A yogin who is embodiment-oriented might enjoy, as part of the great dance of being, appreciating something as being enchanting.
But to let oneself be carried away enchanted or to seek enchantment heedless of the consequences seems quite the antithesis of engaging life mindful awareness.
A friend who was a skilled gardener whose taste in gardening ran to the subtle and quiet (think Vita Sackville-West’s all white garden at Sissinghurst), used to tease me for my attraction to lush, tropical blooms.
There is a time and place for everything in this world–the quiet and demure, the loud and outrageous.
The wider range we can appreciate, and the better we can know the optimal use and place for things, the better we will flow and dance and integrate into the joyous possibilities in the fabric of being.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I am sitting in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International airport waiting for the plane that should already be carrying me home to finish being repaired. After having done a full hour of practice this morning in my room, having a last delicious breakfast at the retreat center, and enjoyed the two-hour ride with friends to the airport, I find myself perfectly happy to sit in the airport. I am warm and well-fed. I have bought a novel to read on the plane — Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” — and put aside a philosophy handout to write. The handout, a translation of the beginning of Abhinavagupta’s “Tantrasara” that was given to us by Paul Muller-Ortega to support our meditation practices, teaches us to seek the power of bliss through the practices, this bliss being true knowledge and true freedom. The more we practice, the more we can draw on this power and abide in a state of true happiness. Paul Muller-Ortega sometimes says that we want to be “unreasonably happy.” As I sit here feeling perfectly content after my weekend of practice and community and watching others in the airport get progressively grumpier with the delay, I feel unreasonably happy. I also feel fully motivated to practice and study ever more deeply so that I can abide ever more steadily and this glorious unreason.
This rose that I see on my route to work has particularly lovely blooms. It is being strangled by weeds.
What am I saying about myself with the inclination to weed and rescue the bush and with the decision to leave well enough alone; plenty of weeding to do in my own garden.
