Sunday, April 10, 2022

New book features previously unpublished photographs of gay romance from the 1850s to 1950s

 


Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Mind
A person goes to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: “Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I am content.” (SN 47.10)
 
When the mind is beset by confusion, one is aware “the mind is beset by confusion”… One is just aware, just mindful: “There is mind.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)
Reflection
Not all practice sessions are filled with bliss. In fact, they are not meant to be. The idea is to be fully aware of whatever is happening in your experience, whether it is calm and peaceful or full of confusion. A rush of random states can still be observed one at a time. You can even feel content amidst confusion, as long as you abide without clinging to anything.

Daily Practice
When your mind is beset by confusion, just be aware that this is what is happening right now. You don’t have to feel like you are doing something wrong or try to change it. Just pay very close attention and follow along with the jumble of thoughts and emotions with as much equanimity as possible. You can actually be quite attentive to a stream of consciousness that is on a roller-coaster ride, if you don’t judge it and just examine it.


RIGHT CONCENTRATION
Approaching and Abiding in the Third Phase of Absorption (3rd Jhāna)
With the fading away of joy, one abides in equanimity; mindful and fully aware, still feeling pleasure with the body, one enters upon and abides in the third phase of absorption, on account of which noble ones announce: “One has a pleasant abiding who has equanimity and is mindful.” (MN 4)
Reflection
Some people move easily and naturally through the stages of absorption, but many people do not. This is not something to be forced if it does not come on its own, and we should never judge our progress against the schema of four jhānas. As we can see, mindfulness and concentration each involve the other, so at a certain point it becomes unnecessary and unhelpful to compare the two and distinguish two different practices.

Daily Practice
As you settle into the pleasant feeling tones of the second level of absorption, the pleasure gradually subsides and resolves into a state of equanimity or even-mindedness. The body still feels tranquil and at ease, but the mind becomes more balanced as it becomes more mindful and fully aware. Simply rest at ease, doing nothing and striving for nothing, and let the mind settle naturally.


Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering
One week from today:  Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and Abiding in the Fourth Jhāna


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Questions?
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Via Daily Dharma: Beginning Again

 Beginning again and again is the actual practice, not a problem to be overcome so that one day we can come to the “real” meditation.

Sharon Salzberg, “How to Forgive: A Meditation”


CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via White Crane Institute // Two Hearts Dancing

 

Noteworthy
Eli Andrew Ramer - Two Hearts Dancing
2022 -
ELI ANDREW RAMER, author and former White Crane columnist ("Praxis") is a magid, a traditional Jewish religious itinerant preacher, skilled as a narrator of Torah and religious stories. He is the author of the classic Two FlutesPlaying. Now he has authored a companion to that seminal work, TwoHeartsDancing. Eli and I had a brief conversation about it:
 
Bo: So ...what prompted you to write a "companion" to Two Flutes Playing?
 
Eli: I never planned to write a companion volume to "Two Flutes Playing." Then again, I did, but life derailed/erased it - for almost 20 years. "Two Flutes Playing" is a channeled book that I compiled in the 1980s. First published by Joseph Kramer from the Body Electric School in 1991, it's gone on to be reissued several times by different presses, including White Crane, and has had its own interesting life wandering around the world of gay men's spirituality.
 
Around the time it was first published I wrote a story that led to another story that was beginning to become a book illustrated by my dear friend and Gay Spirit Visions Conference co-founder Raven Wolfdancer. When he was murdered I put together the drawings and stories we'd created into a small desktop published book, and when I sold the last copy I more or less forgot about it.
 
Flash forward. Covid arrives. A strange echo of our lives with AIDS. Locked away from the world I went through and organized all my unpublished work, came upon the stories I did with Raven, and sent them to the publisher who had reissued "Two Flutes Playing" - Wipf and Stock. They said it was too short. I started going through unpublished poems, added them to the old stories - and "Two Hearts Dancing" was born.
 
Bo: So while Two Flutes Playing was channeled, this is more of a collection of your thoughts in isolation?
 
Eli: What's channeling? What's inspiration? Who are our muses? Certainly Johnny Moses was a muse, some hours before we met, awakening one of the stories in the first part of the book. And Raven Wolfdancer was clearly a muse, embodied, in addition to creating the art that graces the first part. And the poems in the second part were inspired by lovers and strangers and other writing, so while not channeled in quite the same way as Two Flutes Playing, this new book is also a received text.
 
Bo: And do you think Two Hearts Dancing is a revival of that companion to Two Flutes? Or is something altogether new?
 
Eli: I call it a companion volume and not a sequel, but now that it's been birthed, I do see the two books as siblings, the two of them dancing in and around each other, in and out of time.
 
Bo: Can you talk a bit about the role of story-telling in the LGBTQ community? And how you see it relating to the prophetic tradition?
 
Eli: A story is a line of thread linking two worlds together. A story is a line of saliva linking two kissers together. A story in our community is connector, a delight, and a tool for survival in an often-hostile world. We often find ourselves in words and stories in ways that we might not otherwise, in hearing a word for the first time and thinking - "Oh, that's me!" A word, a new pronoun - worlds rippling out from words in wet delicious ways.
 
Stories began when we learned how to talk. This is a story. The first human language was manual and not verbal. It was signed and not spoken. We invited speech so that we could keep telling stories when it was dark. And then we invented fire. I believe - this is a story - that the very first storytellers were people like us, wandering in between female and male, the living and the dead, between words and silence. I believe that the first elders and prophets were people like us, living between female and male, the living and the dead, between words and silence, and able to link them all together, as with thread, as with the wet space between two people kissing, when they pull apart.
 
Bo: What are you reading these days?
 
Eli: Covid and the death of 40 people in my life since July 2017 altered my brain. I can hardly read or watch movies or take in much of anything, but I do thrive on going for four-hour walks. I used to read a book a week, usually three or four at the same time, one by my bed, one on the kitchen table, one next to the toilet, and one in my backpack for when I go out. Now it takes me more than a month to finish a book. What I'm reading, slowly - A Time to Mourn, a Time to Comfort: A Guide to Jewish Bereavement by Ron Wolfson, and The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante.
 
Bo: Could you describe Two Hearts Dancing for readers?
 
Eli. The book isn’t a coming out guide so much as it is a guidebook on coming in—coming in to who we are as mystics, lovers and healers. The first section has fourteen tales that are grounded in gay archetypes and ends with a responsive reading to be used in gay men’s rituals. The second part, Poems of Our Tribe is comprised of twenty-four poems that are mythic, mystical explorations of embodied spirituality, sexuality, and love.

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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

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Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation -- Words of Wisdom - April 10, 2022 💌

 

The game is not to push away the world, the game is not to get caught in it—the game is to, as Christ said, ‘Be in the world, but not of the world,’ to be simultaneously empty and full, to be somebody and nobody. It’s all these paradoxes you have to embrace. There’s nothing to do, so get on with it. 

- Ram Dass -

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Saturday, April 9, 2022

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Via Be Here Now Network

 In another Bhakti-steeped podcast, Krishna Das sings kirtan and answers questions about practice on the spiritual path, surrender, sexuality, death, clinging, and Maharaj-ji's love. 

In another Bhakti-steeped podcast, Krishna Das sings kirtan and answers questions about practice on the spiritual path, surrender, sexuality, death, clinging, and Maharaj-ji’s love....

Via buzzfeednews // “What You’re Feeling Isn’t A Vibe Shift. It’s Permanent Change.”

 


Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Developing Unarisen Healthy States

RIGHT EFFORT
Developing Unarisen Healthy States
Whatever a person frequently thinks about and ponders, that will become the inclination of their mind. If one frequently thinks about and ponders healthy states, one has abandoned unhealthy states to cultivate healthy states, and then one’s mind inclines to healthy states. (MN 19)

Here a person rouses the will, makes an effort, stirs up energy, exerts the mind, and strives to develop the arising of unarisen healthy mental states. One develops the unarisen tranquility and concentration awakening factors. (MN 141)
Reflection
Sometimes healthy states of mind come up on their own, apparently spontaneously. Other times we have to make them happen. The word for “develop” in Pali (bhāvana) literally means “cause to be” or “make become” and so is very descriptive of the process. The more you experience healthy states, the more they develop, and the more the mind inclines toward what is helpful and skillful.

Daily Practice
Practice calling to mind thoughts that are likely to bring on healthy mental states. These might be thoughts of a loved one that evoke friendliness and lovingkindness. Or thinking about those in distress might bring about feelings of compassion and wanting to help. Among the best positive states to develop are peacefulness, or tranquility, and focusing the mind with concentration. The more you develop these states, the easier it gets.

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and Abiding in the Third Jhāna
One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
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Questions?
Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

 

Via Daily Dharma: Waking Up to Life

 Reverence is the process of awakening to being alive. It’s the realization that life is amazing, and every living being is our sibling.  

Paul Hawken, “Paul Hawken on Helping Our Planet Heal Itself”


CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE