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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.
11-11
11-11 is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of our calendar. It is Veterans’ Day (still on 11-11 and not on the nearest Monday). It is a day to contemplate what I, as a citizen, can do to invert a National policy of creating war and turning our young people into soldiers and then neglecting and abusing them when they come home wounded physically and psychologically. Surely, it should be the reverse: we should be doing everything we can to avoid war and then do everything we can to take care of the health and welfare of those who have served.
11-11 is also a day for me to honor my own ancestors; it is the anniversary of the day my beloved Grandmother Rose left her body.
11-11 is a day of celebration; it is my mother’s birthday. She has said that when she was a littlge child, that she thought the parades and the day off from school were for her birthday.
11-11 is also a delightful treat of relative leisure (Federal Holiday in the middle of the week).
It is rare for me that a single day has so many different personal imports. Each day, though, indeed each moment, impacts all of us so differently depending on our life circumstances. Some of those impacts just happen; some are chosen; some are how we react both to what happens and what we choose. I’ll be enjoying my day off to the fullest, but will also be sending loving energy to those in need, especially those suffering from current and past wars.
Signs Around Town
I bumped into former neighbors on the street and one asked whether I was currently leading a regular, public yoga practice. I invited them to invite themselves over to my house to practice. This invitation goes to you, too.
It’s a good time to have practices to nourish us.





