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    When We Choose the Pleasure of the Beautiful (DWTD)

    ByElizabeth

    When we choose a tantric path, we choose to experience pleasure as an expression of spirit, rather than seeking to transcend such experience as would one who is on the classical renunciatory yoga path. The choice to remain engaged, to honor mind and body as divine, comes with great responsibility.

    When we choose engagement, we choose to experience the divine reality not just of pleasure, but also of pain. The true tantric path does not turn a blind eye to ugliness and suffering. Just taking the pleasure without recognizing its opposite is not authentic practice. If the pleasure of the sunrise is “real,” then the garbage on the beach is just as real.

    Recognizing the reality of ugliness and pain as part of the play of the real does not mean, though, that it should diminish our joy in the beautiful and in the dance of the play of opposites of life.

    Rather, it is our delight in and engagement with beauty that invites us to serve as best we can to alleviate suffering, to try and clean up the garbage where we can. In other words, as we recognize that ugliness and destruction are part of the play (lila), we seek to be heart-full rather than heart-broken when we witness the suffering from violence to others or our living planet. If we let our hearts break, we become blind to the beauty. Like those who only see what brings pleasure, those who only see the painful are also not experiencing all of the real.

    As I head back to the world inside the Beltway, I bring the deepened and replenished sense of beauty and the dance that I always get from collective study and practice. I will try to share the privilege of having this experience by doing my best to clean up what garbage I can, while still dancing and loving in the light.

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    My “Black Friday” Spending

    ByElizabeth

    I paid to take a yoga workshop with Paul and Sommer Sobin back in town for their annual day after Thanksgiving workshop at Willow Street Yoga, which was just delightful.  I spent the money for round trip transportation between Union Station and Silver Spring.  I had lunch with friends and paid for my share of lunch:  green tea salad, ginger salad, and tofu with sour mustard at Mandalay in Silver Spring.  I am grateful for what Willow Street Yoga offers me and the community, for easy access to public transportation (I wish we would spend some of our defense budget on public transportation), and for a wide variety of restaurants with delicious vegetarian and vegan alternatives near to my home.

    I chose to spend money today to have a refreshing and rejuvenating vacation day before teaching tomorrow and to support people whose livelihood is providing services and goods that make the community a better place to be and that enrich my own life.  I express my gratitude by, in the method created by the consumer society, contributing to the livelihoods of those who will, in exchange for livelihood, provide life-enhancing services and creative gifts to the rest of us.

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    The Four Agreements

    ByElizabeth

    Several years ago, I was introduced to Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements in a yoga book group.  I come back to them periodically.  I am not usually one for self-help books, but I think the agreements are a wonderful teaching.

    I have them taped to the bottom of my computer monitor at the office because I find them especially useful in the office setting.  In particular, they are helpful in my relations with a co-worker senior to me in the chain of authority who tends to be very critical or speak in a strained or loud voice when anxious about work.  As it involves my projects (or we wouldn’t be talking in the first place), it is hard not to react and take it as personal criticism.  Today, I found myself in two different discussions about them.  First, I found myself reading them aloud to someone who called me to talk about a painful situation through which he is living.  The response was “thank you” and, in particular for Agreement 2, “amen.”  In the second situation, I was talking to two co-workers.  One was describing a work situation, and she said she had found it very helpful to come back to her desk and read “agreement number two.”

    The Four Agreements are (I found them on the Facebook page for The Four Agreements, so I feel OK printing them in full here; you can also see them on the “inside flap” view on Amazon.com (I have honored copyright by buying the book long ago for the book club meeting):

    Agreement 1:  Be impeccable with your word – Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

    Agreement 2:  Don’t take anything personally – Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

    Agreement 3:  Don’t make assumptions – Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

    Agreement 4:  Always do your best – Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

    I find Agreement 1 the most challenging.  When I am under stress, I tend to fall back into the ways in which I was raised and use “the word” to diss myself pretty fiercely, though I am getting better at not doing so persistently.  With Agreement 2, the tricky thing is simultaneously not to take things personally and keep perspective, but still to listen openly for ways in which one might still want to seek to grow and shift in response to what is said.

    Are you familiar with The Four Agreements?  How have they assisted you in giving perspective in your relationships and life?

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    Subscriber Service Revived

    ByElizabeth

    I hope this reaches those who had been subscribing to my blog by email. I have been desultory in my efforts to address technical glitches with the website in recent months, the last of which is offering the ability to get posts by email or otherwise in a feed.

    I hope if this does reach you by email that you will want to continue to subscribe and also perhaps sometimes reply or comment directly on the website. I am always interested in reactions.

    I expect to be posting a couple times a week. May what I offer be of value in these intense times and with so many calls for our attention.

    Wishing you peace, health, and joy. And if you have not yet voted, please make a plan for Election Day.

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    Gratitude

    ByElizabeth

    Sometimes at the top of the list of that for which I am grateful are the problems that I have. I fully appreciate my good fortune in only having problems I can handle in one way or another. Not every one is so blessed.

    I was thinking this about “problems” and how to address them in the most graceful way as I read the Supreme Court’s decision. Heavy going reading, but absolutely fascinating from so many perspectives. Awe-inspiring in fact to think of the collective behavior and engagement of so many millions (yes millions by active involvement to greater or lesser degree or by apathy and inaction in this democracy of ours) of people that contributed to this writing. One aspect of it is how much of people tend to think, both individually and collectively, as life endlessly posing problems to be solved (I include myself in this) and not as offering opportunities to engage, shift, nurture, and grow. How we approach the Supreme Court’s decision collectively and individually will most certainly contribute to its impact.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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