Gratitude, the simple and profound feeling of being thankful, is the foundation of all generosity.
—Sallie Tisdale, “As If There Is Nothing to Lose”
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Friday, November 6, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: The Foundation of Generosity
Via FB // Frodo & Sam
Found this in someone´s comments today:
“Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam:
I know.
It’s all wrong.
By rights we shouldn’t even be here.
But we are.
It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo,
The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy?
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?
But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you.
That meant something.
Even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.
I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo:
What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam:
That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, And it’s worth fighting for.”
Via Spotlight on David Hinton | Author of China Root from Shambhala Publications
Experience the Wild Beauty of Hunger Mountain
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Thursday, November 5, 2020
Today's Gay Wisdom via White Crane Institute: 2017 - Equinox/Return
An excerpt from Mark Thompson’s Gay Spirit: Myth & Meaning
What Edward Carpenter, Gerald Heard and Harry Hay recognized was the “new city of Friends” described by Walt Whitman over a hundred years ago—a sustaining place where “robust love” might thrive, a deep source of empowerment. It has been a dream asserted by a few and glimpsed by others at crucial points in our development. The early 1950s and 1970s were times when our movement howled at the moon, briefly acknowledging that this dream could be a reality. That this rude awakening represented something instinctual, wildly alive, posed problems for our leaders. Here was nature, woolly and cloven-hoofed, taking on unexpected form. Here were luminous faces peering out on the edges of accepted reality. How strangely familiar, too, for others to suppress what they do not comprehend, to fear what they’ve been taught to distrust.
Power, status, the hierarchy of who’s on top is the real currency of American culture, and so many of our leaders have been seduced by it all. These are the tactics of assimilation and they smell of panic. Thinking we have gained so much, we have been led to settle for less than we can be.
There is a tyranny implicit in any label, and certainly the label of Gay has now been revealed as much for its limitations as for its liberations. Why not consider difference, whatever its reason, in terms of function? The concept of a faerie shaman is just one idea that indicates a purposeful role, beyond that of just political or sexual identity. In times past and in many cultures, we often assumed the tasks of the shamans—wise and creative ones—and were duly honored as such. If we can but take gay beyond society’s definition—which we have internalized—and see ourselves as part of this function, our secret will be out.
I failed in my father’s eyes, and he in mind, as, I suppose, it had been fated. More to the point, few gay men ever seem to find complete acceptance from their fathers. (And even tolerance, however honorable, cannot account for true knowing.) Gay men have even less hope of being accepted by the greater father, the world of our daily existence, which, despite tolerant inroads, remains disapproving to its core. But neither can an opposite reality—that is, the matriarchy—hold any more honest place for us. Perhaps at one time, and according to the current feminist myth, the dominant Great Mother societies of agrarian, pre-Judeo-Christian times accepted gay men as welcomed sons. But I suspect, more likely, as subservient sons, in contrast to the outlawed sons of our contemporary age.
So gay men remain suspended in a horrible dilemma. Both the matriarchy and the patriarchy have, in effect, played themselves out; and the future, symbolized through an historic union of the two—has yet to fully emerge. Gay male consciousness remains stymied, unable to come of age. This is why so much of recent gay-identified culture appears to lack deeper meaning; however fresh and guileless its messages, empowered as it is by ritual dance and sex and defiance against corrupt authority.
At what point do gay boys stop finding favor in their father’s eyes? What stories are withheld, what rites of manhood lost in that uncomprehending gaze? Now, as gay men, we must begin by finding forgiveness in each other’s eyes, seek favor in stories of our own telling — our own fairy tales, the instructional fables we need to assume a mature and ever evolving gay adulthood. And for this we need to reinvest in wonder.
By learning more fully to evoke and to balance the powers of (what were once known as) the Earth Mother and Father Sky, we can set into motion our own whiling evolution as gay men beyond definition. We will no longer suffer from the constraints of living on a fraction of a life. We will evidence harmony as men who see clearly within and thus act cleanly without. We can learn to revel in our perspective, as much as our preference, and we don’t need a name. Our freedom is our responsibility. We simply need to do our work.
But first we must take the dark fantasies of our suppressed spirits out of their closets into the powerful light of reality. We can have a vision, and, thus, a culture to affirm, until one day perhaps our fathers will knowingly proclaim: “I have one of those.”
Gay Spirit: Myth & Meaning is now available at www.gaywisdom.org www.whitecranebooks.org
Via Daily Dharma: Breathe into Freedom
Each
day presents a new confrontation with reality. I want to run; instead, I
breathe. One breath—the freedom to choose my response in that moment.
—Marilyn Buck, “The Freedom to Breathe”
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Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - November 4, 2020 💌
- Ram Dass -
Via Daily Dharma: Listen in Good Faith
Understanding occurs best when there’s an opportunity for an open dialogue in good faith.
—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Lost in Quotation”
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Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Via Tricycle // Defending Democracy
Defending Democracy
By Jamyang Norbu
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Via Daily Dharma: Sharing Your Vision for Society
With
a pure motivation, voting and being politically active can be ways of
sharing our vision and values with others, in an attempt to stop harm
and create happiness in society.
—Ven. Thubten Chodron, “Should Buddhists Vote?”
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Monday, November 2, 2020
Via Mushim Patricia Ikeda - EBMC Sangha
Pre-Election Day Metta (Loving Kindness Meditation):
May every ballot be counted.
May all who vote in-person be protected from illness, intimidation, and harm.
May all candidates be safe and protected.
May the results be clear, fair, and be of benefit toward the liberation of all beings without exception.
-- Dharma teacher La Sarmiento, teacher, Insight Meditation Community of Washington (D.C.)
Via Tricycle // Tina Turner
Absolutely, Indestructibly Happy
Interview with Tina Turner by Clark Strand
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Via Daily Dharma: Twenty-Four Hours of Opportunity
If
you are aware that you are alive, that you have twenty-four hours to
create new joy, this would be enough to make yourself happy and the
people around you happy.
—Interview with Thich Nhat Hanh by Helen Tworkov, “Interbeing with Thich Nhat Hanh: An Interview”
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Sunday, November 1, 2020
Via Daily Dharma: Beginning Again
As
with breathing practice, walking meditation, loving kindness practice or
living in harmony with the precepts, we take refuge over and over
again. We make progress, we slip backwards and sideways, we get
distracted, we get discouraged, we get elated, and we begin again.
—Beth Roth, “Family Dharma: Taking Refuge (On the Wings of Angels)”
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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - November 1, 2020 💌
Learn how to be comfortable with aloneness without defining it as loneliness, and realize that while your incarnation, your ego, is a socially derived construct, your soul is not. Your meditation practice is done in order to bring you back into your soul identity, where you can recognize that we are all alone, but you’re only lonely if you’re caught down in your ego.
- Ram Dass -
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