I use tarot and oracle cards as tools for reflection and contemplation. Rather than divining the future, they are a way for me to look more deeply at the "now."
"The goal isn't to arrive, but to meander, to saunter, to make your life a holy wandering." ~ Rami Shapiro

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Resting in Alaya

From the Osho Zen Tarot, Harmony (Ten of Cups); from the A'HA Oracle, "Separation:"
It is interesting that Padma chose to use an individual to illustrate the Ten of Cups rather than a group of people. In deep meditation, this woman rests in the nature of alaya. Judy Lief explains it this way: "The alaya, or essence, is the open, unbiased expanse of mind. It is stillness. It can be envisioned as an expanse, or simply as a gap in our ongoing preoccupations, activities, and concerns." The dolphins leaping from this woman's heart chakra symbolize the natural joy and peace that arise from this place. And this essence is what I can carry with me into all my relationships.
The A'HA card seems to show just the opposite experience. People are separated into little hourglass-like test tubes, depicting how they perceive their lives. What I encounter and deal with may look very different than the events in other folk's lives. Yet on the inside, we all are capable of feeling joy or grief, fear or courage, peace or frustration. We are much more alike than those outer appearances would suggest. There's a lot of truth in the saying, "Don't compare your insides to other people's outsides."

5 comments:

  1. When you really get to know people you discover everybody has his own story to tell. I think it is our fear of being hurt which separates us from each other.
    To be honest I find it very hard to bring my "Alaya" with me in my daily life after meditation.

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    1. Sometimes if I can pause and consciously take a slow, deep breath, I can get a quick glimpse - but you are right, it is impossible to be tapped into it all the time!

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  2. I met up yesterday with a friend, and we talked about meditation: our experiences with it and what we hope for from it. He said he would like to be in a meditative state every waking moment, that everything he does be mindful and uniting him with a greater whole. While I like the idea, it feels so far away from my actual experience! Ah well, to touch it even sometimes helps to feel that connectedness and recognise that our insides are all similar :)

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    1. I think the only way I could do that is to live in a cave (hermit style) on a mountain, far away from people. But of course that would defeat the point of my practice, to learn to be loving and compassionate with all beings, lol.

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    2. Have to say, I don't find the Hermit's cave even slightly tempting :D

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