We
know that we cannot make ourselves joyful, . . . but we can learn to
make room for joy. We can begin to cultivate our capacities that we have
for receptivity, appreciation, attunement, celebrating, and undertaking
the wholesome.
Thursday, October 7, 2021
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - October 6, 2021 💌
One of the reasons that old age is so disconcerting to many people is
that they feel as if they’re stripped of their roles. As we enter old
age and face physical frailty, the departure of children, retirement,
and the deaths of loved ones, we see the lights fading, the audience
dwindles, and we are overwhelmed by a loss of purpose, and by the fear
of not knowing how to behave or where we now fit in this play. The Ego,
whose very sustenance has been the roles it played in the public eye,
becomes irate, despairing, or numb, in the face of its own obsolescence.
It may harken back to roles in its past to assert itself, but these
strategies bring only more suffering as the Ego fights a losing battle.
As we learn to distinguish between our Egos — marked by our mind and
thoughts — and the witnessing Soul — who’s not subject to them — we
begin to see the opportunity that aging offers. We begin to separate who
we are from the roles that we play, and to recognize why the Ego clings
as it does to behaviors and images that no longer suit us. Stripped of
its roles, the Ego is revealed as fiction. But for the person without a
spiritual context, this is pure tragedy, for seekers of truth who are
aware of the Soul, it is only the beginning.
Rather than wonder what new “role” we can invent for ourselves in the
world then, the question that concerns us might be better put this way:
How can we, as aging people, make our wisdom felt in the world? By
embodying wisdom. We can find a happy balance between participation and
retreat, remembering that while it is our duty to be of service if
possible, it is also important that we prepare for our own journeys into
death, through contemplation, quiet time, and deepening knowledge of
ourselves.
-Ram Dass
Via White Crane Institute // GERALD HEARD
1889 -
GERALD HEARD, British historian, philosopher, educator and science writer, born (d: 1971); Born Henry Fitzgerald Heard, Heard was a guide and mentor to numerous well-known Americans, including Clare Booth Luce and Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1950s and 1960s. His work was a forerunner of, and influence on, the consciousness development movement that has spread in the Western world since the 1960s.
In 1929, he edited The Realist, a short-lived monthly journal of scientific humanism (its sponsors included H.G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, Julian Huxley and Aldous Huxley). In 1927 Heard began lecturing for South Place Ethical Society. During this period he was Science Commentator for the BBC for five years.
He first embarked as a book author in 1924, but The Ascent of Humanity, published in 1929, marked his first foray into public acclaim as it received the British Academy’s Hertz Prize. In 1937 he emigrated to the United States, accompanied by Aldous Huxley, Huxley's wife Maria and their son Matthew Huxley, to lecture at Duke University. In the U.S., Heard's main activities were writing, lecturing, and the occasional radio and TV appearance. He had formed an identity as an informed individual who recognized no conflict among history, science, literature, and theology.
Heard turned down the offer of a post at Duke, settling in California. In 1942 he founded Trabuco College (in Trabuco Canyon, located in the Santa Ana Mountains) as a facility where comparative religion studies and practices could be pursued. However, the Trabuco College project was somewhat short lived and in 1949 the campus was donated by Heard to the Vedanta Society of Southern California (Christopher Isherwood’s sanctuary), who still maintain the facility as a monastery and retreat.
Heard was the first among a group of literati friends (several others of whom, including Isherwood, were also originally British) to discover Swami Prabhavanada and Vedanta. Heard became an initiate of Vedanta. Like the outlook of his friend Aldous Huxley (another in this circle), the essence of Heard’s mature outlook was that a human being can effectively pursue intentional evolution of consciousness. He maintained a regular discipline of meditation, along the lines of yoga, for many years.
In the 1950s, Heard tried LSD and felt that, used properly, it had strong potential to 'enlarge Man's mind' by allowing a person to see beyond his ego. In late August 1956, Alcoholic Anonymous founder Bill Wilson first took LSD — under Heard's guidance and with the officiating presence of Dr. Sidney Cohen. According to Wilson, the session allowed him to re-experience a spontaneous spiritual experience he had had years before, which had enabled him to overcome his own alcoholism.
Heard is also responsible for introducing the then unknown Huston Smith to Huxley. Smith became one of the preeminent religious studies scholars in the United States. His book The World's Religions is a classic in the field, sold over two million copies and is considered a particularly useful introduction to comparative religion. The meeting with Huxley led eventually to Smith's connection to Timothy Leary.
In 1963, what some consider to be Heard's magnum opus, a book titled The Five Ages of Man, was published. According to Heard, the prevalent developmental stage among humans in today’s well-industrialized societies (especially in the West) should be regarded as the fourth: the "humanic stage" of the “total individual,” who is mentally dominated, feeling him- or herself to be autonomous, separate from other persons. Heard writes this stage is characterized by "the basic humanic concept of a mankind that is completely self-seeking because it is completely individualized into separate physiques that can have direct knowledge of only their own private pain and pleasure, inferring but faintly the feelings of others. Such a race of ingenious animals, each able to see and to seek his own advantage, must be kept in combination with each other by appealing to their separate interests."
In modern industrial societies, a person, especially if educated, has the opportunity to begin entering the “first maturity” of the humanic “total individual” in his or her mid teens. However, according to Heard — based on his decades of studies, his intuition, and his many years of reflection — a fifth stage is in the process of emerging: a post-individual psychological phase of persons and therefore of culture. According to Heard, the second maturity can be one that lies beyond "personal success, economic mastery, and the psychophysical capacity to enjoy life" (p. 240)
Heard termed this phase 'Leptoid Man' (from the Greek word lepsis: "to leap") because humans increasingly face the opportunity to 'take a leap' into a considerably expanded consciousness, in which the various aspects of the psyche will be integrated, without any aspects being repressed or seeming foreign. A society that recognizes this stage of development will honor and support individuals in a "second maturity" who wish to resolve their inner conflicts and dissolve their inner blockages and become the sages of the modern world. Further, instead of simply enjoying biological and psychological health, as Freud and other important psychiatric or psychological philosophers of the “total-individual” phase conceived, Leptoid man will not only have entered a meaningful “second maturity” recognized by his or her society, but can then become a human of developed spirituality, similar to the mystics of the past; and a person of wisdom.
But collectively and culturally we are still in the transitional phase, not really recognizing an identity beyond the super-individualistic fourth, "humanic" phase. Heard's views were cautionary about developments in society that were not balanced, about inappropriate aims of our use of technological power. He wrote: "we are aware of our precarious imbalance: of our persistent and ever-increasing production of power and our inadequacy of purpose; of our critical analytic ability and our creative paucity; of our triumphantly efficient technical education and our ineffective, irrelevant education for values, for meaning, for the training of the will, the lifting of the heart, and the illumination of the mind."
8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
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
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Via Tricycle // The Issa Wilderness
 The Issa Wilderness
By Leath Tonino |
|
Via Daily Dharma - Mindfulness Isn’t a Thought
Mindfulness
isn’t a thought. It’s a full-bodied sensory experience. The language of
the body is sensation, and feeling is the way we listen.
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
[GBF] new GBF talks
Enjoy 600+ free recorded dharma talks at www.gaybuddhist.org
| New talks have been added to the audio archive at the GBF website: | |||
Via White Crane Institute // JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
This Day in Gay History
October 05
Born
1840 -
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, English poet and literary critic, born (d: 1893); Another of the great forefathers of Gay Liberation. To be a homosexual in Victorian England meant membership, if one dared, in an underground fraternity. For to speak candidly of one’s tastes was to open oneself to criminal prosecution, if scandal, or one’s enemies felt inclined to claim a pound of flesh. One of the few Englishmen of the day who came closest to crusading for public acceptance of “inversion,” as he called it, was John Addington Symonds. Homosexuality was his obsession.
It was the “problem” in modern ethics that most deeply touched on his life, and he refused to hold back both questions and intelligently considered answers. In 1877 he lost his chair of poetry at Oxford because he was openly “familiar” with boys and left England for Italy, dedicating the rest of his life to exploring the problem. The result of his labors was A Problem With Greek Ethics (1833) and A Problem in Modern Ethics (1891), pioneering works of sexual apology.
Symonds was a painfully honest man. Walt Whitman, who for reasons of his own, was not, was hounded for 20 years by Symonds who wanted to know whether the author of “Calamus” was Gay. The poet, to his eternal shame, said no. Had Whitman not died shortly after his response, Symonds would undoubtedly have asked again. He was not the kind to take no for an answer.
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
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
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Via Tricycle // The McMindfulness Wars
The McMindfulness Wars
By Ira Helderman
|
Via Daily Dharma: Leave Yourself Alone
The
paradox of our practice is that the most effective way of
transformation is to leave ourselves alone. The more we let everything
be just what it is, the more we relax into an open, attentive awareness
of one moment after another.
Monday, October 4, 2021
Via White Crane Institute // John Cleese's Eulogy for Graham Chapman
Today's Gay Wisdom
2017 -
John Cleese's Eulogy for Graham Chapman
Widely considered one of the most notable eulogies of the last century, here is Cleese's eulogy for Graham Chapman:
Graham Chapman, co-author of the 'Parrot Sketch,' is no more.
He has ceased to be, bereft of life, he rests in peace, he has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the Great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky, and I guess that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such capability and kindness, of such intelligence should now be so suddenly spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun.
Well, I feel that I should say, "Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard! I hope he fries. "
And the reason I think I should say this is, he would never forgive me if I didn't, if I threw away this opportunity to shock you all on his behalf. Anything for him but mindless good taste. I could hear him whispering in my ear last night as I was writing this:
"Alright, Cleese, you're very proud of being the first person to ever say 'shit' on television. If this service is really for me, just for starters, I want you to be the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'!"
You see, the trouble is, I can't. If he were here with me now I would probably have the courage, because he always emboldened me. But the truth is, I lack his balls, his splendid defiance. And so I'll have to content myself instead with saying 'Betty Mardsen...'
But bolder and less inhibited spirits than me follow today. Jones and Idle, Gilliam and Palin. Heaven knows what the next hour will bring in Graham's name. Trousers dropping, blasphemers on pogo sticks, spectacular displays of high-speed farting, synchronized incest. One of the four is planning to stuff a dead ocelot and a 1922 Remington typewriter up his own arse to the sound of the second movement of Elgar's cello concerto. And that's in the first half.
Because you see, Gray would have wanted it this way. Really. Anything for him but mindless good taste. And that's what I'll always remember about him---apart, of course, from his Olympian extravagance. He was the prince of bad taste. He loved to shock. In fact, Gray, more than anyone I knew, embodied and symbolized all that was most offensive and juvenile in Monty Python. And his delight in shocking people led him on to greater and greater feats. I like to think of him as the pioneering beacon that beat the path along which fainter spirits could follow.
Some memories. I remember writing the undertaker speech with him, and him suggesting the punch line, 'All right, we'll eat her, but if you feel bad about it afterwards, we'll dig a grave and you can throw up into it.' I remember discovering in 1969, when we wrote every day at the flat where Connie Booth and I lived, that he'd recently discovered the game of printing four-letter words on neat little squares of paper, and then quietly placing them at strategic points around our flat, forcing Connie and me into frantic last minute paper chases whenever we were expecting important guests.
I remember him at BBC parties crawling around on all fours, rubbing himself affectionately against the legs of gray-suited executives, and delicately nibbling the more appetizing female calves. Mrs. Eric Morecambe remembers that too.
I remember his being invited to speak at the Oxford union, and entering the chamber dressed as a carrot—a full length orange tapering costume with a large, bright green sprig as a hat—and then, when his turn came to speak, refusing to do so. He just stood there, literally speechless, for twenty minutes, smiling beatifically. The only time in world history that a totally silent man has succeeded in inciting a riot.
I remember Graham receiving a Sun newspaper TV award from Reggie Maudling. Who else! And taking the trophy falling to the ground and crawling all the way back to his table, screaming loudly, as loudly as he could. And if you remember Gray, that was very loud indeed.
It is magnificent, isn't it? You see, the thing about shock... is not that it upsets some people, I think; I think that it gives others a momentary joy of liberation, as we realized in that instant that the social rules that constrict our lives so terribly are not actually very important.
Well, Gray can't do that for us anymore. He's gone. He is an ex-Chapman. All we have of him now is our memories. But it will be some time before they fade.
The video of Cleese delivering the eulogy can be seen online here: http://www.youtube.com/
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
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
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Via White Crane Insitute // C.A. TRIPP
1919 -
On this date the psychologist, writer and gay historian C.A. TRIPP was born (d. 2003). Born Clarence Arthur Tripp in Denton, Texas, Tripp studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and was a Naval Veteran. Tripp worked with Alfred Kinsey at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Indiana from 1948 to 1956. He earned a Ph.D. in Clinical psychology from New York University.
Tripp originally intended to spend his life as a photographer. Born in Denton, TX, he left home to master the art and science of photography at the Kodak Institute in Rochester, NY, and earned money taking headshots and promotional photos for the theater industry. In 1948, however, this path branched away when he was hired as a photographer by the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research. Here, he was introduced to the field of psychology and became intrigued with Kinsey's study of sex.
Dr. Alfred Kinsey, the director of the institute, eventually sponsored Tripp's application to New York University, where he earned a Ph.D. in psychology. After earning his degree, Dr. Tripp taught at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center, he left to start a private psychotherapy practice and pursue his own independent research into the origins and variations of human sexuality.
After ten years, his research culminated in The Homosexual Matrix, a groundbreaking book that was among the first scholarly works to deal with homosexuality from a scientific perspective, relatively free from bias or moralizing. The huge success of The Homosexual Matrix brought Dr. Tripp on speaking tours across the country as well as on radio and television, but he continued to practice clinical psychology in his New York City office as well as at his home in Nyack, NY.
Although his book The Homosexual Matrix was an early classic for many gay men seeking information, he is best known for his book The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, which was published posthumously.
In the book Tripp details the evidence for Lincoln's attachments and sexual relationships with men throughout his life. It's a powerful book that Tripp devoted the last decades of his life to writing. It caused an understandable firestorm but also contributed greatly to the scholarship of the beloved president that had been ensconced in heterosexual wax of hagiography. A pretty interesting read all around.
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
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
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8
Via Daily Dharma: Let Love Unfold
The
essence of our consciousness is already love and wisdom. Karma,
concepts, and emotional patterns are only temporarily preventing our
consciousness from unfolding its enlightened nature.
Sunday, October 3, 2021
Via Daily Dharma: Happiness as an Offering
The
deep happiness of well-being comes from caring for yourself and loving
the world. It comes from offering what’s good in you to others, giving
your gifts to a world that needs it.
—Interview with Jack Kornfield by Marie Scarles, “Finding Freedom Right Here, Right Now”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - October 3, 2021 💌
We’re sitting under the tree of our thinking minds, wondering why we’re not getting any sunshine. - Ram Dass
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)