Thursday, October 12, 2023

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Action: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

 


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RIGHT ACTION
Reflecting Upon Verbal 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 verbal action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61)

When you have done an action with speech, reflect on that same verbal action thus: “Was this action I have done with speech an unhealthy bodily action with painful consequences and painful results?” If, on reflection, you know that it was, then tell someone you trust about it and undertake a commitment not to do it again. If you know it was not, then be content and feel happy about it. (MN 61)
Reflection
Speech is such an important form of action, especially in our modern world of constant communication. It helps to think of speaking words as a form of planting seeds— something we want to do with care and with the hope of good fruits arising in the future. It is helpful to reflect on what seeds you have sown, and it is a blessing to be able to look back on what you have said to someone and feel content and happy about it.

Daily Practice
Reflect on what you have said to others from time to time, especially soon after saying it, and check in on whether your communication has been harmful or helpful. If you feel that something is “off” in some way, do not hesitate to share your concerns with a trusted friend and look for ways to repair the damage. Taking care of our healthy relationships is a form of right action, and attending to our speech is a way of doing this.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Taking What is Not Given
One week from today: Reflecting upon Mental Action

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Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Via Daily Dharma: Love and Pain

Love and Pain

Let me love this life as best as I can. 

Vidyamala Burch, “From Fighting to Flourishing”


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Via FB// Ori Weisberg


 

People both here and around the world have checked in to ask how I am. I appreciate this more than you can imagine. But it puts me in a bind as to how to respond, beyond to affirm my physical safety and that of my children. 

Those of you who know me personally, or even at length virtually, know that I struggle to restrict my responses to such a question to generalities and formalities. On the other hand, I’ve been working over the past year, in the wake of radical upheavals in my personal life, to restrain my openness. Some see that openness as oversharing that overburdens them. 

So, responding to this question is challenging.

Yes, it would be correct to say that I’m fine. Because in many senses I am. Especially if we contextualize this with how others are doing. And even in this situation, I try to remember that context, and I try to remember both the morality and usefulness of gratitude. But I don’t always find the strength.

So, for those who want more detail, here it is. 

I’m angry. This is of course to be expected. Joe Strummer (because you knew I’d quote him somewhere here) once wrote “let fury have the hour / anger can be power / you know that you can use it.” He was talking about a rather simple situation of resistance. When anger is directed in one clear direction, and it’s righteous, then outrage, literally directing one’s rage outward, can be an antidote to despair and fear. And if directed effectively, can be a powerful force for change, or at least survival. But that’s not where I am. Because I’m angry in so many directions I struggle to find a center on which to stand. In some senses, all of my angers are pulling me apart.

Given this predicament, I want to add a caveat before I particularize them. I am conscious of being in extremis. I may change my view on many of the things I lay out here. I may repudiate them. I may be embarrassed by them. I may be very wrong about some of these things, though explaining to me how I am wrong, even if done with good will, likely won’t help either of us. At any rate, the question “how are you?” is in the present. This is how I am now. A snapshot of the moment. 

Yes, I am answering because I know some of you are personally interested, and yes, I am answering because I need to speak, and I live alone, and because I am Ori. But I also know that some have found value (because they’ve told me so) in my openness in sharing my views and experience. 

Nonetheless, I’d like you to keep in mind the most important line in the Book of Job. After Job loses everything and is subjected to intense physical and emotional trauma, he cries out to God, demanding an explanation. Three friends gather to discuss how he might continue to believe in a just and good God and the possibility of a just and good world. And they all mean well.  

The friend who speaks last, Eliphaz the Temani, holds he most correct position. He’s really smart, even wise. He isn’t simply an orthodox (small ‘o’) apologist for religious dogma demanding fidelity. He probes the problem deeply and calls for a complex subject position and view of God and the world.  

God then speaks to Job from out of the whirlwind, before pivoting to the friends, not addressing all three, but speaking directly to Eliphaz. 


וַיְהִי אַחַר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה אֶת הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה אֶל אִיּוֹב וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל אֱלִיפַז הַתֵּימָנִי חָרָה אַפִּי בְךָ וּבִשְׁנֵי רֵעֶיךָ כִּי לֹא דִבַּרְתֶּם אֵלַי נְכוֹנָה כְּעַבְדִּי אִיּוֹב.


“And after Hashem spoke these words to Job, Hashem said to Eliphaz the Temani, ‘I am incensed with you and your two friends, because you didn’t speak to me appropriately like my servant Job.’”

God doesn’t commend Eliphaz’s powerful theodicy, one that has provided many later rabbinic theologians – the Rambam (Maimonides) foremost among them (see the discussion of Providence in Part III of the Guide of the Perplexed) – with great intellectual inspiration. He doesn’t say ‘yep, well done Elushkeh, you got it right my brilliant child and your benighted brother Job just needs to listen to you.’ Rather, as the Rambam emphasizes, God rebukes him for being too invested in his own argument and correctness. The great Jewish historian Amos Funkenstein read Job as teaching that we don’t always deserve answers, but we have the right, and even obligation, to demand a hearing. Especially in extremis. Even if we are wrong or lost or broken or. . .angry.

With that in mind, my answer to the question “how are you?”, that I’m angry includes a list of things I’m angry about. In no special order and certainly no hierarchical ranking.

I’m angry at Hamas about the vicious slaughter and widespread trauma they inflicted, gleefully, on so many people.  

I’m angry at Israel’s vaunted security and intelligence communities and institutions, whose often appalling moral decisions and violations of rights have been justified with recourse to the necessity for security, for nonetheless failing to keep us safe.

I’m angry at this absurd government led by a man who has time and again placed his own interests and power above duty to country, while posing as a superlative patriot. And has never paid a political price. 

I’m angry at his party for clinging to him despite his amorality (or immorality) because doing so has served their own interests.   

I’m angry that for years he funneled cash from Qatar to Hamas while posing as the only one who can keep Jews safe. And I’m angry that so many people bought into this. And angry that so many still do. I’m angry that more than 2% of the population somehow doesn’t want him to resign immediately.

I’m angry at everyone who voted for any party in this government who hasn’t apologized for empowering such a group of corrupt and irresponsible chauvinists and zealots.

I’m angry at Hamas for undercutting the struggle for Palestinian rights and lending credence to the caricatures of Palestinians as bloodthirsty savages who just want to kill Jews, which is far from the truth. This will not only cost Palestinian lives in the immediate, but it will also set back their pursuit of justice and dignity by decades. They have alienated hard-won support in the international community. And they have made it harder to stand for their recognition, rights, and justice. Here, in Israel, it makes answering the refrain that ‘they don’t really want freedom, they just want us all dead and gone’ exponentially more difficult. And they have reinforced the flawed attitude that any failure of brutality to subjugate others is evidence of the need for more brutality. 

I’m angry at the harm that this will perpetuate for Israel and Israelis, now and in future generations, on so many levels. Dehumanizing themselves and us, dehumanizing us all, plunging us ever deeper into a morass of hatred and violence. There is no security and dignity for Israeli Jews if there is no security and dignity for Palestinian Arabs. 

I’m angry at those on the right who are already waving this as vindication of their cruelty and hate-mongering. 

I’m angry at those on the left who are celebrating this as valid resistance and a step in the direction of justice. 

I’m angry at their glib equivocations that show zero compassion for individual lives. 

One cannot seek justice for peoples if one isn’t seeking justice for people. 

Justice only comes when we provide safety and dignity for all. 

I’m angry at the arrogance of so many privileged people with little knowledge and enormous self-righteousness, who deny their own implication in a global system that has enabled this situation and glory in accusing others, and who celebrate or rationalize this slaughter as just desserts. Especially those who have never stepped foot here, haven’t read a 100th of what I’ve read, who don’t interact and work with Palestinians every day, yet who like to “educate” me about the Palestinian suffering I’ve witnessed, stay abreast of, and seek to alleviate. There is no justice without humility. 

My supposed allies on the left in regard to so many causes, including justice for Palestinians, this isn’t about YOU. 

I’m angry at those who obscure context and discredit it by calling it justification. Understanding something more deeply and broadly doesn’t mean one thinks it is just. To any and every brutal situation, some will inevitably respond with brutality. Others will not. That brutality is therefore inevitable, but not justified. It doesn’t exonerate someone who decapitates a parent in front of their child. It doesn’t exonerate someone who throws grenades at people who are dancing. It doesn’t exonerate someone who rapes or beats or shoots or bombs others. Systemic and historical analysis does not neutralize moral agency and responsibility. When we fail to attend to either, we are part of the problem.  

I’m angry that someone next to whom I sat Shabbat after Shabbat for years in synagogue went to a music festival, had his arm blown off with a grenade, applied his own tourniquet, and now is a hostage in Gaza with no medical attention to his grave injury. And his parents and sisters, like so many others, are living a nightmare. 

I'm angry that my youngest child has spent hours with her best friend, keeping her company, while she's overcome with fear for her beloved older brother (they are so close that one of his profile pictures is of the two of them) who was sent to the front.  

I’m angry at myself that this is the world and childhood I’ve given my three children. 

I’m angry that I did not build a career that would have given me a meaningful role of some sort in this crisis. I’m angry at the reasons I didn’t do so, many of which have to do with an illness I was both born with and that was exacerbated by my experience and failures to overcome it.

I’m angry at my supposed allies here in Israel who have refused to recognize that democracy and dignity for only some is a delusion. In fact, it is democracy and dignity for no one.

I’m angry that my country is filled with creative energy and courage when it comes to technology and the arts, but absolutely devoid of any creativity and courage when it comes to politics. 

I’m angry that I once found Israel’s precariousness romantic and thought it provided a more authentic experience of life and greater purity of commitment and affiliation.

I’m angry at the dishonestly partial and propagandistic education that informed those sentiments.

I’m angry at those who have turned my people’s traditions into distorting mirrors of superiority and cudgels of cruelty.

I’m angry that thousands of Palestinian children will be killed and traumatized in the next days and weeks.

I’m angry that my own children’s immediate welfare and that of my people, and the immediate welfare of another people and its children, are now seemingly mutually exclusive. 

I’m angry that I don’t currently possess a plausible vision for a better future. 

I’m angry that I live by myself and that the nights are very very long.

I’m angry that this week will forever shape my children’s lives, and my own.

And I’m angry that, unlike Job, I don’t have the kind of faith that gives me an address to demand a hearing and express my anger.

So if you’ve read this, you will have to do. 

And I’m angry that some who read this will feel pain.

Via FB

 


Via FB

 


Daimoku é um estreito laço de afeição entre você e o Eterno Buda Shakyamuni. Pense no Daimoku como se todos os ensinamentos do Buda Shakyamuni estivessem condensados nele.

Orientação do Reverendo Sinyou Tsuchiya

Venha praticar o Sutra do Lótus conosco!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/639160821078384

@todos

Via White Crane Institute // THE 2ND MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS



1987 LGBT March on Washington
1987 -

THE 2ND MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS. More than a half million people (between 300,000 and 1,000,000, according to organizers...considerably more than the number that attended the current occupant of the White House's inauguration) descended on the capital to participate in the second national March on Washington. Many of the marchers were angry over the government's slow and inadequate response to the AIDS crisis, as well as the Supreme Court's 1986 decision to uphold sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick.

With the first display of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, the 1987 march succeeded in bringing national attention to the impact of AIDS on Gay communities. In the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, a tapestry of nearly two thousand fabric panels offered a powerful tribute to the lives of some of those who had been lost in the pandemic.

The march also called attention to anti-Gay discrimination, as approximately 800 people were arrested in front of the Supreme Court two days later in the largest civil disobedience action ever held in support of the rights of Lesbians, Gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people.

The 1987 March on Washington also sparked the creation of what became known as BiNet U.S.A. and the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organization (LLEGÓ), the first national groups for bisexuals and GLBTQ Latinas and Latinos, respectively. Prior to the march, bisexual activists circulated a flyer entitled "Are You Ready for a National Bisexual Network?" that encouraged members of the community to be part of the first bisexual contingent in a national demonstration. Approximately 75 bisexuals from across the U. S. participated and began laying the groundwork for an organization that could speak to the needs of bi-identified people and counter the animus against bisexuals that was commonplace in both Lesbian and Gay communities and the dominant society.

By 1987, Latino GLBTQ activists from Los Angeles, Houston, Austin, and elsewhere had been meeting for two years, discussing ways to work together to further the basic rights and visibility of GLBTQ Latinas and Latinos. But with AIDS having a disproportionate impact on Latino GLBTQ communities throughout the United States, the activists recognized the need for a national organization and met at the March on Washington to form what was then called NLLGA, National Latina/o Lesbian and Gay Activists. Renaming themselves LLEGÓ the following year, the group has since expanded to address issues of concern to Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, and transgender Latinas and Latinos in other countries.

Along with the formation of new national groups, the most lasting effects of the weekend's events were felt on the local level. Energized and inspired by the march, many activists returned home and established social and political groups in their own communities, providing even greater visibility and strength to the struggle for Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. The date of the march, October 11th, has been celebrated internationally ever since as National Coming Out Day to inspire members of the GLBTQ community to continue to show, as one of the common march slogans proclaimed, "we are everywhere."


Original Keith Haring Poster for National Coming Out Day 1988
1988 -

NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY -- National Coming Out Day was founded by Robert Eichberg and Jean O'Leary on October 11, 1988 in celebration of the first Gay march on Washington D.C. a year earlier. The purpose of the march and of National Coming Out Day is to promote government and public awareness of Gay, bisexual, Lesbian and transgender rights and to celebrate homosexuality. National Coming Out Day is a time to publicly display Gay pride. Many choose this day to come out to their parents, friends, co-workers and themselves.


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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 Dhamma Wheel | Right Speech: Refraining from Malicious Speech

 



RIGHT SPEECH
Refraining from Malicious Speech
Malicious speech is unhealthy. Refraining from malicious speech is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning malicious speech, one refrains from malicious speech. One does not repeat there what one has heard here to the detriment of these, or repeat here what he has heard there to the detriment of those. One unites those who are divided, is a promoter of friendships, and speaks words that promote concord. (DN 1) One practices thus: “Others may speak maliciously, but I shall abstain from malicious speech.” (MN 8)

If anyone should speak in praise of something, you should not on that account be pleased, happy, or elated. To be pleased, happy, or elated would only be an impediment to you. If others speak in praise of something, you should acknowledge the truth of what is true. (DN 1)
Reflection
This passage warns us of the dangers of praise and blame, and the importance of equanimity as a safeguard against them. Blaming people is one form malicious speech can take, but praising in certain ways can have the same effect. If you allow yourself to be angered by blame or flattered by praise, you lose your ability to see clearly and appraise objectively what is being said. Better to greet both with equanimity.

Daily Practice
Notice when you hear people speaking in praise of something and see if you can discern any hidden motive for doing so. If what they are saying is true, then you can acknowledge the truth of it. But if the praise is part of an underlying agenda of manipulating opinion in some way, then it is appropriate to be more careful. Practice maintaining equanimity and beware the influence of praise and blame.

Tomorrow: Reflecting upon Verbal Action
One week from today: Refraining from Harsh Speech

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Via Daily Dharma: Intention Matters

Intention Matters

It’s not just what we do that will determine the benevolent or afflictive results, but it’s the intention behind them. 

Joseph Bobrow Roshi, “Purify Your Motivation”


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Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Compassion

 


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RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Compassion
Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis on which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on compassion, for when you develop meditation on compassion, any cruelty will be abandoned. (MN 62)

Compassion is like a mother with a son who is ill, for she just wants the illness to go away. (Vm 9.108)
Reflection
While lovingkindness is a universal intention of unbounded kindness and an indiscriminate wish for well-being that can radiate in all directions, compassion is what this changes into when it encounters a person or group of people suffering or being harmed. At that point the general urge for safety is focused on the intention to alleviate that suffering. Compassion is a particular form of lovingkindness, focused by suffering.

Daily Practice
In order to feel compassion, you have to be willing to see the suffering of others. It can be hard to open to this, but your lovingkindness will not transform into compassion unless you do. Practice being willing to witness suffering when you encounter it, and pay attention to the texture of your inner experience as it moves through phases: resistance to the pain, opening to it, feeling the hurt of it, then maturing into true compassion.

Tomorrow: Refraining from Malicious Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Appreciative Joy

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions?
Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.



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© 2023 Tricycle Foundation
89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003