Evening Walk in the Neighborhood
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Signs Around Town (and a Tantic Philosophical Conundrum)
I haven’t photographed the t-shirt with the statement “it’s all good” to go with the sign below “needs work,” but I would need to if I wanted to show the apparent philosophical tangle of tantra.
The tantric texts do tell us that it is all good; more accurately, they tell us that all is divine and perfect, and that we are just an element of the “all.” It is hard to believe that when we can see suffering and bad behavior (including some of our own) all around us.
The tricky thing about the declaration that all is divine is that it does not mean that there is no work to be done. The work, though, is not to fix ourselves or what is wrong or bad. Rather, the work (sadhana) is to study so that with discrimination (viveka) we can determine what is out of alignment and causing our own suffering or contributing to suffering of other beings and move towards and unveil the perfection and fullness that we are.
It is sort of like finding a great treasure that has been neglected and misused out of ignorance or carelessness at a yard sale. It takes knowledge to recognize that the cheap, discarded thing is a treasure and skill and effort to restore its intrinsic worth.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Signs Around Town (What Do Words Lead Us to See?)
Does “black” here refer to the artist who stenciled the letters, to the brickmaker, to the bricklayer; was it painted by someone who is color-blind or who was showing that for one who is red-green color-blind the word “black” would not be visible; or is the painting intentionally asking us what we see when we see the word for a color painted using a different color than that pointed to by the word?
This is such a wonderful demonstration of how words can confuse our understanding of the world as much as they can communicate. I think much attempt to put into words spiritual and mystical thought and experience suffers from this multiple muddling of meaning.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Sometimes When It Seems As Though I Don’t Have Much to Say
it is because I have too much to say. I am thinking about many things, deeply and all at once. When I write in my journal, unexpected thoughts emerge from some depths. At this stage, the thoughts are for myself. Then some might be for sharing with the friend or colleague who would be interested in engaging in the dialogue that could follow from the idea.
Later, one thought path will capture me enough to invite me to follow though with it–to get down the words, to refine, to research, to read, to confirm, to affirm, to polish.
