A Pause


Sometimes appreciating the small things can ease the experience of the big things.

Leaving aside whether there is such a state as enlightenment and whether nirvana is enlightenment or its equivalent, I believe one should always question one who promises “the” path and doesn’t just offer “a” path that has served the one offering teaching or access.
Of course, other than potential issues in any community that makes such exclusive promises, one is always free to taste and explore and reinterpret the “the” as “a.”
“Write more, that’s all I have to say.” There were several more lines of text, but none so coherent or compelling as this.
Yes, spammer, I would like to be writing more imaginatively and more about the yoga here and elsewhere. I am fully occupied, though, with a technical writing of quite some magnitude if magnitude were to be measured only by the number of words and ideas included. With the social and substantive complexity relating to the project and how it fits within the fabric of creating the rules that govern our society, it is a creative in its own way, but it is more draining than inspiring.
The exercise involves many drafters who come from a wide range of perspectives, training and background, and who have different responsibilities and senses of responsibility. Most everyone is feeling stressed and under-supported in their own way and acting in the multifarious ways people act when that’s how they are experiencing things. I am struggling to stay compassionately present for myself and all who are engaged in the endeavor.
Reminding myself of reasons to be grateful always helps. The yoga and meditation practices, in addition to my creative pursuits, are at the top of the list. The practices are the only truly steady back up that I have. Perhaps that is true for everyone to a greater or lesser degree. The philosophies that inform the practices–whether renunciate or tantra–ultimately would not, I think, disagree.
Around the base of this statue, it says this as one walks clockwise from the front right. And when done circumnavigating, and facing the same direction in the direction the statue of Mary McLeod Bethune, one can see down East Capitol Street to the Capitol Dome:
“I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. I leave you a thirst for education. I leave you a respect for the use of power. I leave you faith. I leave you racial dignity. I also leave you a desire to live harmoniously with your fellow man. I leave you finally a responsibility to our young people.”