Sunday, January 20, 2013

Via Buddhist Boot Camp / FB:

If you’ve ever taken a puppy for a walk, you know that it runs after everything that sparks its curiosity. After we train it to obey some simple commands, however, it grows to be our obedient and intuitive best friend.

The mind can be just as active and difficult to control as a puppy, yet we’ve never trained it to listen to us. Why haven’t we done this? Our mind chases random thoughts, jumps to conclusions, and has a hard time staying focused. We have so little control of it, in fact, that sometimes we can’t even turn it off at the end of the day. If it were a puppy, we would be very upset!

We know that Buddhism is about training the mind, and that there are many methods of doing so. The second principle of Buddhist Boot Camp is that our thoughts become words, and our words become actions. To train the mind, however, Buddhist Boot Camp suggests working backward. Start by changing your actions, then be mindful of your speech, and your thoughts will eventually follow.

First, recognize and eliminate your bad habits (whatever they may be). If you habitually act out of anger, for example, then there’s no fertile soil in your mind for the seed of gratitude to grow. To think positively, your actions must be in line with your intentions.

Be part of the solution by not being part of the pollution, for it isn’t enough to simply study Buddhism; we must practice what we learn!

Training the mind requires a lot of self-control, determination, and freedom from anger (whether you follow this particular method, transcendental meditation, yoga, or any other approach).

Buddhist Boot Camp is not here to necessarily teach you anything new, but to encourage you to put into practice what you already know; to point you in the direction of gratitude and unconditional love. We can’t just THINK ABOUT compassion and kindness; we must BE compassionate and kind. Now let’s get to work!
thanks and many _/|\_'s to Buddhist Boot Camp for this

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma January 20, 2013

Abandoning Futile Endeavors

To look for total satisfaction in oneself is a futile endeavor. Since everything changes from moment to moment, where can self and where can satisfaction be found? Yet these are two things that the whole world is looking for and it sounds quite reasonable, doesn’t it? But since these are impossible to find, everybody is unhappy. Not necessarily because of tragedies, poverty, sickness, or death: simply because of unfilled desire. Everybody is looking for something that isn’t available.
- Ayya Khema, “No Satisfaction”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 21st, 2013
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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Via Unreal Americans / FBP:


Via Gay Marriage Oregon / FB:


Via JMG: NEW MEXICO: Democratic State Rep Proposes Ballot Measure On Marriage


New Mexico state Rep. Brian Egolf yesterday introduced a bill that would place a constitutional amendment to legalize same-sex marriage on an upcoming public ballot.
“It’s time to recognize all the families in New Mexico who are headed by same-sex couples,” Egolf said Thursday. The proposal probably won’t have an easy time in the Legislature. Lawmakers in recent years haven’t even been able to pass legislation calling for state-recognized domestic partnership agreements. Egolf’s House Joint Resolution 3 says, “The issuance of a marriage license shall not be denied on the basis that the sex of both applicants is the same. No church or religious institution shall be required to perform a marriage ceremony or recognize a marriage for religious purposes that conflicts with the church’s or religious institution’s beliefs.” The measure, whose co-sponsors include Rep. Stephen Easley, D-Santa Fe, will first be heard in the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.

Reposted from Joe

Me: "VIVA NEW MEXICO!"

Via Truebook.org / FB


Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma January 19, 2013

The Reward of Practice

As you bring alignment, relaxation, and resilience into your daily life, your breath automatically becomes fuller and starts moving through your entire body, just as the Buddha suggested in his description of meditation. Without forcing a thing, let your breath breathe you: breathe into your entire body, and breathe out just as effortlessly. This condition, nothing more, nothing less, is really the reward and benefit of the practice.
- Will Johnson, “Full Body, Empty Mind”
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 20th, 2013
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Friday, January 18, 2013

Via Gay Politics Report:

  • European court rules faith doesn't trump LGBT laws
     
  • The European Court of Human Rights, ruling in several cases testing the rights of people of faith, said religious objections are not sufficient to absolve certain individuals from complying with LGBT non-discrimination laws. "The court showed conclusively that the principle of equality and equal treatment cannot be circumvented with a simple reference to religion," said Sophie in ‘t Veld, vice-president of the European Parliament’s LGBT Intergroup. GlobalPost.com (1/15), Washington Blade (Washington, D.C.) (1/16) LinkedInFacebookTwitterEmail this Story

Via JMG: Dear Abby Dies At 94


Dear Abby advice columnist Pauline Phillips has died at the age of 94. Phillips was known for being one of earliest and most widely-read supporters of gay people.
Phillips’ column competed for decades with the advice column of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer. Their relationship was stormy in their early adult years, but later they regained the close relationship they had growing up in Sioux City, Iowa. The two columns differed in style. Ann Landers responded to questioners with homey, detailed advice. Abby’s replies were often flippant one-liners. She willingly expressed views that she realized would bring protests. In a 1998 interview she remarked: “Whenever I say a kind word about gays, I hear from people, and some of them are damn mad. People throw Leviticus, Deuteronomy and other parts of the Bible to me. It doesn’t bother me. I’ve always been compassionate toward gay people.”
Ann Landers died in 2002. Dear Abby is written today Phillips' daughter, Jeanne.


Reposted from Joe

Via Gray Queers shared The LGBT Project / FB


Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:


Daily Buddhist Wisdom






A mind unshaken when touched by the worldly states, sorrowless, stainless, and secure, this is the blessing supreme. Those who have fulfilled all these are everywhere invincible; they find well-being everywhere, theirs is the blessing supreme.
- (adapted from) Mangala Sutta

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma January 18, 2013

Body in Practice

In a sense, all of Buddhist practice takes place here, in this most intimate realm: here, in the family, shoulder to shoulder with fellow workers, beside each other on the cushion. Even alone in a cave, there is no way out of the sense object we call the body. We meet each other face to face, and so have all our teachers and ancestors met each other. In this way have all the Buddhas taught. Hand to sweating hand.
- Sallie Tisdale, "Washing Out Emptiness"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 19th, 2013
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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Via Give a Damn Campaign / FB:


Via 2012 Healing the Planet 2012 / FB:

2012 Healing the Planet 2012 shared a photo:
"To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself." 
~ Thich Nhat Hanh  ~
_(<3)_


"To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself."  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

With Bows of Gratefulness to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States:


Once again on Facebook and other venues, there have been a number of interesting discussions about GLBT people and their incorporation in the Bahá’í Faith. 

Unfortunately nothing is new – the conservatives continue to point out to those of us who already know that the writings say this or that, and appear to have free reign to spew their nonsense (essentially reminding us that we are not welcome). Though they will never really say so, because hiding their disgraceful homophobia behind a wall of the Sacred Writings, appears to give them power and weight. Instead they increasingly engage readers in the same tired discourse related to why the Faith cannot change (which I interpret why they do not want it to change). Meanwhile most of us GLBT folks, friends and family try to engage in other possibilities, trying to show that many other religious communities have found a way to ignore the very same teachings, and are welcoming GLBT people. But alas…

All of this has allowed me to recognize the “wisdom” of the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States in removing my rights as a Bahá’í. In some unintended way, they have given me the opportunity to speak out fearlessly (what do I have to loose now?); investigate alternative truths and embrace Buddhism; to really come to question the need for organized religion at all; and even for the first time in my life question the actual existence of god him/herself…

This officially sanctioned homophobia by the Bahá’í leadership and majority of the Bahá’ís themselves, was for me, the final nail in the coffin  --no women on the UHJ was a major one, birth control, length of your hair, and some other weird and funky rules the Aqdas appears to be ready to implement -- that until then I was willing to forgo, and I like others accepted the official answer for etc… but now seeing that the shunning of science, reason and any sense of compassion for GLBT people is official, my concerns for all sorts of other oddities in the Faith opened up.  And the Faith looks like a cult or at best, silly, irrelevant and terribly sad…

To be honest, before having been defrocked, I was probably headed this way anyway… I had pretty much had it with the Bahá’ís in my community. I had made a couple of visits to the Shrines in Israel to pray and reflect and was treated coldly. Their officially sanctioned homophobia accelerated a process that I rather think was underway within anyway. So ian a funny way, their disgraceful act of showing me the door only allowed me to escape their cage.  A Fulbright research trip to Nepal and encounter with the Sacramento Buddhist Mediation Group confirmed what I was looking for -- a home, a refuge a sangha, that no Bahá’í Community has ever offered me. 

Removing my status as a member of the Bahá’í community unless I undergo some sort of treatment and divorce my husband, I think was intended to be a form of punishment for being a happy, open, and honest gay man.  But I rather think it has had the opposite effect, it has liberated me, made hundreds of people I know and love turn away from a religion that once held such promise, that once was held up to be progressive, loving and tolerant, and has shown the world that the Faith actually is no better than many of the other homophobic religions or cults it seeks to compete with.

So it is I offer bows of gratefulness to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States; may they liberate more and more people as time goes on!

Namaste! 

Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:


Daily Buddhist Wisdom






The true principle is that even reality is not really real, and even falsehood is not unreal. It is not something calculable. Like space, it cannot be cultivated. If any intellectual fabrication occurs in the mind, then it is governed by measurements. This is like divination signs they are governed by metal, wood, fire, and earth. It is also like sticky glue; the kind demon can grab you, stuck in five places, and go home freely.
- Pai-chang

Sean Chapin - "Just Believe" (an It Gets Better song)


Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma January 17, 2013

Our Highest Intentions

No matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can always set our compass to our highest intentions in the present moment. Perhaps it is nothing more than being in a heated conversation with another person and stopping to take a breath and ask yourself, 'What is my highest intention in this moment?' If you can have enough awareness to take this small step, your heart will give you an answer that will take the conversation in a different, more positive direction.
- Jack Kornfield, "Set the Compass of Your Heart"
Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through January 18th, 2013
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Marriage Equality USA Op-ed: Dear Conservative Christians: It's OK to Evolve on LGBT Equality

Advocate op-ed on the selection and withdrawal of a pastor to give the benediction at the inauguration, and replacement by an LGBT-affirming Episcopalian priest.

"...We do live in a society that should welcome vibrant discourse on a variety of subjects. But when it comes to affirming the human dignity of an individual, there is no room for compromise. It’s not up for discussion.

"That’s why, on second glance, something was very wrong with the initial selection. The problem was not merely a difference of opinion on an 'issue,' but rather, that the prayer to our nation would be offered by a man who might not fully affirm the human dignity of all Americans.

"...Christianity does not have to be exclusive of LGBT equality, and when it is, people are leaving the church.

"...As public opinion shifts, churches that do not fully affirm LGBT people will leave many in their flock behind. Scripture that is void of compassion is merely words, and our ability to have compassion for every human being is critical to our faith and in an increasingly diverse world.

"...The exclusion of Reverend Giglio is not a matter of banishing conservative theology from the public square; it is a matter of the public demanding more from our churches — more compassion, more understanding, and more dialogue about our biblical texts.

"While I have and continue to appreciate the president’s efforts to reach across the aisle, it is clear that his inaugural committee initially missed the mark on this one. It isn’t a problem to have an evangelical conservative give the benediction, but at the very least, a pastor who blesses our nation must fully affirm the human dignity of all Americans — that includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans."