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Murtis Around Town
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If It Weren’t for Columbus
I would not be walking through Lincoln Park past a sculpture of Lincoln emancipating the slaves. There might not have been any slaves to emancipate. My great grand parents might not have made the trip from Eastern Europe to Ellis Island, which might never had been a portal for millions of human beings to arrive by ship from Europe. What an extraordinary web of existence. What do I think is my purpose and what is my part/purpose in the great web–the part I can never have the vision to know because I am inevitably bound by the perspective of my embodiment?
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Steadiness of Silence
During one of our sessions, one of my fellow students asked whether she was really seeking a life of renunciation because she sometimes really craved sitting quietly for meditation. For her, having first experienced meditation as an adult who has a rich and comfortable life, even the shortest time sitting with eyes closed looking only within felt like it might be a denial of the outer world.
The practices Paul Muller-Ortega is teaching, and as he makes absolutely clear, are very much for the householder and are not the rarified path of a renunciate. Sitting in silence is a blissful and steady; it is going towards the inner world and not going away from the outer world.
We do not have to renounce our lives to sit regularly in silence. We can frankly delight in the sweetness of inner light and stillness and honor our desire to do so (a true renunciate would have to renounce even that desire). Meditation as part of the daily life of a householder, is a bedrock of support so that we can be ever more fully engaged in our lives, no matter how noisy they can get sometimes.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Found Exhortation
This is one of those I think could be used to justify all kinds of beliefs and behaviors that would deeply trouble me. What difference?
