Rev. Danny Fisher

Via Integral Options Cafe: The School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University is currently seeking volunteers with a cancer diagnosis to participate in a scientific study of self-exploration and personal meaning. In the announcement at their website, they write:

In recent years, scientists at some U.S. universities have been conducting studies using entheogens, resuming research in pharmacology, psychology, creativity, and spirituality that was suspended following the drug excesses of the 1960s.

Entheogens include the peyote cactus used by the Native American Church, the psilocybin-containing mushrooms used as sacraments in Mesoamerica, and certain other plants and chemicals. Such substances have been used for thousands of years in cultures from the Amazon to ancient Greece as a means of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness for psychological self-exploration and spiritual or religious purposes.

These states of consciousness are most widely known in connection with practices such as meditation and prolonged fasting. Context seems to play a major role in shaping entheogen experiences and their consequences. Despite the well-known problems that can arise in unstructured settings, the risks of entheogens in research and ritual contexts have proven to be very small.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University are seeking volunteers with a current or past diagnosis of cancer who have some anxiety or are feeling down about their cancer to participate in a scientific study of self-exploration and personal meaning brought about by the entheogen psilocybin, a psychoactive substance found in mushrooms used as a sacrament in some cultures, given in a comfortable, supportive setting. Questionnaires and interviews will be used to assess the effects of the substance on consciousness, mood, and behavior.

Volunteers enrolled in the study will receive careful preparation and 2 sessions in which they will receive psilocybin. Structured guidance will be provided during the session and afterwards to facilitate integration of the experiences. The study complies with FDA regulations.

Volunteer must be between the ages of 21 and 70, have no personal history of severe psychiatric illness, or recent history of alcoholism or drug abuse, have someone willing to pick them up and drive them home at the end of the two psilocybin sessions (around 5:00 PM).

If you would like to discuss the possibility of volunteering, please call 410–550–5990 or email cancer@bpru.org and ask for Mary, the study’s research coordinator. Confidentiality will be maintained for all applicants and participants.

I received this mass email from Jennifer Quigley at the U.S. Campaign for Burma today:

Dear Supporters,

We need your help! We are asking you to call your Representative TODAY to ask them to support the renewal of the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, which denies hundreds of millions of dollars to Burma’s military regime. It doesn’t take much time out of your day but makes a big difference for the people of Burma.

Background:
The Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act was passed in 2003, denying hundreds of millions of dollars to Burma’s military dictatorship and its cronies by prohibiting the importation of Burmese products into the United States.

Besides preventing the financial enrichment of Than Shwe’s dictatorship, the ban on imports sends a strong signal that Americans care about human rights in Burma. We are not alone in this effort. The European Union renewed their sanctions at the end of April, and some among Burma’s Asian neighbors are also taking a stronger stand.

Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, the elected leaders of Burma, have asked us to place sanctions on the military regime – stating strongly that doing business with Burma primarily benefits the military elite and not the people.

Congress has voted to renew the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act every previous year. We need them to do so again this year.

What We Are Asking You To Do:
Congressmen Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Peter King (R-NY) have introduced a bill to renew the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act. We are asking you to telephone your Representative to urge them to vote yes in support of renewing sanctions against Burma’s military regime.

How to Contact Your Representative’s Office:
Your representative can be found through the House website, www.house.gov. Once there, enter your zip code in the “Find your representative” box in the top left corner of the screen. This will then tell you what Congressional District you live in and who your Representative is. Once you are sure who your Representative is, check the list below for their contact details.

Call your Congressperson’s office in Washington, DC and ask to speak to the staff member that handles foreign affairs. If s/he is not there, leave a message and ask her/him to call you back. Call today and call every day until you get an answer! Be respectful and polite, but don’t be shy. They were elected to represent you.

What to Say:


• Tell the staff member that you would like your Representative to vote yes for House Joint Resolution 93, the renewal of the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act.
  
• Give her/him proof that this policy works. It cuts off hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime and prohibits western companies from doing business with Burma’s regime.
  
• Tell the staff member that the people of Burma, including Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi, have called for pressure on Burma’s military regime, and we should support the calls of the people of Burma, not the military dictatorship.
  
• Mention that the military junta deserves pressure. The military regime has destroyed more than 3,200 villages. It has forcibly displaced more than half a million people inside Burma, as well as causing more than a million refugees to flee across the border to neighboring countries and has made no efforts to move toward democracy.
  
• Let her/him know it is important to send a strong signal to the regime that the US government will continue to keep American money out the hands of the junta.
  
• Point out that other countries are increasingly following the US lead on sanctioning the military junta. The E.U., Canada and Australia have all imposed sanctions on Burma.
  
• Finally ask the staff member to call you back when your Representative has made a decision. Important: Leave your phone number!
  
• Let him/her know that his/her constituents care about Burma!After your call, email me, Jennifer Quigley, at jennifer@uscampaignforburma.org to let me know what happened.

  If you have any more questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sarah Todd over at the Tricycle Editors’ Blog catches a couple of good pieces in the New York Times: one about the Buddhist art in China’s caves at Dunhuang, and one about the new Palden Gyatso biopic Fire Under the Snow (see the trailer below).

Via Hokai at h~log: Back in January, I blogged about a lecture by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche that I attended at Yale Law School. It can now be found online at Vimeo. It’s also embedded below.

On this, the blessed occasion of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet’s 73rd birthday, I would like to take a moment to wish him many happy returns of the day and share the below prayer for his long life (which was translated into English by Dr. Thupten Jinpa Langri).

OM SVASTI

To the assembly of most kind teachers, both present and past -
the miraculous dance of the body, speech and mind of
innumerable Buddhas
manifesting in accord with aspirants’ spiritual capacities,
the wish-granting jewel, the source of all virtue and goodness -
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons. Shower on him your blessings
so that his aspirations are fulfilled without hindrance.

To the assembly of all meditational deities
manifesting as countless mandalas and divinities –
the magical clouds of immaculate, transcendent wisdom
reaching to the farthest expanse of the space of ultimate reality –
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons. Shower on him your blessings
so that his aspirations are fulfilled without hindrance.

To all the victorious Buddhas of the three times
endowed with ten powers and who are even masters of the gods,
and whose attributes of perfection are the source of all compassionate deeds
benefiting the vast ocean-like realm of sentient beings,
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons. Shower on him your blessings
so that his aspirations are fulfilled without hindrance.

To the assembly of sacred doctrine embodied in the Three Vehicles,
supremely serene, a jewel-treasure of enlightenment,
stainless, unchanging, eternally good, and the glory of all virtues,
which actually liberates beings from the sufferings of the three worlds,
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons. Shower on him your blessings
so that his aspirations are fulfilled without hindrance.

To all members of the enlightening, noble spiritual community,
who never stray from the thoroughly liberating adamantine city,
who possess the wisdom eye that directly sees the profound truth
and the highest valour to destroy all machinations of cyclic existence,
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons. Shower on him your blessings
so that his aspirations are fulfilled without hindrance.

To the assembly of heroes and dakinis, heavenly beings of the three worlds,
who appear in the highest paradises, in the sacred places, and in the cremation grounds,
and who, through creative play in the hundred-fold experiences of bliss and emptiness,
support practitioners in their meditation on the excellent path,
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons. Shower on him your blessings
so that his aspirations are fulfilled without hindrance.

To the ocean of protectors endowed with eyes of transcendent wisdom -
the powerful guardians and upholders of the teaching
who wear inseparably on their matted locks
the knot symbolising their pledge to the ‘Vajra Holder’ -
to you, we offer our prayers with fervent devotion:
That Tenzin Gyatso, protector of the Land of Snows,
live for a hundred aeons. Shower on him your blessings
so that his aspirations are fulfilled without hindrance.

Thus to this congregation of excellent, undeceiving refuge,
we pray that by the power of this prayer
expressed from a heart filled with fervent devotion and humility,
may the body, speech and mind of the sole of the Land of Snows,
the supreme Ngawang Lobsang Tenzin Gyatso,
be indestructible, unfluctuating and unceasing;
may he live immutable for a hundred aeons,
seated on a diamond throne, transcending decay and destruction.

You are the jewel-heart embodying all compassionate, beneficial deeds;
O most courageous one, you carry upon your shoulders
the burden of all the Buddhas of the infinite realms.
May all your noble aspirations be fulfilled as intended.

By virtue of this may the heavenly doors of the fortunate era open
eternally as a source of relief and respite for all beings;
And may the auspicious signs reach the apex of existence and release,
as the sacred teachings flourish through all times and in all realms.

May the nectar-stream of the blessings of the ‘Lotus Holder’
always enter our hearts and nourish it with strength.
May we please you with our offerings of dedicated practice,
And may we reach beyond the shores of perfect, compassionate deeds.

Through the blessings of the wondrous Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,
by the infallible truth of the laws of dependent origination,
and by the purity of our fervent aspirations,
may the aims of my prayer be fulfilled without hindrance.