Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Via The Collective Social Network / FB:


Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - September 4, 2019 💌


"After one progresses in his or her sadhana, after meditation gets deeper, he or she lets go of the model of themselves more and more, and begins to touch and enter deeper into that space of love. One begins to experience love toward more and more people.

Sooner or later you are going to be in love with just the universe. You’ll be sitting in that place that is love where all is One. Then when you look at another being, you are looking at love. You are love, and you are with love. You are in a state of love with all beings. At this point you’ve given up all the stuff that’s going to pull you out of this place. At this point, all the fear in the love relationship is dissipated."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Practice Letting Go

It’s probably when you’re willing to let go of all of your hopes and fears around accomplishing anything, being anyone, attaining any level that the practice can really work its magic.

—Pamela Gayle White, “The Dream Team

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

Via União Nacional LGBT - Inconfidentes / FB:


Na atualidade os movimentos sociais reconhecem a importância do conceito de ''interseccionalidade'' para avançar os direitos humanos em várias frentes. Entretanto, homens gays não devem aderir à interseccionalidade de modo acrítico, mas devem apoiá-la de forma racional; é necessário que esta seja sempre uma via de mão dupla. Verifique se está ocorrendo uma contrapartida com a questão homossexual, observe se as demandas da comunidade gay não estão sendo subalternizadas, evite se possível a hierarquização das opressões. Por fim, devemos ter sempre em mente que outros movimentos sociais foram criados por heterossexuais, e seu caráter ''heterocêntrico'' pode demorar a atenuar-se. Quando não existir isonomia, procure favorecer a comunidade gay; por maiores que sejam os problemas de outras minorias, elas podem contar com seu próprio grupo, que ainda é hegemônico no campo da sexualidade e orientação sexual: os heterossexuais.

Via União Nacional LGBT - Inconfidentes / FB:


 
HISTÓRIA — O movimento LGBT (anteriormente chamado de movimento gay, movimento homofílico, e movimento uranista) foi fundado originalmente por homens gays. É politicamente incorreto afirmar isso nos dias atuais. Mas os fatos históricos não devem ser encobertos por mentiras convencionadas por códigos de correção política.

Além disso, a comunidade gay, como outras comunidades minoritárias, desviantes e marginalizadas, tem o direito de tomar posse da sua memória, e o direito de orgulhar-se das suas lutas.

A faxina cultural da história gay promovida pelo heterossexismo tradicional tem se somado à micro faxina cultural levada a cabo pelo comboio de movimentos sociais LGBTQI+. É importante, neste sentido, e em tais circunstâncias, que todos saibam que:

▬ O movimento gay não começou após os motins de Stonewall, em 1969. Este movimento teve início no século XIX na Alemanha. O primeiro revolucionário gay se chamava Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825). O conceito de "gay right" é invenção dele; portanto o "Orgulho" existe graças a Ulrichs. O primeiro grupo gay apareceu em 1887. O movimento homossexual alemão foi muito importante e obteve mudanças sociais significativas. Antes do advento do nazismo existiu uma coalizão que agregava milhares de ativistas, e se expandiu para outras nações europeias, como a Suíça, sobrevivendo aos nazistas.

▬ Na América, os primeiros ativistas apareceram já na década de 20, inspirados pelo movimento gay alemão. E depois nos anos 40, 50 e 60, antes dos motins [de Stonewall]. Na época dos motins havia dezenas de grupos gays organizados; inclusive existiam revistas gays de ativismo a nível nacional desde os anos 50. Durante toda a década de 60, homossexuais militantes saíram às ruas para protestar publicamente contra discriminação e por direitos civis.

▬ Os motins de Stonewall são um marco simbólico para o movimento gay; a partir dele as manifestações de rua tomaram a forma de "paradas", tal como conhecemos hoje (anteriormente as manifestações de rua aconteciam sob a forma de piquete) e o termo "gay" popularizou-se para a cultura mainstream. Segundo o historiador David Carter, o sucesso de tais motins deve-se principalmente a jovens homossexuais sem teto, em sua maioria caucasianos e afeminados. Havia poucos latinos, poucos gays masculinos, e quase nenhuma transexual e travesti. A alegação do movimento transgênero americano de que foram as travestis e transexuais "quem mais lutou" ou "quem começou a luta" é ilegítima.

▬ Os motins de Stonewall não representam a "primeira rebelião gay" do mundo. Nos anos 60 ocorreram vários motins em bares frequentados por homossexuais; um dos mais importantes aconteceu na "Taverna do gato preto", em 1966. Além disso, também existiram motins no século dezoito na Inglaterra, dentro de uma ''casa Molly'' (casa de maric*s, bar gay pré moderno) e uma rebelião contra uma lei homofóbica em Tessalônia (na Grécia), no ano de 388 da Era Comum (EC).

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Texto levemente adaptado do original de Walter Silva — ativista e pesquisador independente da cultura e memória da comunidade Gay

Via Bhante Ven Sangharatna / FB: The Mind is Everything....

The Mind is Everything....
#buddha #Buddhathoughts


Via Daily Dharma: Taking a Path toward Deeper Understanding

The path of right intention is the innate power of awareness to open our minds into deeper understanding. We can move beyond the limits of our own survival. We can indeed overcome conventional desires and concepts to act selflessly for the benefit of others.

—Douglas Penick, “Exploring What Is

Monday, September 2, 2019

Via The Rainbow Rose Society / FB:


Via Daily Dharma: How to Practice Every Day

From the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we settle in at the end of the day, we are afforded so many authentic places to practice. Every experience of hardship provides fertile ground in which we can root our practice.

—Justin von Bujdoss, “Ask a Teacher

Sunday, September 1, 2019

Via FB:


Via Words of Wisdom - September 1, 2019 💌 Inbox x


"Though we get love, it goes through us and then we need love all over again. It’s so deep in all of us that we’ve built a whole reality around it. We think that’s the way it is—that everybody needs love and that if you don’t get it you are deprived - the more of it the better.

In that sense it’s like an achievement. You see people who are achievers. The minute they achieve something it becomes irrelevant and their awareness turns to the next achievement. It’s because they are addicted to the practice, not to the goal."

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Resolving Conflict with Mindfulness

When we resolve something with mindfulness, we can let it go and free ourselves from its power. The resolution of such a conflict leads us to contemplate what life is about.

—Ajahn Sumedho, “The Gift of Gratitude

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Via Lion's Roar / The Beauty of Imperfection


Wabi-Sabi For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
An excerpt from Leonard Koren’s gem, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers, considered a class statement on this Japanese aesthetic.
Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The beauty of wabi-sabi is, in one respect, the condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.

Via Daily Dharma: Discovering Silence in Sound

As we progress, we realize how constricted we are by our discriminating mind: our minds, not our hearing organs, make the distinction between sound and silence. But if you practice listening until you no longer make distinctions, you develop a power that is liberating.

—Dharma Master Hsin Tao, “Listening to Silence

Friday, August 30, 2019

Via Daily Dharma: What’s at the Center of Pain?

We twist in the turbulence on the edges of pain; in the eye of the pain is the stillness.

—Joan E. Chapman, “Fields of Awareness

Thursday, August 29, 2019

Via Daily Dharma: What Does Mindfulness Achieve?

Be in harmony with each breath, each moment, and know that in giving yourself this time to develop awareness and a steadiness of attention you are nourishing spirit, head and heart.

—Elana Rosenbaum, “Guided Meditation: Awareness of Breathing

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Some thoughts on universal healthcare...

For those of you who do not have, or perhaps even know what universal healthcare looks like, let me share my experience. Just for the record, I am fine.
Monday as I was walking up the hill to Tai Chi class, a couple of heavy trucks came by spewing diesel smoke. Being the absent-minded professor, I realized that I had forgotten to do my inhaler (A voice said it’ll be fine, you can do it when you get back from the gym). 1/2 way thru Tai Chi, I said to myself,
“Self, we are NOT fine nor are we going to the gym after class, we are going to the University Health Clinic”
I ambled, back up Rua Alvarenga then down to HQ, with a big knot in my chest – asthma does that, but this time… hmmm.  I did my inhaler took a shower and had Milton make damn sure I didn’t fall into a lump on the road as we walked very slowly up the hill (again!) to the bus stop and then he made sure I went into the clinic on campus.
If you tell the nurse, you are having trouble breathing, they take you in quickly. (mental note) She did, and as luck would have it, my Dr, was there and took me in, listened to my breathing, my heart. As he was talking to me, and writing a perscription, the knot really got knotty, as it were. I told him, and immediately he decided to send me to UPA (Unidade de Pronto Atendimento) to get an EKG. I was so flummoxed, that I forgot to tell them I had UNIMED… but no problem. 
They called a university car, and a nurse went with me to UPA (by HQ), and got me settled in. The EKG got done, and then the Dr. decided I was probably fine, but a blood test was in order… so they checked me in. As the test they needed to do was a 3 blood test series, 6 hours apart… I was sentenced to 20 hrs.… of hard resting (the beds are like plywood).
Thank the gawd/ess I had my trusty iPad w/Kindle app and no wifi… so there I was… a tech cleasning, as I waited. I hunkered down and began reading. In a room (frozen… as the night went on, it became colder and colder, and by the time I was discharged at 2am, it was 6c). As I settled in, I realized there were just two of us, the other was a severely disturbed and confused schizophrenic and his elderly mother. Not ever having witnessed such, I decided to try and read and observe.
The poor guy had been having an episode for more than a day, his mother was exhausted, and he kept getting confused with the noises that occur in hospital, clinic, emergency places. He had a number of incidents, some loud, mostly confused, when he came over to a newly admitted guy in pain on another bed and began going thru his pockets, that was it. A nurse came and went, and a guard told him he had to settle down, then they realized he was a handful, so opened a separate room for him. As his mother was picking up, I asked if I could hug her, she came over and I hugged her, and she burst into tears and I gave her my love and blessings. Intense.
By then an other young guy came in and settled in on the other side of the guy who was in pain. Now there were three of us… I was ¼ of the way through my book. The guy next to me, soon was visited by family who let him have it, as I think he was weaseling for pain killers. The UPA folks checked him out and the family gave him an ultimatum to come with them… he wanted to stay… finally he left. The guy in far bed kept asking for morphine, finally about 10pm a nurse gave him a shot with a short lecture. The guy kept sneaking into the bathroom for a smoke, I finally had to ask him to keep the door closed… as I was there for asthma.
“Oh, sorry”. The universal reaction when smokers who seem to think its ok to share their cancerous inclinations with all of us, even in a hospital.
The poor schizophrenic left me alone the whole time, I was doing heavy METTA work by that time, but he kept making a scene, soon they discharged or sent him somewhere else. Containing a serverly disturbed guy with white light seemed to work... but I digress.
Somewhere in there, I begin musing about films I had seen – things like, oh... One Flies over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and various war and prison films, etc.… as time seemed to fly by me…
By this time it was past 11pm, and I'd had dinner and lunch (simple and on the house), and the morphine kid was taken to the hospital.  I turned out the lights and almost dosed off when on came the lights, and another really nice guy was shown a bed and given oxygen as his asthma was far worse than mine. Soon I turned off the lights, and finally dosed, and then it was time for my last bloodletting… dosed some more and then about 2am, the doctor came in and let me know that my test results were negative, my heart was fine, and I could either stay (oh hell no) or go.
Somewhere during this, a handsome nurse came by to say he was leaving for the night, and to ask if everything was OK. “I am fine, obrigado”, and then he asked me what I thought about UPA, how it compares to the USA. He knew a lot about USA health care, that it’s not free or universal. We had a nice chat… he apologized for the craziness, as that day was busy, with a number of cases brought in by the police.
Healthcare is universal and free here in Brasil and for everyone… UPA’s are everywhere, some very simple, and send you to the next more sophisticed one (like this one in my neighborhood), and if they can’t fix you up, if not, off you are sent to the Santa Casa (local hospital), like the poor bloke with the morphine need for his back pain. 

So what do I think?
1.     In contrast to the universal healthcare I had seen or experienced in Denmark or Greece, it seems at first glance a bit shoddy and threadbare, but in reality, the tech and treatment is every bit as good as in Europe or for pay at Kaiser in Sacramento. The building (and beds) could use some love, and will get it asap, as a new improved UPA is almost complete in between UFOP and the Santa Casa.
2.     The doctors and nurses are as great as great could be – I have so much respect for folks who work in these places, and then can just go home every night. How they dealt with any and all of us, was nothing but top notch.
3.     There are few things Brazilians are proud of, but the nurse, colleagues here at UFOP, and others I know ARE proud of UPA’s. They are universally spread out over Brasil, and give everyone, rich poor, confused (in my case) free quality care… viva!
I can’t complain, I am glad that the worst-case scenario, if something radically bad did occur for either of us, that we would get good care and be sent on our way.
So yes, its universal, and yes, we pay for it through our taxes, but its good, and everyone gets the care they need. You can in our case get private care to supplement it (if you remember to in my case). 
So USA, get with the program… no one I know here goes into bankruptcy when they get cancer. You might get bumped up (think triage) to the next place, or a doctor you want, may not be there for you the next day. Or as the guy I left to sleep, who was in for a far worse asthma attack than mine, and got oxygen, you might just need to get away from home, get some care and rest – Brazilians are used to a far higher noise ration than I am to sleep. But there you are – it works, and it works for everyone.
If the corruption and graft and political confusion hadn’t distracted this great country.... both public education and healthcare could be all that much better, no one is asking for anything special here, just respect and care. But alas, or as folks here say “pois é”.
Life is good, damn good! (and can be somewhat breath taking at times)