Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right Intention: Cultivating Lovingkindness

 


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RIGHT INTENTION
Cultivating Lovingkindness
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 lovingkindness, for when you develop meditation on lovingkindness, all ill will will be abandoned. (MN 62) 

The proximate cause of lovingkindness is seeing the lovable qualities of beings. (Vm 9.93)
Reflection
We can all practice being kinder to one another. If we are able to make lovingkindness the basis upon which our mind is established, then we will all become kinder. The principle is so simple: the emotions we feed and nurture will grow stronger, and their opposites will starve and eventually die off. The immediate benefit of such practice is not only the growth of kindness but also the withering of hate and ill will.

Daily Practice
The way to develop lovingkindness is to bring to mind the lovable qualities of others. Try looking at a puppy or a kitten. Don’t you just love it? It has many lovable qualities. All the people you know also have such qualities; you just have to look for them and call them to mind. Practice seeing how often you can find something lovable in another person, even someone you might not like that much. Cultivate lovingkindness.

Tomorrow: Refraining from False Speech
One week from today: Cultivating Compassion

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Via Daily Dharma: Get Comfortable

 

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Get Comfortable

To make others comfortable, first make yourself comfortable with them. It is not very easy, but in time we may see it as worthwhile—even natural!

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, “Overcoming Ill Will”


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The New Saints
Lama Rod Owens in conversation with James Shaheen
In a recent episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sat down with Lama Rod Owens to discuss the multiple lineages of the New Saint, the power of connecting to our ancestors and unseen beings, and how Buddhism has transformed his relationship to freedom.
Read now »

Via White Crane Institute // SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE

 

Died
Sir Arthur C. Clarke
2008 -

On this date the British science fiction writer (and -- we note proudly -- longtime subscriber to White Crane) SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE died on this date (b. 1917). British writer, born in Minehead, Somerset, as Arthur Charles Clarke. He studied Maths and Physics at King's College in London.

His book "2001, A Space Odyssey" was made into a film in 1968 by Stanley Kubrick. Clarke lived in Colombo, Sri Lanka since 1956. His books include: Childhood's End (1953), The Deep Range (1957), A Fall of Moondust (1961), Profiles of the Future (1962), 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968), 2010: Odyssey Two (1985), The Ghost from the Grand Banks (1990), The Hammer of God (1993), The Light Of Other Days.

These accomplishments are all well-known and well-celebrated among Clarke aficionados and critics. Less discussed are the ways Clarke’s works challenged heteronormative sexual mores, particularly those surrounding men who went for men. But reviewing some of Clarke’s most notable works, one sees the author surveying the changing sexual landscape of a post-Stonewall society. Taken together, they provide a panoramic view of a gay man questioning the world in which he lived.

Clarke was a gay man, or, at the very least, queer. Though he married a woman in 1953, they separated six months later, and it’s well established that Clarke’s romantic existence was spent mostly with other men. Obsessed with the Kinsey Scale when it first came out, Clarke never believed people had strict straight or gay tendencies, a belief made clear in a number of his books.

Author Michael Moorcock wrote in a 2008 Guardian essay that “everyone knew [Clarke] was gay,” even in the ’50s, well after Clarke moved to Sri Lanka, where he found the lack of sexual policing refreshing after living in uptight England. Clarke also spent 1964-1965 at New York’s famously libertine Chelsea Hotel, romping around town with Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, two of the most male-loving men of the era.

And insiders also know that Clarke and a man named Leslie Ekanayake were in love; Clarke described Leslie as “the only perfect friend of a lifetime,” and the author was buried alongside him when he died in 2008.

But Clarke would never admit his love of men. Not on the record, at least. Asked by a reporter about his bedroom activities, Clarke campily laughed, “Why, what have you heard?” He only admitted his yen for men a few times: sheepishly in his semi-autobiographical 1963 novel Glide Path, in which the sexually inexperienced protagonist makes a passing reference to “a highly refined encounter with the clergyman who had (very briefly) run the local scout troop;” and off-handedly in 1986, when Playboy journalist Ken Kelley asked Clarke whether he’d had bisexual experiences. Clarke replied with a resounding yes: “Of course. Who hasn’t? Good God! If anyone had ever told me that he hadn’t, I’d have told him he was lying. But then, of course, people tend to ‘forget’ their encounters.”

He went on, “I don’t want to go into detail about my own life, but I just want it to be noted that I have a rather relaxed, sympathetic attitude about it.” Such reticence is only natural for a man born in 1917 and who came of age during the height of the Pink Scare, when western governments branded gay people as criminal scourges, as sexual criminals. And it’s equally logical that Clarke would use fiction to explore societies that had evolved past such sexual judgment. 

The author’s personal feelings on—or hopes for—human sexuality are perhaps most clear in his 1986 novel The Songs of Distant Earth. His sexiest work—almost every character is bed-hopping with another, or hoping to—Songs lays this society’s feeling out in the open with this exchange between two men at a hospital: Lieutenant Horton explains to his roommate, Loren Lorenson, that he was injured during a surfing expedition with a group of “hairy hunks” known for their homo-social ways. Loren is surprised by the revelation: “I’d have sworn you were ninety percent hetero.” Horton replies, “Ninety-two, according to my profile, but I like to check my calibration from time to time.” This prompts Loren to recall that “he had heard that hundred percenters were so rare that they were classed as pathological.” Clarke’s old interest in Kinsey’s work remained unabated. His only hope was the rest of humanity would see things as he did.

Clarke died in 2008, the same year conservatives used Proposition 8 to beat back marriage equality in California. He never lived to see the Supreme Court rule in favor of love. Nor did he see the same wave of progress sweep England, Australia, Brazil, France, and so many other lands. Today, more than a decade after Clarke’s death, millions of people live in a world in which marriage equality is a reality, in which transgender people are increasingly accepted and in which heteronormative notions of love and sexuality are steadily eroding, even though this brave new world of acceptance remains tenuous, at best.


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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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Monday, March 18, 2024

Via DailyChatter \\ ‘A Journey of 1,000 Miles’

 


A Japanese high court ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, a move that has divided the country’s judiciary and could pressure the conservative government to act, Reuters reported.

The High Court of Sapporo, on northern Japan’s Hokkaido Island, said that rules in Japan’s civil code limiting marriage to two people of opposite genders are “unconstitutional” and “discriminatory.” Judge Kiyofumi Saito added that the ban violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which provides that all citizens are equal.

The ruling was the first one to use such strong language. It came after other decisions, issued by lower courts, arguing the ban was in a “state of unconstitutionality,” the Japan Times noted. Those verdicts had frustrated rights groups because they represented little progress.

The Sapporo court’s decision was met with tears of joy from activists. One of them told the Japan Times it went beyond their expectations.

The verdict’s firm language is expected to force the government to act, as the environment is increasingly congenial for advancing LGBTQ rights in Japan. A recent public opinion poll showed that nearly two-thirds of Japanese people supported same-sex unions.

However, the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic party of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida opposes the measure.

Press secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the government would monitor public opinion and upcoming court rulings, believing that “an introduction of same-sex marriage closely affects family values of the people.”

On the other hand, the Sapporo court said that “enacting same-sex marriage does not seem to cause disadvantages or harmful effects.” Advocates added that the ban could even harm the Japanese economy.

Japan is the only member of the Group of Seven – whose member states are listed among the world’s wealthiest – offering no legal protection for same-sex couples, Reuters explained.

An executive at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo told the newswire that by keeping the ban, Japan risks repelling talented foreign LGBTQ workers who could not move to the country with their partners and enjoy the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts.

So far, nearly 400 local governments in Japan have approved partnership systems for same-sex couples, with a limited set of benefits.

US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel praised the court ruling’s step on “a journey of 1,000 miles” toward legalizing same-sex marriage.

Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering

 


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RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
When people have met with suffering and become victims of suffering, they come to me and ask me about the noble truth of suffering. Being asked, I explain to them the noble truth of suffering. (MN 77) What is suffering? (MN 9)

Sorrow and lamentation are suffering: the sorrow, sorrowing, sorrowfulness, inner sorrow, inner sorriness of one who has encountered some misfortune or is affected by some painful state. (MN 9)
Reflection
The first noble truth, the truth of suffering, is described in some detail in these texts. Here the experience of loss and sorrow is highlighted. Elsewhere we might be able to make a distinction between sorrow as a form of mental pain and suffering as a state of emotional affliction, but here we are simply directed to the universal human experience of the pain of loss or misfortune. It hurts a lot to lose someone you love. 

Daily Practice
The truth of suffering is not meant to encourage us to wallow in our afflictions, but it does not let us try to escape them through some kind of denial. The first noble truth is a starting point. Only when the suffering is acknowledged can the healing begin. Look at some aspect of your own suffering with courage and without fear and decide that you can and will undertake a path to heal the pain by understanding it and letting it go.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Lovingkindness
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering

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

Questions?
Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.



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© 2024 Tricycle Foundation
89 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003

Via Daily Dharma: Turning Sleep into Practice

 

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Turning Sleep into Practice 

When we are asleep, our consciousness is more detached from the perceptions and sensations that come to us through the senses. Through devoted practice, we can discover the 'clear light' of consciousness that is not bound to the physical body, and that is not extinguished when we die.

Noelle Oxenhandler, “Making Friends with the Night”


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Prioritizing Human Flourishing
By Matthew O'Connell
How Aristotle, the Buddha, and Confucius can inform a renewal of virtue ethics. 
Read now »

Via Buddhist Geeks

 


Via White Crane Institute \\

 


Poet Wilfred Owen
1893 -

On this date the soldier and iconic war poet WILFRED OWEN was born (died 1918).  Regarded by many as the leading poet of the First World War, his shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trench and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend Siegfried Sassoon and sat in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written earlier by war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Some of his best-known works—most of which were published posthumously—include "Dulce Et Decorum Est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting". His preface intended for a book of poems to be published in 1919 contains numerous well-known phrases, especially 'War, and the pity of War', and 'the Poetry is in the pity'. He is perhaps just as well-known for having been killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre just a week before the war ended, causing news of his death to reach home as the town's church bells declared peace.

Robert Graves and Sacheverell Sitwell (who also personally knew him) have stated Owen was homosexual, and homo-eroticism is a central element in much of Owen's poetry. Through Sassoon, Owen was introduced to a sophisticated homosexual literary circle which included Oscar Wilde's friend Robbie Ross, writer and poet Osbert Sitwell, and C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, the translator of Proust. This contact broadened Owen's outlook, and increased his confidence in incorporating homoerotic elements into his work.

The account of Owen's sexual development has been somewhat obscured because his brother, Harold Owen, removed what he considered discreditable passages in Owen's letters and diaries after the death of their mother. Owen also requested that his mother burn a sack of his personal papers in the event of his death, which she faithfully did.


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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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