Saturday, February 27, 2021
Friday, February 26, 2021
Via Tricycle - Three Buddhist Romeos
Three Buddhist Romeos
By Amanda Lim Patton
By Amanda Lim Patton
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Via Daily Dharma: Train Yourself to Stay
The
steadfastness we develop in meditation is a willingness to stay. It may
seem silly, but meditation actually isn’t too unlike training a dog! We
learn to stay.
—Pema Chödrön, “Making Friends with Oneself”
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Thursday, February 25, 2021
Via Tricycle // Lockdown Dharma
Lockdown Dharma
By Liz Kineke
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Via Daily Dharma: Creating Your World
According
to Buddhism, there is no one in charge of the universe who distributes
rewards and punishments. We create the causes by our actions, and we
experience their results.
—Ven. Thubten Chodron, “What Is Karma?”
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Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Via LGBTQ Nation // 5.6% of American adults say they are LGBTQ. Over half identify as bisexual
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Life5.6% of American adults say they are LGBTQ. Over half identify as bisexual.
The number of LGBTQ Americans coming out and claiming their identity just keeps growing.
Via Tricycle // What’s in a Word? Prajñā
What’s in a Word? Prajñā
By Andrew Olendzki
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Via Daily Dharma: Living in an Interconnected World
ust
as smoke from a chimney disperses into the air, we should disperse our
sense of “group” or “family” and truly participate in the life around
us.
—Master Sheng-Yen, “As Spacious as Nature”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - February 24, 2021 💌
“This moment is love. I am loving awareness.”
- Ram Dass -
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
The Obligatory Prayers
Bahá’u’lláh invested a few prayers with special power. These include three obligatory prayers revealed by Him. Bahá’ís recite one of these each day: either a short prayer of a few brief lines, which is said between noon and sunset; a medium obligatory prayer of several verses, which is recited in the morning, at noon, and in the evening; or a long prayer, which is recited once in twenty-four hours.
The Short prayer
Via Daily Dharma: Bearing Witness
When you bear witness you open to the uniqueness of whatever is arising and meet it just as it is.
—Wendy Egyoku Nakao Roshi, “Hold to the Center!”
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Monday, February 22, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Strengthen Your Concentration
Bringing
our full attention to focus on our breath in meditation strengthens our
ability to concentrate in daily life, in the same way that lifting
weights in the gym strengthens our muscles and allows us to lift heavy
things elsewhere.
—Dan Zigmond, “Learning How to Concentrate”
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Via Lion's Roar // Loving-Kindness: May All Beings Be Happy
Melvin Escobar teaches metta, a concentration practice to cultivate unconditional goodwill for all. In precarious times like these, it’s a way to listen to our hearts.
Illustration by Carole Hénaff.
Precarious times like these call for us to be quiet and listen to our hearts. According to its etymology, the word “precarious” derives from the Latin prefix prec, which means “prayer.”
An especially potent form of prayer for times of crisis like these is metta. Metta is a Pali word that has been translated as loving-kindness, universal goodwill, or loving-friendliness. My favorite translation, which I learned from Vipassana teacher Anushka Fernandopulle, is “unstoppable friendliness.”
Tradition tells us that, like the sun, metta is always present and doesn’t discriminate. Metta is the heart of what are known as the four divine abodes, which include compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. As a prayer, metta offers an authentic experience of our interconnectedness.
Metta is a concentration practice to cultivate unconditional goodwill for all. It is practiced by reciting and contemplating a series of aspirations or prayers that express your goodwill and unstoppable friendliness toward yourself and others. With each recitation, you expand the scope of your loving-kindness—from yourself, to those close to you, to those for whom you feel antipathy, and finally to all sentient beings.
For guidance on metta practice, let’s look at some quotes from the Karaniya Metta Sutta, known in English as The Discourse on Loving-Kindness, in which the Buddha teaches metta as a simple and direct way to meet the moment as it is.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
phrase such as, “May I/you/all be free from inner and outer harm,” when repeated with genuine goodwill, cultivates a sense of calm acceptance of things as they are. When the mind is determined to reject what it cannot change, it can become caught up in forms of inner harm such as shaming, blaming, complaining, and explaining. In wishing for safety and ease for ourselves or others, we are more able to hold the reality of impermanence, and the first noble truth that there is no place where one can entirely escape suffering or harm.
Whatever living beings there may be… omitting none….
A common question that arises is: how do I practice with the most difficult person I can think of? Consider an analogy to weight lifting. It’s obvious that it would be unwise and possibly unsafe to start out lifting the heaviest weights. We must practice with lighter ones first. Likewise, we can harm ourselves by trying to practice metta with a very difficult person, if we haven’t developed the capacity to work with the aversion and despair that may arise. We must build capacity incrementally, starting with ourselves, a dear mentor, or any beloved being (a pet, a tree, a deity).
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Most people agree that we should not lie to others or hate them. Metta practice can help us see how we lie to and feel hatred toward ourselves. Sharon Salzberg, meditation teacher and author of the seminal book, Lovingkindness, asked the Dalai Lama, “What do you think about self-hatred?” Confounded by her question, he replied, “Self-hatred? What is that?”
The self-hatred experienced by many in the West is actually a product of internalized oppression. The systems of oppression that bell hooks has called “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” teach us that we are never enough, that we must constantly strive to be worthy of happiness. Phrases like, “May I love myself as I am” and “May I be happy and know the true causes of happiness” help us see through the deception.
Let none through anger or ill will
wish harm upon another.
The Dhammapada teaches us: “Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world; by nonhatred alone is hatred appeased. This is an eternal law.” Although anger can indicate that there is injustice or harm happening, it’s easy to slip into ill will toward the targets of our anger. It can be momentarily satisfying to wish harm on another, but the harm rebounds on ourselves. It’s the proverbial drinking of the poison and hoping the other person gets sick. A phrase like “May you be happy and healthy,” directed to the source of our anger, can help purify us of this poison.
Meditation
Here is a typical series of metta contemplations you can practice, reciting them three times as you change the subject of your prayer from “I” to “you” to “all.” But feel free to create your own or adapt these to resonate with your own experience.
May (I/you/all beings) be safe and
protected, free from inner and
outer harm.
May (I/you/all) be happy.
May (my/your/everyone’s) body support the practice of loving awareness.
May (I/you/all) be free from ill-will, affliction, and anxiety.
May (I/you/everyone) love (myself/yourself/themselves) as (I am/you are/they are).
May (I/you/all) be happy and free
from suffering.
May (I/you/all) find peace in an
uncertain world.
May (I/you/all) find ease on the
middle path between attachment and apathy.
When you lose concentration, simply and kindly return to your phrases. Try not to judge the judgments that inevitably arise. Meet each moment with unstoppable friendliness. May you be inspired by the transformative potential of this practice.
Happy Birthday -- 'Peace Sign'
Happy Birthday -- 'Peace Sign' -- The peace sign was created 2/21/58 by British graphic designer and Christian pacifist Gerald Holtom. Holtom was tasked with creating the banners and signs for a nuclear disarmament march in London, and he wanted a visual that would stick in the public's mind. // The design is, in part, modeled after naval semaphore flags that sailors use to communicate. Holtom combined the codes for "N" (two flags angled down at a 45 degrees) for "nuclear" and "D" (one flag pointed straight up and one flag pointed straight down) for "disarmament."
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Via White Crane Institute // GEORGE BIRIMISA
1924 -
GEORGE BIRIMISA born (d: 2012) an American playwright, actor and director who contributed to the explosion of gay theater in the mid-1960s during the early years of Off-Off-Broadway. His works feature sexually explicit, emotionally charged depictions of working class Gay men, often closeted, in the years before the Stonewall uprising (1969) triggered a national and international Gay Rights movement. Contemporary Authors said that "Birmisa's plays feature themes of human isolation, frustrated idealism, and rage against needless suffering, usually centered around homosexual characters.“ According to critic and playwright Michael Smith, Birimisa's writing “links the pain of human isolation to economic and social roots.”
Birimisa’s first produced play, Degrees (February 1966),[1] a portrait of a Gay relationship, premiered at Theater Genesis in the East Village, Manhattan. At the time, gay plays usually received no serious artistic or critical attention. “For years,” the playwright recalls, “even gay people would ask me, ‘When are you going to write your first real play?’” Degrees included autobiographical elements, which became stronger and more explicit in Birimisa's later works. Above all, he writes out of a need to tell the truth about his own life. "I don't agree that there are ‘shades of truth,’” he says. “We all know the truth, deep inside ourselves. As artists, we have a responsibility to reveal who we truly are, not to work in shades of gray. This truth includes our sexual beings.”
Birimisa directed and acted in his best-known Off-Off-Broadway play, Daddy Violet[12] (1967), a semi-improvised indictment of the Vietnam War. Daddy Violet opened at the Troupe Theatre Club, premiered in June 1967 at the Caffe Cino, Joe Cino’s's famous coffeehouse in Greenwich Village that is generally acknowledged as the birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway. The play subsequently toured colleges in the United States and Canada and appeared at the 1968 International Theater Festival in Vancouver. Today, the playwright acknowledges that he wrote Daddy Violet as a parody of the abstract,improvisational theater then in vogue Off-Off-Broadway, an attempt to “out avant-garde everyone else.” For a revival at the Boston Conservatory in 2006, Birimisa revised the script to refer to the war in Iraq.
In 1969, Birimisa became the first out gay playwright to receive a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. This enabled him to attend rehearsals for the London production of his first two-act play, Mr. Jello (April 1968), an arrangement of realistic vignettes that intersect to form a surrealistic social statement, with characters that include a female impersonator, a Gay married man, and a hustler.
In 1976, Birimisa moved to Los Angeles, California. He dismisses the three plays he wrote there, A Dress Made of Diamonds (1976), Pogey Bait (1976), and A Rainbow in the Night (1978) as inferior to his earlier works. However, A Rainbow in the Night, an autobiographical portrait of two Gay men living in New York City’s Bowery in 1953, won a 1978 Drama-Logue Award, and Pogey Bait, a comedy based on Birimisa’s wartime experiences as a gay apprentice seaman, received subsequent productions in Minneapolis, San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.
Birimisa moved to San Francisco in 1980 and did not write another play for almost 10 years. Then he began a revised version of A Rainbow in the Night titled The Man With Straight Hair (1994), which premiered at the Studio at Theater Rhinocerous. A one-man play, Looking for Mr. America (1995), debuted at Josie’s Cabaret and Juice Joint and subsequently played in New York at the La MamaExperimental Theater Club. Birimisa himself performed the show at age 71, in the role of a man recounting his lifelong sexual addiction. Dean Goodman's review noted that the play offers “an eloquent and touching portrait of a particular gay man’s journey through the last half of the 20th century.” Viagra Falls (2005) received a concert performance at La MaMa E.T.C. on September 17, 2007, under the direction of Daniel Haben Clark. The play chronicles a young gay man's long-term sado-masochistic relationship with a closeted opthamologist.
With Steve Susoyev, Birimisa edited Return to Caffe Cino (2007), an anthology of essays and plays by writers associated with the Cino. The book won a 2007bda Literary Award for theater and drama.
Birimisa: Portraits, Plays, Perversions (2009), an anthology of collected works and essays about Birimisa's personal life and career, includes an un-produced screenplay, The Kewpie-Doll Kiss, which chronicles Birimisa's childhood loss of his father, abandonment by his mother, and discovery of his sexuality, subjects explored earlier onstage in A Dress Made of Diamonds.
George Birmisa taught Creative Writing since 1983, sponsored by New Leaf Services. He received the 2004 Harry Hay Award in recognition of his writing and community service. He was writing an autobiography titled Wildflowers. His unpublished manuscripts are in the Joe Cino Memorial Library at Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts in New York.
Via What Crane Institute // This Day in Gay History February 21 - BARUCH SPINOZA
1677 -
BARUCH SPINOZA, Dutch philosopher born (b. 1632); One of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, he laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. By virtue of his magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, Spinoza is also considered one of Western philosophy's definitive ethicists. He was raised and educated in the Orthodox Jewish fashion, also studying Latin and was thoroughly familiar with European humanism. What exactly is it that caused him to be excommunicated from the synagogue when he was only 24 years old?
Many scholars have speculated that the horror Spinoza inspired in the Jewish community may have come not only from his espousal of advanced economic theories, but from his espousal, as well, of Greek love among impressionable students in the liberal circle where he taught. A Dutch physician, J. Roderpoort, wrote at The Hague in 1897: “Spinoza excites the youth to respect women not at all and to give themselves to debauchery.” Was Spinoza merely teaching the Greek and Roman classics, with their inevitable passages on pederasty? What were Roderpoort’s motives for discrediting the Jewish philosopher? Was Spinoza, in fact a pederast? It’s all open to speculation.
Via NPR // 500,000
by Jill Hudson |
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Win McNamee/Getty Images |
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is on track to pass a number next week that once seemed unthinkable: Half a million people in this country dead from the coronavirus. Losing half a million lives to this disease was unimaginable when the first few people died of COVID-19 in the U.S last February.
After nearly a year, it's easy to forget how suddenly the pandemic upended our lives. NPR would love to see your photos. Click here to send your images and tell us your story.
What will it take to finally halt the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S.? Here's a look at how herd immunity works.
Via Daily Dharma: You Are Already Accepted
In accepting yourself, you’re simply agreeing to the fact that you are already accepted by the entire universe, just as you are.
—Ruben L. F. Habito, “Be Still & Know”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - February 21, 2021 💌
The first being one must have compassion for is oneself. You can't be a
witness to your thoughts with a chip on your shoulder or an axe to
grind.
Ramana Maharshi said, "If people would stop wailing 'alas I am a sinner'
and use all that energy to get on with it they would all be
enlightened."
He also said, "When you're cleaning up the outer temple before going to
the inner temple, don't stop to read everything you're going to throw
away..."
- Ram Dass -
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Connect to the Buddha Inside You
You lack nothing of the wisdom and perfection of the Buddha, right at this moment.
—Elihu Genmyo Smith, “No Need to Do Zazen, Therefore Must Do Zazen”
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Via White Crane Institute
1927 -
ROY COHN, American lawyer born (d. 1986); An evil, dramatic, controversial and dangerous man in life, Cohn inspired many dramatic fictional portrayals after his death. Probably the most famous is his role in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on A Theme, in which Cohn is portrayed as a self-hating, power-hungry hypocrite who refuses to accept himself as a homosexual, and is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg as he lies dying of AIDS. In the 2003 HBO version of Kushner's play, Cohn was played by Al Pacino, and Rosenberg was played by Meryl Streep. Cohn is also a character in Kushner's one-act play, G. David Schine in Hell. He was a despicable, vile person.
His sleazy soul-less mind still haunts us today in the person of his protégé, Donald Trump. Cohn’s influence on Mr. Trump is unmistakable. Mr. Trump’s wrecking ball of a Presidency — the gleeful smearing of his opponents, the embracing of bluster as brand — has been a Roy Cohn number on a grand scale. "If you get a punch, you punch back....harder." Mr. Trump’s response to the Orlando massacre, with his ominous warnings of a terrorist attack that could wipe out the country and his conspiratorial suggestions of a Muslim fifth column in the United States, seemed to have been ripped straight out of the Cohn playbook. Even more recently, his response to the impeachment has been to bray about his being "the chief law enforcement officer of the country"....which he is decidedly NOT. Clearly, whatever "lesson" Republican Senators think he's learned has nothing to do with restraint. We now find ourselves in a country where the rule of law has been seriously undermined, if not destroyed. Thanks Roy.
For 13 years, the lawyer who had infamously whispered in McCarthy’s ear whispered in Mr. Trump’s. In the process, Mr. Cohn helped deliver some of Mr. Trump’s signature construction deals, sued the National Football League for conspiring against his client and counter-sued the federal government — for $100 million — for damaging the Trump name. One of Mr. Trump’s executives recalled that he kept an 8-by-10-inch photograph of Mr. Cohn in his office desk, pulling it out to intimidate recalcitrant contractors.
The two men spoke as often as five times a day, toasted each other at birthday parties and spent evenings together at Studio 54. Roy Cohn....Cryptmaster. One final story that my friend Robert reminded me of... Cohn gave his services to Trump free of charge. Finally, as a gift Trump gave the pathetic homo a set of gold and diamond Bulgari cufflinks. Upon the settlement of Cohn’s estate, the links were found to be fakes.
Friday, February 19, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Communicate by Listening
Few of us communicate really well. We think explaining ourselves is key, but listening is the most important part.
—Sallie Tisdale, “Travel Guide to the End of Life”
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Thursday, February 18, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Experiencing Things as They Are
When
we train ourselves by constant practice to stop verbalizing, the brain
can experience things as they are. By silencing the mind, we can
experience real peace.
—Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Do Thoughts Ever Stop?”
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Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Jefferson Airplane - Crown Of Creation
Crown Of Creation
Jefferson Airplane
The
lyrics from the song are mostly taken from John Wyndham’s science
fiction novel, “The Chrysalids”, published in 1955. The book is set in a
post apocalyptic society, where…
You are the crown of creation
You are the crown of creation
And you've got no place to go
Soon you'll attain the stability you strive for
In the only way that it's granted:
In a place among the fossils of our time
In loyalty to their kind
They cannot tolerate our minds
In loyalty to our kind
We cannot tolerate their obstruction!
Life is change
How it differs from the rocks
I've seen their ways too often for my liking
New worlds to gain
My life is to survive
And be alive for you
Aah ah ah ah..
Via Daily Dharma: Finding Your Personal Path
When we place our hearts upon the practice, the teachings come alive. That turning point, which transforms an abstract concept of a spiritual path into our own personal path, is faith.
—Sharon Salzberg, “How Important Is Faith?”
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - February 17, 2021 💌
"Reflection will give you a chance to stand back in your soul, your witness consciousness, to look at your life, and see how much of the systems of which you’re a part are still attractive or aversive to you. Because ultimately, the art, as Christ said, is to be in the world, but not of the world."
- Ram Dass -
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Notice Your Fluid Sense of Self
When
we look carefully, we discover that the sense of self is not a particle
that never changes, but rather a flow, a wave of thought and feeling
that can increase and decrease and is therefore not permanent.
—Shinzen Young, “Brief Teachings”
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Sunday, February 14, 2021
Via Tricycle // On Meditation
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Via Daily Dharma: Note the Love Already Around You
There is far more love available to us in any given moment than we might be aware.
—Kate Johnson, “Making the First Move”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - February 10, 2021 💌
“Love” – Written by K.K. Sah
The first test of love is that it knows no bargaining—true love cannot exist in an arrangement by two parties. Love is always the giver not the taker.
Love can conquer everything. It is the best medicine. It can take you to God because love is God.
It is all powerful. It knows no fear. It is the highest ideal
Love is higher than work, than yoga, than knowledge, although the highest forms of love and wisdom are in reality one.
Duty is seldom sweet. It becomes sweet only through love which shines only in freedom.
Every motion is a circle. Therefore do not hate anyone because that hatred which comes out of you must in the long run come back to you. When you send love it will naturally come back to you, completing the circle.
Love attracts human beings to each other, animals to animals and all of creation in an endless embrace.
Love manifests from the lowest atom to the highest being- it is omnipotent and all-pervading.
Love is the one motive power that pervades the entire universe – unattached – yet shining in everything and without which the whole universe would fall to pieces in a moment.
Saturday, February 13, 2021
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