Via Lama Rod Owens

 

One of the things that drove me into activism and service in my teens was realizing that I was born into a culture that was trying to annihilate my body, spirit, and mind. I was pissed and heartbroken over this and I learned to channel this intense energy into spiritual practice and deeper activism. 

 

Right now I am remembering and calling on all the great beings who came before me and who are still with us now to remember my sacred commitment to never allow the darkness of hate, violence, state and systematic suppression to consume me. I will survive peoples’ weaponizing of their insecurity, narcissism, and trauma against me and my communities. I will not be quiet nor will I disappear. 

 

I am urging all you spiritual leaders, healers, mystics, intuitives, magik practitioners, and yogis to remember your power and confirm your allegiance to light, love, compassion, and community and disrupt this darkness and start acting up. Now is not the time to get more holy. Now is the time to get clear about protecting everyone’s right to be safe, happy, and resourced.

 

- Lama Rod Owens

Via Tumblr

 

Via Lama Rod

 

 

Authentic Voices of Pride I Presented by Chevrolet at NewFest Pride.

Via Daily Dharma: Connect with the Resource of Pleasure

 Underneath our neuroses and all our pushing and pulling, most deeply, we’re glad to be here. Connect to the pleasure of relaxation, the pleasure of the fact that you’re able to breathe.

Martin Aylward, “Coming Back to Embodiment”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Taking What is Not Given  

Taking what is not given is unhealthy. Refraining from taking what is not given is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the taking of what is not given, one abstains from taking what is not given; one does not take by way of theft the wealth and property of others. (MN 41) One practices thus: “Others may take what is not given, but I will abstain from taking what is not given.” (MN 8) On hearing a sound with the ear, one does not grasp at its signs and features. Since if one left the ear faculty unguarded, unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might intrude, one practices the way of its restraint, one guards the ear faculty, one undertakes the restraint of the ear faculty. (MN 51)

Reflection

This is another encouragement to be with what is happening without going beyond the experience and taking more than is given in the moment. The image of guarding the sense doors, as a watchman might guard the gate to a city, suggests the ability to choose what gets into the mind and what is turned away. It is a way of gaining some power and claiming some freedom over what happens to you.

Daily Practice

Practice along these lines: “In what is heard, there will be only what is heard.” As we work with each of the sense modalities in turn, we learn to be fully present with what is occurring without embellishing it or projecting our desires onto it. Can we hear without grasping? What does this feel like? Mindfulness practice involves being fully aware of what is presenting at the sense doors without getting swept away by it or swept beyond it.

Tomorrow: Abandoning Arisen Unhealthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Misbehaving Among Sensual Pleasures

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via White Crane Institute // ELIZABETH EDWARDS

 

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The late Elizabeth Edwards

2004 -

"I don't know why somebody else's marriage has anything to do with me. I'm completely comfortable with Gay marriage. If he's pleasant to me on the street, if his children don't throw things in my yard, then I'm happy. It seems to me we're making issues of things that honestly don't matter." – The late ELIZABETH EDWARDS, ex-wife of Democratic presidential candidate (and narcissistic cad) John Edwards, speaking to reporters after her keynote speech to San Francisco's Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club. Her philandering husband responded by saying that he loves the way his wife always speaks her mind, but that he continued to only support civil unions for Gay couples all while having a child with another woman outside of his marriage and while his wife was fighting the cancer that would eventually take her life. Yeah...bye Felicia. Elizabeth Edwards deserved so much better.

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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 Lama Rod Owens // Tending to the summer of apocalypse

 

 

Dear Friends, 

As we enter the summer months, we are entering yet another uncertain season of a continued pandemic, war, inflation, political instability, and much more. 

Yes, this is overwhelming. 

However, as I prepare to transition into summer, I remain grateful for being alive in this body and on this earth because I want to be here to help and facilitate a new age of awakening. 

Contrary to secular understandings of apocalypse being the end of life, a sacred view understands apocalypse as rebirth through truthtelling. As the truth disrupts, we are called to hold space for the discomfort of this disruption, letting it go when we need to, and then turning our energy and attention to rebuilding a world centered on the truth. 

Considering all this, we must understand that summer is a continuation of the work to get free. We remember that a new world is arising, and we continue loving, caring, and dreaming this new world into existence. This is how you tend to the summer of apocalypse.

With love,
Lama Rod

[GBF] new GBF talk

 A new talk has been added to the audio archive at the GBF website:

2022_06_19 Steven Tierney GBF Pride.mp3

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Verbal Action

However the seed is planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing good deeds, bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too verbal action is to be done with repeated reflection: (MN 61) When you are doing an action with speech, reflect upon that same verbal action thus: “Does this action I am doing with speech lead to both my own affliction and the affliction of another?” If, upon reflection, you know that it does, then stop doing it; if you know that it does not, then continue. (MN 61)

Reflection

Human speech is actually a complex and remarkable phenomenon. There are many ways in which we are monitoring our own speech as we utter it, if only to know how to end the sentence we have started. We can make use of this power of self-observation to improve the ethical quality of our verbal behavior. It is largely a matter of becoming more conscious of what we are accustomed to doing automatically.

Daily Practice

You can be aware of what you are saying before, during, and after saying it. Here the emphasis is on active mindfulness of speech—awareness of what you are saying in the present moment. It can be helpful to speak somewhat more slowly, to allow yourself time and space to both create and monitor your words. Perhaps a synonym for mindfulness in this context would be thoughtfulness. Practice speaking thoughtfully.

Tomorrow: AAbstaining from Taking What is Not Given
One week from today: Reflecting upon Mental Action

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

 

Via Tricycle // Tried and True Ground

 

Tried and True Ground
By Vanessa Zuisei Goddard

When the path forward becomes unclear, how can we find the courage to step into the unknown?

Read more »

Via Daily Dharma: Notice Subtle Growth

 When you feel that you have hit a wall in your practice and don’t notice any obvious progress, you can find encouragement in the growth you observe in your fellow practitioners, and realize you may also be growing subtly.

Michael Wenger, “Competing with the Incomparable”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Tumblr // Statue of an ancient Mayan Warrior presenting a gift of corn, photographed in the Riviera Maya region of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

 

Via Tumblr

 

Via Tumblr

 7 things that affect your vibrational frequency from the point of view of quantum physics.

Vibration in quantum physics means that everything is energy. We are vibrating beings on certain frequencies. Every vibration equals a feeling and in the "vibrational" world, there are only two kinds of vibration, positive and negative. Every feeling makes you emit a vibration that can be positive or negative.

1st - Thoughts

Every thought emits a frequency out to the universe and that frequency goes back to the source, so in case if you have negative thoughts, discouragement, sadness, anger, fear, it all comes back to you. This is why it is so important that you take care of the quality of your thoughts and learn to cultivate more positive thoughts.

2nd - The Companies

The people around you have a direct impact on your vibrational frequency. If you surround yourself with happy, positive, and determined people, you will also enter this vibration. Now if you surround yourself with complainers, medics and pessimists, be careful! Indeed, they can decrease your frequency and therefore prevent you from exploiting the law of attraction in your favor.

3rd - The Music

Music is very powerful. If you only listen to music that talks about death, betrayal, sadness, abandonment, all of these will interfere with your vibration. Pay attention to the lyrics of the music you listen to, it could be lowering your vibrational frequency. And remember: you attract exactly what you vibrate into your life.

4th - Things You Watch

When you watch shows that deal with misfortune, death, betrayal, etc. your brain accepts this as reality and releases a whole chemistry in your body, which affects your vibrational frequency. Watch things that do you good and helps you vibrate at a higher frequency.

5th - The Mood

Whether at home or at work, if you spend a lot of time in a disorganized and dirty environment, it will also affect your vibrational frequency. Improve your surroundings, organize and clean up your environment. Show the universe that you are capable of receiving so much more. Take care of what you already have!

6th - The Word

If you pretend or speak poorly about things and people it affects your vibrational frequency. To maintain your frequency high, it is essential to eliminate the habit of complaining and bad talking about others. So avoid the drama and victimization. Take responsibility for your life choices!

7th - The Gratitude

Gratitude has a positive effect on your vibrational frequency. This is a habit you should incorporate into your life now. Start giving thanks for everything, for the good things and what you consider bad, give thanks for all the experiences you have experienced. Gratitude opens the door for good things to happen positively in your life.

Illustration: Daniel Martin Diaz - Wave telepathy

Via Tumblr & Facebook

 

 

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Malicious Speech

 

RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from Malicious Speech

Malicious speech is unhealthy. Refraining from malicious speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning malicious speech, one refrains from malicious speech. One does not repeat there what one has heard here to the detriment of these, or repeat here what he has heard there to the detriment of those. One unites those who are divided, is a promoter of friendships, and speaks words that promote concord. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak maliciously, but I shall abstain from malicious speech.” (MN 8) Disputes occur when a person is angry and revengeful. Such a person dwells disrespectful and undeferential towards others, causing harm and unhappiness for many. If you see any such root of a dispute either in yourself or externally, you should strive to abandon it. And if you do not see any such root of dispute either in yourself or externally, you should practice in such a way that it does not erupt in the future. (MN 104)

Reflection

Anger is considered in Buddhist thought to be an unhealthy emotion. It may be justified, and it may even be effective, but indulging anger always comes at a cost. It harms you as much as or more than the person to whom it is directed. One famous Buddhist image is of a person who tries to hurt someone with a burning torch while facing into the wind and ends up burning himself even more. Something similar happens when we exact revenge, another unhealthy state.

Daily Practice

Learn to recognize anger when it arises in your mind and to discern the many ways it can damage yourself and others. Is anger really necessary in this situation, and is it helpful? It is hard to see how destructive anger is as we get caught up in it in the moment and swept away. But if we can manage to pause and examine carefully what is going on, the danger and harmfulness of anger can become apparent.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Verbal Action
One week from today: Refraining from Harsh Speech

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Via Daily Dharma: Why It’s Good to Have Doubts

 

 When one is analyzing and studying, it is good to ask questions and to have doubts. It is good to give one’s intelligence free rein to investigate. Analysis produces a faith that is certain and that does not have to be shielded from logical inquiry.

Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, “The Path of Faith and the Path of Reasoning”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // ords of Wisdom - June 22, 2022 💌

 

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not 'I love you' for this or that reason, not 'I love you if you love me.' It is love for no reason, love without an object. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Compassion

 

RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Compassion

Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis upon which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on compassion, for when you develop meditation on compassion, any cruelty will be abandoned. (MN 62) The purpose of compassion is warding off cruelty. (Vm 9.97)

Reflection

Intention is the forerunner of the mind, guiding us toward the next moment. Intention steers a course through the world, directing our path to tread healthy or unhealthy terrain. However we set our minds in this moment will determine where our mind goes next. Compassion is a choice that we can make over and over, and the result will be the gradual development of a compassionate character. This is a worthwhile thing to do.

Daily Practice

Cultivate intentions of compassion by encouraging yourself to be aware of the suffering of others and care for their well-being. This does not mean feeling sorry for people or merely hoping they will somehow be better off. Buddhist texts describe compassion as “the trembling of the heart” when witnessing suffering, which gives rise to an intention of caring. Allow your heart to tremble—and to care.

Tomorrow: Refraining from Malicious Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Appreciative Joy

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: Transform Your Suffering

 Just like how a lotus flower rises from muddy water to bloom beautifully, we also have the ability to transform the suffering we experience into something more.

Rev. Blayne Higa, “On Guns and Anger”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

A Nakedman

Via Daily Kos

 

Via Tricycle

Sutta study is an important part of Buddhist practice—but can it also be a way of meditating?  According to Buddhist scholar, teacher, and author Sarah Shaw, the ancient practice of listening to Buddhist suttas is a form of meditation that brings unique spiritual, cultural, and historic insights into the texts that we engage with. Shaw herself has spent years studying, hearing, and chanting the Dīghanikāya, or Long Discourses of the Buddha, a collection of 34 suttas that forms one of the four major collections of teachings from the early period of Buddhism. Next week, Shaw joins Tricycle for an hour-long virtual event on the art of listening to Buddhist texts. In conversation with Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, Shaw will offer an introduction to the Dīghanikāya and present a literary and personal approach to engaging with Buddhist suttas as oral literature.  This event is free for Tricycle Premium subscribers!

Sign up now for free »

 

Via White Crane Institute \\ Bob Barzan

Bob Barzan

1989 -

BOB BARZAN publishes 1st issue of White Crane Newsletter, forerunner of White Crane Journal and GayWisdom.org. Bob has since moved on to found the Modesto Museum of Art in…you guessed it, Modesto, California. I am proud to call him a friend.

He has also made three of his other projects available online. White Crane and GayWisdom happily endorses each of them and strongly recommends readers check them out:

Sex and Spirit
Songs for Winter Solstice
Leaving the Priesthood

 

Today's Gay Wisdom

2017 -

Actualizing

By Bob Barzan

In the days following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Abraham Maslow was watching a parade of citizens marching to patriotic tunes. Deeply moved, he resolved at that moment to explore a “psychology of the peace table”, to discover the best and loftiest ideals and possibilities of the human species. It was clear to him that to learn about the complete and authentic individual he had to study men and women that were remarkably healthy. He offered this analogy for what he was to do.

“If we want to know how fast human beings can run, we don’t study a runner with a broken ankle or a mediocre runner. Instead, we study the Olympic gold medal winner, the best there is. Only in that way can we find out how fast human beings can run. Similarly, only by studying the healthiest personalities can we find out how far we can stretch and develop our capacities.”

This new perspective, a focus on health and thriving, and the best that we are rather than the common focus on illness and surviving, gave birth to a new school of psychology that came to be known as “humanistic”. This perspective, in turn, became popular through the human potential movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Psychotheorists gave different names to this healthy life. Maslow called it the actualized life, Karl Jung, the individuated life, and Carl Rogers the fully functioning life, but what they described are individuals with very similar characteristics.

Healthy individuals are men and women who are, first of all, authentic. They do not try to live lives denying who they are in order to please society or others, but rather they live lives that are true or faithful to their inner callings. And here a distinction was made between a person’s true inner self and a superficial self. Second, these people excel, or strive to excel in the virtues that make it possible for us to live together harmoniously; love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, joy, courage, patience, truth, peace, tolerance, generosity, and other similar virtues. The presence of these two characteristics, authenticity and what I call healthy spiritual virtues became for me indicators of what it means to be a healthy man or woman and they became the bases for my definition of spirituality.

For more than twenty years I’ve been aware that most people make at least one false assumption in the area of spirituality. Most people assume that all things having to do with spirituality, and they usually mean religion, are good and beyond judgment or evaluation. As I reflected on my own life, on my own coming out as a gay man, and on my experience of eleven years as a Jesuit, it became clear to me that spirituality and religion are not the same; rather religion is just one of many spiritual paths. More importantly I saw that some spiritual paths, including many religions, are not helping people live actualized, fully functioning, in other words healthy, lives, but making them sick or unhealthy. Instead of helping them live authentic lives characterized by healthy spiritual virtues, some spiritual paths encourage hate, greed, revenge, intolerance, and all the characteristics that make it impossible for people to live together in peace.

Like many gay men, I had tried to live in a society that made me suppress my own sexuality, my own identity. It was a society that deceived me, and told me that being gay is bad, unnatural, a sin. It was a society that encouraged me to be alienated from my self, and so was in violation of the first principle of healthy living, authenticity. Right from the beginning I was living a lie, truth had been sacrificed for some other priority, and I was expected to build a healthy spirituality on this false foundation. I realized that a spiritual path that had me denying the truth, especially about myself, may bring me all sorts of “benefits” like acceptance, security, position, and power, but it wasn’t life giving, it was making me sick.

Several years ago a wonderful story circulated in San Francisco about the opening of a new Zen center. A distinguished straight Zen master addressed the assembly of mostly gay Zen practitioners. Everyone expected he would give a typical dedication address, saying nothing of consequence. He astounded everyone, however, by proclaiming that unless you are out of the closet you are not practicing Zen. These are amazing, insightful, and rare words from a religious leader. But in these words he confirms what Maslow and others discovered years ago; the importance of authenticity for a healthy life. A healthy spirituality then is really about two major concerns; authenticity and the development of life giving spiritual virtues. An unhealthy spirituality is the opposite.

There is a tendency in our society to compartmentalize our lives so that spirituality has little or nothing to do with how we live day-to-day. Spirituality, however, is not something we do only when we are meditating, analyzing our dreams, or worshiping on any given day. Our spirituality is our whole way of life and that includes our sexuality, our play, how we make our money, how we spend our money, how we use our time, drive a car, make decisions, and how we treat people every day. Everything that is part of our life is part of our spirituality whether we are conscious of it or not. And everything we do can either help us live more authentically, help us develop healthy spiritual virtues, or it can do the opposite.

Over the years I have learned to discern when I am on or off a healthy spiritual track by watching the results of my decisions, my attitudes, and way of living. A healthy spiritual life manifests itself differently in every individual, but in general you can recognize it because you will see an increase in love, compassion, generosity, kindness, courage, patience, and an ability to live harmoniously with other people and all of nature.

Bob Barzan lives in Modesto, California where he created the Modesto Museum of Art.

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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 L.A. Times

 

Old Gays Meet Pabllo Vittar

Via NPR /// Pabllo Vittar: The drag queen-superstar fighting for equality in Brazil