DAILY PHOTO: Angry Adolescent Tusker
Reply
PROMPT: Fear and Self-Doubt
Feel it but don’t feed it. I feel whatever emotional sensation it brings with my whole attention, but don’t ruminate — i.e. don’t let the mind go into worst-case scenario building or pity partying or self-criticism. Use the sensation as an anchor for one’s awareness. This honors the source of consternation while recognizing that one’s mental (/ emotional) experience of an event is not the event, itself — i.e. that one has influence over one’s experience even when one has zero influence over the event. Gain confidence with the small emotional experiences and work toward the big ones.
This was the great gift I received in being taught sakshi bhava, the yogic practice of dispassionate witnessing.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Felonious Fig [Free Verse]
I thought I caught a fig tree,
escaping over a stone wall,
but when I turned my attention
upon it, it stayed so very still.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
DAILY PHOTO: Baphuon Ruins at Angkor
Image
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Question Reality
I have them all the time. When I was actively working on lucid dreaming / dream yoga, I was particularly attuned to them (as the practice necessitates.) The most common instance is when one sees something in one’s environs that one has never noticed before. It would happen all the time when I was living in Bangalore because it was such a visually chaotic and rapidly changing place that I could walk down a street ten times and not notice an unusual sign or building facade, and then — POW! — the moment I saw it I was in utter disbelief that it could have been their all the time.
I haven’t discounted (nor accepted) the simulation hypothesis, and I suspect whatever the world is, it’s not precisely any of the things we’ve thought it to be.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
DAILY PHOTO: Christ Church Cathedral of Montreal
Image
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Expected to Hate
I’ve had it the other way round (i.e. disliked a movie I expected to like,) but I can’t really say I’ve ever watched a movie that I expected to hate. Do people do that? In the very short life one has, are there people who sit around entertaining themselves with movies they expect to not be entertaining? Despite all that I have learned in this life, people perplex me more and more each day.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
DAILY PHOTO: Temple of Heaven
Image
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Meaning of Life
I don’t know that there is a meaning of life, and — if there is — I truly doubt that it’s one size fits all. I’ve got to give it to the Existentialists on this particular question.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
Miracle [Limerick]
A sinner sat himself down in a pew --
A first-timer, he didn't know what to do.
Then -- blinded by light!
Dazzling color, so bright!
(Miracle repeats daily 'bout half past two.)
Tiger Riding for Beginners 