The
ultimate power to change the world does not reside in technologies. It
relies on reverence, respect, and compassion—for ourselves, for all
people, and for all life.
Paul Hawken, “How to Bring Our Planet Back to Life”
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A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Via Daily Dharma: How to Change the World
Via White Crane Institute // A SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE OF RADICAL FAERIES
The first day of the first Faerie Gathering that called itself "A SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE OF RADICAL FAERIES," was on this date, held in Benson Arizona, on Labor Day Weekend, 1979. Harry Hay, the "father of the gay rights movement" began the Mattachine society in 1950. In 1970, Hay moved to New Mexico in a quest to find a living berdache (a Native American Gay male spirit guide). In 1978, Hay, along with life partner John Burnside, and Don Kilhefner, and Mitch Walker, issued a Call to a group devoted to ecology, spiritual truth and Gay-centeredness. In 1979, the first gathering of Radical Faeries took place in the Arizona desert with over 200 gay men in attendance. Kilhefner continues to make slanderous statements about John Burnside's participation in a vainglorious attempt to claim for himself the title of "Founder of the Radical Faeries". But anyone claiming to have "founded" the Radical Faeries simply doesn't understand the core beliefs of the group. The Radical Faeries was the product of nothing less than a zeitgeist moment in the Gay men's liberation movement. The ideas that are core to the movement had been circulating widely in San Francisco, the Midwest, Los Angeles and no doubt elsewhere for a long time.
There had been earlier usage of the term "radical faerie" employed in San Francisco by author ("Witchcraft & The Gay Counterculture") and Gay philosopher, Arthur Evans, which a group of men who met regularly including Murray Edelman. The desert Gathering seemed to create the "tipping point" for the movement which is now spread internationally, with Radical Faerie groups and sanctuaries in Europe, South America, India and Australia.
The text of The Call for the first gathering:
THE FIRST CALL:
To share new insights about ourselves; To dance in the moonlight; To
renew our oath against patriarchy/corporations/
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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 - August 31, 2022 💌
When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these
different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are
straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are
whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is
the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light,
and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You
just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are
constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment
mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means
appreciating them just the way they are.
- Ram Dass
Via Facebook // Joni Mitchell
“If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over. You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble. You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.”
- Joni Mitchell
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Via Daily Dharma: Liberating All Beings
To
liberate yourself without any empathy for others would mean your heart
has not opened fully. It would be like trying to open your fist while
some fingers remain tight in your palm.
Gil Fronsdal, “Why I Walk Two Paths”
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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Equanimity
Cultivating Equanimity
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One week from today: Cultivating Lovingkindness
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
Monday, August 29, 2022
Lungta
Wind Horse
The wind horse is a symbol of the human soul in the shamanistic tradition of East Asia and Central Asia. In Tibetan Buddhism, it was included as the pivotal element in the center of the four animals symbolizing the cardinal directions and a symbol of the idea of well-being or good fortune. It has also given the name to a type of prayer flag that has the five animals printed on it.
Depending on the language, the symbol has slightly different names.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_Horse
Via Daily Dharma: Our Shared Struggle
Know
that in your struggle, you are with all beings, because our true
struggle is the same—to find our way to oneness, to nonseparation, in
this fragile human form.
Sallie Jiko Tisdale, “Alone on the Bodhisattva Path”
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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Way to the Cessation of Suffering
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One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mind and the Third Jhāna
Establishing Mindfulness of Mind
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One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation || Words of Wisdom - August 28, 2022 💌
Via White Crane Institute / KARL HEINRICH ULRICHS
August 28
This is the birth date of German lawyer, writer and Gay Rights pioneer KARL HEINRICH ULRICHS (d. 1895). In the early history of LGBT Rights that includes John Addington Symonds, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Edward Carpenter Ulrichs is one of the most important. He wrote under the pseudonym Numa Numatis till 1868. He was born in Aurich, Hannover and died in L'Aguila, Italy. He is considered the first person to stand in public for the rights of homosexuals. And all this before the word "homosexual," or "heterosexual" for that matter, even existed. Ulrichs is seen today as a pioneer of modern Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender movements.
He studied law at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin (1844-47) and became a junior attorney in the civil service of the Kingdom of Hanover. In 1854 he left state service to become a free-lance journalist and private secretary of a representative to the German Confederation in Frankfurt am Main.
In Frankfurt he used embryology to develop a theory of homosexuality that he presented in a series of five booklets (1864-65) titled Forschungen über das Rätsel der mannmännlichen Liebe (Research Into the Riddle of Love Between Men). This he later extended to twelve booklets with the last appearing in 1879.
He assumed that love directed towards a man must be feminine and used the Latin phrase anima muliebris virili corpore inclusa (a female soul trapped in a male body), and he coined the term 'Urning' (Uranian) for such a person. This was a reference to Plato's Symposium in which Pausanias postulates two gods of love, the Uranian (Heavenly) Eros who governs principled male love, whereas the Pandernian (Vulgar) Eros governs heterosexual or purely licentious relations. Károly Mária Kertbeny later invented alternative words such as Homosexualität.
Ulrichs regarded homosexuals as neither criminal nor sick and tried to organize them for their own welfare. In 1864 he was planning to publish a homosexual periodical and in 1870 he started it but it only lasted for one issue through lack of support.
Also on August 28th. 1867 he became the first self-proclaimed homosexual to speak out publicly for homosexual rights when he pleaded at the Congress of German Jurists in Munich for a resolution urging the repeal of all anti-homosexual laws. He was shouted down.
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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 Daily Dharma: Deepen Your Love for the World
The deeper our love for the world gets, the more motivated we become to find solutions to address suffering.
Radhule Weininger, “How to Follow the Bodhisattva Path Without Burning Out”
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Saturday, August 27, 2022
Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Developing Unarisen Healthy States
Developing Unarisen Healthy States
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One week from today: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States
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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.