If
we truly wish to be free of our difficulties, our heart has no other
recourse than to acknowledge the core issue (even if we have studiously
avoided it for decades!) and accept its connection to the suffering we
are experiencing.
Friday, October 1, 2021
Thursday, September 30, 2021
Via White Crane Institute // This Day in Gay History: JALAL AL-DIN MUHAMMAD RUMI
This Day in Gay History
September 30
Born
1207 -
JALAL AL-DIN MUHAMMAD RUMI, Persian mystic and poet born (d. 1273) also known as Mawlānā Jalāl-ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, but most famously known to the English-speaking world simply as RUMI.
Rumi was a 13th century Persian (Tajik) Muslim poet, jurist and theologian. His name literally translates as "Majesty of Religion", Jalal means "majesty" and Din means "religion." Rumi is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he died in Anatolia which was part of the Byzantine Empire two centuries before.
Rumi was born in Balkh (in present-day Afghanistan), then a city of Greater Khorasan in Persia and died in Konya (in present-day Turkey). His birthplace and native language/local dialogue indicates a Persian (Tajik) heritage. His poetry is in Persian and his works are widely read in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and in translation especially in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the US, and South Asia. He lived most of his life in, and produced his works under, the Sejuk Empire. Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. Throughout the centuries he has had a significant influence on Persian as well as Urdu and Turkish literature. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages in various formats. After Rumi's death, his followers founded the Meylevi Order, better known as the "Whirling Dervishes," who believe in performing their worship in the form of dance and music ceremony called the sema.
It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on November 15th 1244 that changed his life completely. Shams had traveled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company." A voice came, "What will you give in return?" "My head!" "The one you seek is Jalal al-Din of Konya." On the night of December 5, 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. It is believed that he was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son, 'Ala' ud-Din; if so, Shams indeed gave his head for the privilege of mystical friendship.
Rumi's love and his bereavement for the death of Shams found their expression in an outpouring of music, dance and lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. There, he realized:
Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!
For more than ten years after meeting Shams, Mawlana had been spontaneously composing ghazals, and these had been collected in the Divan-i Kabir. Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, the goldsmith. After Salaḥ ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favorite student Hussam-e Chelebi assumed the role. One day, the two of them were wandering through the Meram vineyards outside of Konya when Hussam described an idea he had to Rumi: "If you were to write a book like the Ilāhīnāma of Sanai or the Mantiq ut-Tayr of 'Attar it would become the companion of many troubadours. They would fill their hearts from your work and compose music to accompany it."
Rumi smiled and took out a piece of paper on which were written the opening eighteen lines of his Masnavi, beginning with:
Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,
How it sings of separation...
Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next twelve years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi to Hussam. In December 1273, Rumi fell ill; he predicted his own death and composed the well-known ghazal, which begins with the verse:
How doest thou know what sort of king I have within me as companion?
Do not cast thy glance upon my golden face, for I have iron legs.
He died on December 17, 1273 in Konya; Rumi was laid to rest beside his father, and a splendid shrine, the Yesil Turbe "Green Tomb" (original name:قبه لخزراء), was erected over his tomb. His epitaph reads:
"When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men."
Via Tricycle // Improvising Faith
Improvising Faith
By Emily DeMaioNewton
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Via Daily Dharma: Being Present Is a Transformation
Like
the Buddha, we examine our mind state, accept it, and watch it change.
We are transformed simply by being fully in the present moment.
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Thich Nhat Hanh Quote Collectiveia Thich Nhat Hanh Quote Collective // FB
When we can find
space and calm inside,
then without effort we
radiate peace and joy. — Thich Nhat Hanh.
Via White Crane Institute \\ ANN BANCROFT
1955 -
ANN BANCROFT, the first woman to trek to both the North and the South Pole was born on this date. Bancroft grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. She described her family as one of risk takers. It is reported that she struggled with a learning disabiity, but nevertheless graduated from St. Paul Academy and Summit School.Bancroft became a wilderness instructor and a gym teacher in Minnesota (at Clara Barton Open School) and St. Paul.
She gave up her teaching post in 1986 in order to participate with the "Will Steger International North Pole Expedition". She arrived at the Pole together with five other team members after fifty-six days using dogsleds. This made Bancroft the first woman to reach the North Pole on foot and by sled.
She was also the first woman to cross both polar ice caps to reach the North and South Poles, as well as the first woman to ski across Greenland. In 1993 Bancroft led a four-woman expedition to the South Pole on skis; this expedition was the first all-female expedition to cross the ice to the South Pole. In 2001, Ann and Norwegian adventurer Liv Arnesen became the first women to ski across Antarctica.
Her achievements led to her induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame for the United States.
She currently co-owns an exploration company, Bancroft Arnesen Explore, with Liv Arnesen. In March 2007, Bancroft and Arnesen were taking part in a trek across the Arctic Ocean to draw attention to the problem of global warming. However, according to The Washington Post, the expedition was called off "after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment."
Bancroft also received a number of other awards and honors. She is out Gay and in 2006, she publicly campaigned against a proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution to prohibit any legal recognition of marriages equality.Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation \\ Words of Wisdom - September 29, 2021 💌
Acting with compassion is not doing good because we think we ought to... It is giving ourselves into what we are doing, and being present in the moment. It is acting from our deepest understanding of what life is and not compromising the truth.
- Ram Dass
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Listen for Peace
It’s
hard to listen without judgment, to tolerate ambiguity, paradox, and in
some cases, ignorance. But if we are ever to experience any measure of
true peace, this is something we will all need to learn.
Monday, September 27, 2021
Via Extra*
Lost during Nazi rule in Germany, one of the world’s first pro-gay films has finally been restored for modern viewers
Filmmaker and scientist Magnus Hirschfeld’s “Laws of Love” promoted his controversial views about sex
Via Daily Dharma: The Miracle of Openness
When
we open our hearts and our minds completely, we are in a place where we
can experience something new, a new truth, a new reality, a miracle
that we haven’t experienced in the past.
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Via FB
"The Beatles exist apart from myself. I am not really Beatle George. Beatle George is like a suit or shirt that I once wore on occasion, and until the end of my life, people may see that shirt and mistake it for me."
"When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there."
"The world is ready for a mystic revolution, a discovery of the God in each of us."
"In the end, you're trying to find God. That's the result of not being satisfied. And it doesn't matter how much money, or property, or whatever you've got, unless you're happy in your heart, then that's it. And unfortunately, you can never gain perfect happiness unless you've got that state of consciousness that enables that."
"At death, you're going to be needing some spiritual guidance and some kind of inner knowledge that extends beyond the boundaries of the physical world... it's what's inside that counts."
"If you want to be popular and famous, you can do it; it's dead easy if you have that ego desire. But most of my ego desires as far as being famous and successful were fulfilled a long time ago.
The nicest thing is to open the newspapers and not to find yourself in them."
"Basically, I feel fortunate to have realized what the goal is in life. There's no point in dying having gone through your life without knowing who you are, what you are, or what the purpose of life is. And that's all it is."
~ George Harrison
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation -- Words of Wisdom - September 26, 2021 💌
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Via Daily Dharma: The Legs We Stand On
To
end suffering, the Buddha prescribed a compound of three essentials:
morality, meditation, and wisdom. Meditation practice without morality
and wisdom is like a stool with only one leg—it is bound to fall over.
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