactive on one. The response is in tune, harmonious, in the flow.
- Ram Dass -
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