Be aware of what needs your attention, including moments of beauty.
[Caption] Photo shows a sticker with a red circle with a line across it and a cartoon image of 45; a sticker that says “stop police brutality” and a sticker that says “No Vote, No Tax–No Taxation Without Federation Representation.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I went to see Julie and Julia because I, like most other Americans of a certain age who like food, have a history with Julia Child. Seeing the movie brought back an episode from junior high school. By seventh grade, I was pretty competent cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and doing needlework. Being a feminist in training, I wanted to take shop. Mr. Murphy, my ancient (OK who knows how old he was, but he was gray and bald and had leathery skin, so he was likely over 50 at the time) guidance counselor refused: “shop is for boys; home economics is for girls.” I expected my mother to back me up, but for some reason she did not.
I had no interest in making rice crispy treats, which was not the kind of thing we cooked at home and was the kind of thing they taught in home economics. Part way through the year, when we were told to cook a whole dinner at home and then bring in a report, I decided to cook from Julia Child. I am sure the meal was perfectly delightful, but the motive on my part was not to make a delicious dinner for the family, but to show my guidance counselor and parents that I should have been allowed to learn something that I did not know how to do and could not learn from a book (woodworking and other “shop” skills).
I enjoyed the movie (it’s a pleasant couple of hours and Meryl Streep is wonderful), but the interesting after thought for me was the difference in the happiness of an individual depending on motivation in life choices. Is something done for joy (with recognition being delightful, but somewhat incidental) or is it being done because one needs recognition and then feels satisfied on getting it? From a yoga perspective, is it “actionless action” (see Bhagavad Gita) or is it acting out of a need to fulfill the ego, which inevitably binds one in the fierce dichotomy and inner tug or war of the opposites of longing and gratification, pain and pleasure?
In the tantric philosophy, one of the aspects ascribed to the ultimacy of being itself is that it is completely free (svatantriya). Even when elemental being manifests itself as limited in time and space (as humans for example), it is part of the very dance, the play (lila) of existence.
I find it fascinating how much of our advertising uses language that in essence promises that we will realize aspects of our divine nature by owning some material thing or indulging in some activity. What is being sold, by those terms, inevitably fails deliver and must thoroughly disappoint. This thing on offer might be a wonderful technological toy that would be great fun to use, but hardly could bring unlimited freedom. If it did, we wouldn’t want to buy the next version.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I always find articles on the “spiritual” practices of the rich and famous fascinating. Does reading this article make you more or less interested in your own practice or does it not make any difference to you at all? Contemplation on which is your answer (might be a combination) is sure to give insight to your relationship both to society and to your practice.
Kashmir shaivism, using the term spanda, talks of the ultimate pulsation of life itself, all being a vibration, everything a play of opposites, a constant dance of concealment and revelation.
Yesterday I when I went to see Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, I thought about about what a dance of moments, desires, emotions, motivations, opportunities, and relationships made Woodstock the phenomenon it became.
I remembered when I was a teenager asking my mother why we had not gone; I had some idea that good family friends had made the trek from Long Island. She said it did not seem sensible to bring three girls under 10. I am sure that if we had gone, my memories would have been of being dirty, hungry, tired, wet, and overwhelmed. Instead, I grew up with the instant nostalgia of someone who was just a few years too young to make it up there on my own. In this contemplation, I marveled nearly as much at the play of spanda in my own life as in the world around me.
