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A queer critique of Buddhist renunciation - Bernat Font-Clos

4/5/2021

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The LGBTQ+ community is known for its parades. While there are quiet gays too, as Hannah Gadsby rightly spotted, the celebration is there to balance the shaming and repression. Celebrating our bodies and queerness, I believe, affirms that ‘this is worth it’. It sends the message that one is not willing to be defined by the pain. This sounds good and brave, but less obviously, it sounds un-Buddhist. Or to be more specific, it doesn’t fit with renunciation-based Buddhism, which is a lot of the contemporary dharma available today, even that which does not present—or sometimes conceive—itself as renunciant. 
At a Sakyan city in the Land of Lumbinī
A Being To Be Enlightened, a Priceless Jewel,
Is born in the world of men for welfare and weal;
​Because of that we are extravagantly gay.
— Snp 3.11.¹


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My experience of Buddhist meditation

10/22/2020

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Though these lockdowns are largely a disaster for social interaction, in many ways, the sudden thrust into the online world facilitates a greater reach with more opportunities. My experience of Buddhism, for instance, only leapt from academic books to meditation practice after one particular group went online. Brighton LGBTQ Meditation Group, a part of Bodhi Tree Brighton, a group I would otherwise have never been able to attend (due to it existing 5 hours away from me), has been a comforting sanctuary for me in these troubling times.  It was only through this experience that my understanding of Buddhism has been able to flourish. Though I would be cautious in calling myself a Buddhist (or anything else for that matter), I would certainly consider myself a strong admirer of the Buddha. 

The group meets weekly, and attracts a fair number of individuals, possibly between six and twelve. I am unsure whether everyone in attendance identifies as Buddhist, but it appears that a lot of them have been practicing for a while. Most of those who attend do so on a regular basis, and have been for several years. The group has been running since 2002, other than Sheila (the convenor of the group), I think the next record is fifteen years of practice.  Most of the individuals identify as women and I often find myself welcomed as the token gay man!


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