Sunday, September 4, 2022

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Mindfulness and Concentration: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS
Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects
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 awakening factor of tranquility is internally present, one is aware: “Tranquility is present for me.” When tranquility is not present, one is aware: “Tranquility is not present for me.” When the arising of unarisen tranquility occurs, one is aware of that. And when the development and fulfillment of the arisen awakening factor of tranquility occurs, one is aware of that . . . One is just aware, just mindful: “There is a mental object.” And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)
Reflection
Sometimes the mind is tranquil, and sometimes it is not. One way to practice mindfulness of mental objects is simply to notice when the mental factor of tranquility is present and when it is not. It is okay to be aware of the times the mind is restless or bored or confused. These states are transient, like all others, and they will pass, to be replaced by moments of tranquility from time to time. Simply take note of all this.

Daily Practice
The next time you feel tranquil, attend carefully to what it feels like. This way you will know what to contrast it to when the mental factor of tranquility is gone, which will happen often enough. Observe the interplay of tranquility and lack of tranquility as they come and go. Eventually you will learn how to encourage tranquility to arise and how to sustain it when it has arisen. This is how your mindfulness skills develop. 


RIGHT CONCENTRATION
Approaching and Abiding in the Fourth Phase of Absorption (4th Jhāna)
With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, one enters upon and abides in the fourth phase of absorption, which has neither-pain-nor-pleasure and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity. The concentrated mind is thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability. (MN 4)

One practices: “I shall breathe in contemplating relinquishment.”
One practices: “I shall breathe out contemplating relinquishment.”
This is how concentration by mindfulness of breathing is developed and cultivated      
so that it is of great fruit and great benefit. (A 54.8)

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Body and Abiding in the First Jhāna

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Questions?
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Via Daily Dharma: Self-Appreciation Through Attention

 Giving in to distraction, we give up caring about the activity we are doing. When we do that we also give up caring about our self, about the value of the effort we are making with our life.


Les Kaye, “The Time Is Now”


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Saturday, September 3, 2022

Via Ram Dass

 


Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Effort: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States

 

RIGHT EFFORT
Maintaining Arisen 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 maintain arisen healthy mental states. One maintains the arisen awakening factor of joy. (MN 141)
Reflection
Maintaining healthy mental and emotional states that have arisen in experience sometimes takes effort. It is worthwhile effort, because the mind will incline in the future toward whatever states are most often manifesting in the present. By sustaining healthy states as often as you can for as long as possible, you are not only blocking unhealthy states but creating the conditions for a healthier mind in the future.

Daily Practice
When you are joyful in a healthy way, find ways to sustain that joy. One way to do that, when the joy comes from noticing the good fortune of another, is to remind yourself of it continuously. Repeating to yourself phrases like “May they be happy” and “May their good fortune continue” is a simple way to reinforce the basis upon which the joy is established. Remember, it is good for you to feel joy, so cultivate it as much as you can. 

Tomorrow: Establishing Mindfulness of Mental Objects and the Fourth Jhāna
One week from today: Restraining Unarisen Unhealthy States

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Questions?
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Via Daily Dharma: Strengthen Your Mind with Generosity

 When you’ve made a practice of generosity and virtue, the mind’s ability to say no to its impulses has been strengthened and given finesse. 

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “The Dignity of Restraint”


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Friday, September 2, 2022

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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Living: Abstaining from Intoxication

 

RIGHT LIVING
Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Intoxication
Intoxication is unhealthy. Refraining from intoxication is healthy. (MN 9) What are the imperfections that defile the mind? Negligence is an imperfection that defiles the mind. Knowing that negligence is an imperfection that defiles the mind, a person abandons it. (MN 7) One practices thus: “Others may become negligent by intoxication, but I will abstain from the negligence of intoxication.” (MN 8)

There are these two worldly conditions: pleasure and pain. These are conditions that people meet—impermanent, transient, and subject to change. A mindful, wise person knows them and sees that they are subject to change. Desirable conditions do not excite one’s mind nor is one resentful of undesirable conditions. (AN 8.6)
Reflection
We have within us a natural instinct to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. One of the Buddha’s great insights is that both are hardwired into our minds and bodies and are thus an inevitable aspect of the human condition. Knowing this and accepting it as true allows us to watch the interplay of the two without needing to change what is happening. A wise person is mindful of both pleasure and pain, regarding them evenly.

Daily Practice
Practice becoming aware of feeling tones, both pleasant and painful, as they arise accompanying all experience. Cultivate a posture of noticing each one, acknowledging how it feels, and letting it change into something else, as it will naturally do. Give up the hopeless task of chasing after pleasure and fleeing pain and simply appreciate, with equanimity rather than excitement or resentment, the changing nature of experience.

Tomorrow: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

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Questions?
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Via White Crane Institute

 


This Day in Gay History

September 02

Born
Father John M. McNeill
1925 -

JOHN M. MCNEILL, Jesuit scholar, psychotherapist, born (d: 2015); For more than twenty-five years John J. McNeill, an ordained priest and psychotherapist, devoted his life to spreading the good news of God's love for Lesbian and Gay Christians. One year after the publication of The Church and the Homosexual (1976), McNeill received an order from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican ordering him to silence in the public media. He observed the silence for nine years while continuing a private ministry to Gays and Lesbians which included psychotherapy, workshops, lectures and retreats.

In 1988, he received a further order from Cardinal Ratzinger (soon to become Pope Benedict XVI, the first Pope to resign in a millennium) directing him to give up all ministry to Gay persons which he refused to do in conscience. As a result, he was expelled by the Vatican from the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for challenging the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of homosexuality, and for refusing to give up his ministry and psychotherapy practice to Gay men and Lesbians. McNeill had been a Jesuit for nearly 40 years.

After enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War II at the age of seventeen, McNeill served in combat in the Third Army under General Patton and was captured in Germany in 1944. McNeill spent six months as a POW (Prisoner of War) until he was liberated in May of 1945. John enrolled in Canisius College in Buffalo after his discharge from the army and, upon graduating, entered the Society of Jesus in 1948. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1959.

In 1964, McNeill earned a Doctorate in Philosophy, with highest honors (Plus Grande Distinction), at Louvain University in Belgium. His doctoral thesis on the philosophical and religious thought of Maurice Blondel was published in 1966 as the first volume of the series Studies in the History of Christian Thought edited by Heiko Oberman and published by Brill Press in Leyden, Holland.

During his professional career, McNeill taught philosophy at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY, and in the doctorate program at Fordham University in NYC. In 1972, he joined the combined Woodstock Jesuit Seminary and Union Theological Seminary faculty as professor of Christian Ethics, specializing in Sexual Ethics.

In 1974, McNeill was co-founder of the New York City chapter of Dignity, a group for Catholic Gays and Lesbians. For over twenty-five years, he has been active in a ministry to Gay Christians through retreats, workshops, lectures, publications, etc. For twenty years John was a leader of semiannual retreats at the Kirkridge Retreat Center in Pennsylvania.

 

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Via Daily Dharma: Compassionate Speech

 Practice saying something kind to someone every day. Do this especially with people you don’t like. It gets easier with practice and bears surprisingly good results. 

Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, “The Truth About Gossip and Buddhism”


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Via IMS Sangha News ~ September 2022

 


What Is Mindfulness and
Why Is It Essential to Our Liberation?
IMS Resident Teacher Chas DiCapua

We hear a lot about mindfulness these days. But what is it and why should we be mindful? And if we're mindful, will it help ensure things turn out okay?
In this dharma talk, given as part of a retreat called Stillness & Insight at the IMS Retreat Center, Chas DiCapua explains what mindfulness is, why it’s essential to our liberation, and how we can grow and strengthen our mindfulness practice.

“Without mindfulness and without being present and knowing what's happening in our body and mind, knowing our own experience, the habit patterns of our heart and mind are going to be in the driver's seat. Our habit patterns are going to be pulling the levers and switches, in terms of governing what we say, what we do, and even what we think. When we're mindful, we have the choice of whether they'll be in the driver's seat or not."

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Thursday, September 1, 2022

Via Frame of Mind Films // The Great 14th: Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama In His Own Words

 


Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Social Action

 

RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Social Action
However the seed is planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing good deeds; bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too social action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61)

A person is content with any food they may get, speaks in praise of such contentment, and does not try to obtain things in improper or unsuitable ways. Not getting things one does not worry, and getting them one makes use of them without being greedy, obsessed, or infatuated, observing such potential dangers and wisely being aware of how to escape them. (AN 4.28)
Reflection
Contentment is a healthy character trait, to be cultivated by appreciating what you have at every opportunity. Every moment your mental state plants a seed that becomes rooted in the traits of the unconscious mind, influencing what mind states will arise in the future. Feeling content here and now inclines the mind to feel content in the future, while obsessing over what you do not have only leads to more discontent.

Daily Practice
Practice intentionally being aware of the things you have rather than focusing on what you lack. This will not only lead to greater personal happiness but contribute to social harmony as well. There is always something you can feel content about, even if it is just the fact that you are able to eat a meal every day. Notice when you find yourself wishing for something different regarding food and try to let go of this and be content.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Intoxication
One week from today: Reflecting upon Bodily Action

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Questions?
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Via Daily Dharma: The Value of Unconditional Love

 If you can develop the capability to remain steadfast in one unconditional relationship, you can remain steadfast with the suffering and joyfulness of life.

Pema Chödrön, “Unconditionally Steadfast”


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Via White Crane Institute // JOHN BOSWELL & John McNeill

 



John Boswell
1980 -

JOHN BOSWELL'S Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality debuts in book stores. The groundbreaking work which, according to Chauncey et al. (1989), "offered a revolutionary interpretation of the Western tradition, arguing that the Roman Catholic Church had not condemned gay people throughout its history, but rather, at least until the twelfth century, had alternately evinced no special concern about homosexuality or actually celebrated love between men." The book won a National Book Award and the Stonewall Book Award in 1981.  The historical breadth of Boswell’s research (from the Greeks to Aquinas) and the variety of sources consulted make this one of the most extensive treatments of any single aspect of Western social history.


The Church and the Homosexual, by John McNeill
2017 -

John McNeill was a pioneer of Gay spirituality and stood up to the Vatican and then Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, on many an occasion with brave, intellectual force. His was one of the first and most important voices for Roman Catholic Gay men and Lesbians. This excerpt is from the Preface to the Fourth Edition of his groundbreaking 1993 work, The Church and The Homosexual (Beacon Press ISBN-10: 0807079316):

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION

I still remember our joy that Sunday in 1976 when I announced at the New York Dignity liturgy that I had received an official Imprimi Potest, the approval for the publication of my book The Church and the Homosexual  from my superiors in the Society of Jesus. It was, I believe, one of the first theological works in recent times that called for a revision of the traditional Catholic Church teaching on homosexuality.

After more than four years of exhaustive research to write the book, the Imprimi Potest was obtained only after an additional two years of intense review by leading moral theologians both in the United States and in Rome. They were unanimous in recommending that the book be published. I naively assumed that by granting me an Imprimi Potest, the Church, in the liberating spirit that followed Vatican II, was ready and willing to reexamine its teaching on homosexuality and that approving my book for publication was the first step in that process. The theologians who reviewed the manuscript believed, as I did, that the new evidence coming from the fields of scriptural studies, history, psychology, sociology, and moral theology seriously challenged every premise on which the traditional teaching was based. They anticipated, as I did, that my book would begin a public debate on Church teaching that would eventually lead to the Church's revision of its understanding of homosexuality. I had hoped that my book would lead to a revision of teaching on homosexuality not only in the Roman Catholic Church but also in the entire Christian community.

From the beginning, I envisioned the personal witness of Gay and Lesbian Catholics and other Christians to be an essential contribution to that debate. They could testify about what happened to them when they strove to live both as Gays and according to Church teachings. My own work in the Gay community as priest and psychotherapist and as one of the founders of Dignity/New York, an organization for Gay and Lesbian Catholics, made me keenly aware of the enormous amount of pain, psychological trauma, and potential emotional breakdown there. Because this unnecessary suffering was caused by the interiorization of Church teaching, I felt a certain urgency for the need of public debate. What was bad psychology had to be bad theology and vice versa.

Our early joy was short-lived, however. One year later, in 1977, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) ordered the removal of the Imprimi Potest from my book. Because of my appearances on popular television programs such as "Today" and "The Phil Donahue Show," they accused me of violating a nonexistent agreement that the public discussion would take place only among my peers in the theological community. A blanket silence was imposed on me by the CDF and I was forbidden to discuss the issue of homosexuality and morality in the public arena.

Instead of allowing public debate on homosexuality, the Church fell back on its "creeping infallibility," claiming that its teaching was based on "divine revelation" and, therefore, was not open to change, regardless of any new evidence to support that change. (In fact, no moral teaching on sexuality is infallibly defined.) They justified their silencing me by claiming that I had created the false impression that the Church had changed or was about to change its teaching on homosexuality. The CDF hastened to assure the world that no matter how much evidence supported the argument for change, the Church would never alter its teaching in this matter. "This is true because we say it is true. Don't bother us with the facts!"

From that day to this, for nearly seventeen years, the hierarchical Church has used its power and influence to silence any critic of its teaching on homosexuality. The dismissal of Charles Curran from the theology faculty at the Catholic University of America is another example. The debate has continued, however, among the laity. There has been such a massive shift of opinion in the pews that now more than 84 percent of Catholics support Gay civil rights.

For ten years, until 1987, I observed the silence imposed on me by not speaking in public. During that period, my book was published around the world in five different languages. I had agreed to observe the silence, again in the hope that over time the Church would consider the evidence and begin a process of reevaluation. The American bishops did take several progressive steps toward liberalizing pastoral practice based on the distinction between homosexual orientation, which is neither chosen nor changeable, and homosexual behavior, which they continued to judge as contrary to God's will. They also called for legislation protecting the civil rights of Gay people. But every time any move was made toward a better understanding and spiritual care of Gay people, the Vatican intervened demanding that the Catholic Church in the United States maintain a homophobic stance on all Gay issues. The best example of that interference is the Vatican demand in 1987 that all Dignity chapters be denied their right to meet on Church grounds.

One major event in the struggle between Gay Catholics and the Vatican was the release of the Vatican "Halloween" letter by Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 31 October 1986: "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons." Rome took a giant step backward when it asserted that homosexual orientation was not a natural condition but represented an "objective disorder" and was an 'orientation to evil." Since most Gay people experience their homosexual orientation as a part of creation, if they accept this Church teaching, they must see God as sadistically creating them with an intrinsic orientation to evil. Most Gays would prefer to see the Church teaching as wrong, rather than believe God is sadistic.

The Vatican document went so far in its hatred of all things Gay as to assert that if homosexuals continue to claim "unthinkable" civil rights, then they should not be surprised by the violence inflicted upon them by Gay-bashers and have only themselves to blame. This statement has been interpreted in some quarters as encouraging violence against Gay people. Cardinal Ratzinger's letter even suggested that it is Gay activists and the professionals who try to help Gays achieve self-acceptance who are responsible for the AIDS epidemic: "Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remained undeterred and refused to consider the magnitude of the risks involved."

In my more than twenty years' experience of pastoral care with thousands of Gay Catholics and other Christians, the Gay men most likely to act out their sexual needs in an unsafe, compulsive way and, therefore, to expose themselves to the HIV virus, are precisely those persons who have internalized the self-hatred that their religions impose on them. They are precisely the ones who, while they find it impossible to suppress and deny their sexual needs totally, cannot enter into a healthy and committed intimacy with anyone because of this self-hatred.

In a recent letter to the New York Times (September 2, 1992), Richard Isay, chairman of the American Psychiatric Association committee on Gay, Lesbian, and bisexual affairs, points out that the suppression of sexuality, whether by religion, the state, or therapists who claim they can change homosexuals into heterosexuals, significantly damages the self-esteem of Gay men and Lesbians. It subverts their capacity to express their sexuality in mutually loving relationships. Interiorized self-hatred contributes to the extraordinarily high suicide rate of Gay and Lesbian youth, estimated at more than 30 percent of all youth suicide.

In perhaps one of the strongest statements ever against a Vatican document, the Major Superiors of Religious Men said:

We view ["Some Considerations Concerning... Homosexual Persons"] as a hindrance to the Church leaders of the United States in this most difficult and sensitive area of human living. It is particularly open to misrepresentation and confusion during the present political campaign in the United States.

We are shocked that the statement calls for discrimination against Gay men and Lesbian women. We find the reasoning for supporting such discrimination to be strained, unconvincing and counterproductive to our statements and actions to support the pastoral needs and personal dignity of such persons. Far from a help to the Bishops and other religious leaders in the United States Catholic Church, the statement complicates our already complex ministry to all people. Moreover, we find the arguments used to justify discrimination based on stereotypes and falsehoods that are out of touch with modern psychological and sociological understandings of human sexuality. We regret such actions by the CDF and we reaffirm our support for the human rights of all our brothers and sisters.

As a Gay Catholic theologian and psychotherapist, I am fully aware of the enormous destruction recent Vatican documents will cause in the psychic life of young Catholic Gays, and of the violence they will provoke against all Gay people. I find myself in a dilemma; What kind of faith and trust can I place in a teaching authority that I see clearly acts in an unloving, hateful, and destructive way toward my Gay family?

At this point, the ignorance and distortion of homosexuality, the use of "stereotypes and falsehoods" in an official Vatican document, leads us who are Gay Catholics to issue the Vatican a serious warning. Your ignorance can no longer be excused as inculpable; it has become of necessity a deliberate and malicious ignorance.

In the name of all Catholic Gays, and Gays and Lesbians everywhere, I cry out "Enough!" Enough of your distortions of Scripture that make homosexuals the scapegoats of every disaster! Jesus himself in Luke 10:10 recognized the sin of Sodom as inhospitality to the stranger, yet you support the interpretation of that sin as homosexual activity. Through the centuries you have supported sodomy laws that have sent thousands of Gays to their deaths. You continue to claim that a loving homosexual act is condemned in Scripture, when competent scholars are nearly unanimous in admitting that nowhere in Scripture is there a clear condemnation of sexual acts between two Gay men or Lesbians who love each other.

"Enough!" Enough of your effort to reduce all homosexual acts to expressions of lust, and of your refusal to see them as expressions of deep, genuine human love! Enough of your effort to lead young Gays to internalize self-hatred with the result that they are able to relate to God only as a God of fear and hate, and lose all hope in a God of love! Enough of your recent efforts to foster hatred and discrimination against us in the human community! Enough of an ignorance for which there is no excuse. Enough of driving us from the home of our mother, the Church, and denying us the fullness of human life and sexual love. Enough of fostering discrimination against us, even violence and Gay-bashing. We cried out to you for bread, you gave us a scorpion instead!

Obviously, you could enter into dialogue with the rest of the human community, especially the Gay members of that community, to search for the truth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the complex issue of homosexuality. But never was there a mandate from Jesus Christ for you to create the truth by fiat.

At this point the words of Ezekiel apply to you Catholic shepherds:

Trouble for the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Shepherds ought to feed their flock.... You have failed to make weak sheep strong, or to care for the sick ones, or bandage the wounded ones. You have failed to bring back strays or look for the lost.

On the contrary, you have ruled them cruelly and violently. For lack of a shepherd they have scattered, to become the prey of any wild animal; they have scattered far.... Well then, shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh. As I live, I swear it -it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.... I am going to call my shepherds to account.

I am going to take back my flock from them and I shall not allow them to feed my flock.... I shall rescue my sheep from their mouths; they will not prey on them anymore.  (Ezekiel 34:2-10)

We Gay and Lesbian Catholics pray daily that the Holy Spirit will lead you into a spirit of repentance. Just as you apologized to the Jews for supporting anti-Semitism for centuries, so today you must repent and apologize for the centuries of support you have given homophobia. We pray that the Holy Spirit will strengthen you so that you can let go of the hubris that does not allow you to admit past errors. We pray that the Holy Spirit will lead you to search humbly for the truth concerning homosexuality through dialogue with your Gay brothers and Lesbian sisters.

The only consolation I can offer Gays and Lesbians in the meantime is the profound hope that the very absurdity and hateful spirit of the Vatican documents will lead lay Catholics to refuse them and to recognize the contradiction between their message and that of Jesus, who never once spoke a negative word concerning homosexuality.

I work, hope, and pray that Lesbian and Gay Catholics and other Christians will exercise their legitimate freedom of conscience, discerning what God is saying to them directly through their Gay experience. I hope, too, that they will be able to defang the poisons of pathologically homophobic religion, accepting the good news that God loves and accepts them as Gay and refusing to be caught in the vortex of self-hatred vis-à-vis a God of fear.

I am aware of hundreds of Gay people who have found peace and self-acceptance in part because of this book. I hope and pray that God will continue to use my work as an instrument of peace and reconciliation for hundreds of others.

John McNeill’s books include The Church and the Homosexual, Taking a Chance on God, Freedom, Glorious Freedom, and Both Feet Firmly Planted in Midair. His latest book is Sex the Way God Meant it to Be was published in 2008


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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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