Halls of Learning

From the Wayfarer Tarot, Judgment; from the Curious Oracle, Compass Rose:

Praise and blame,

gain and loss,

pleasure and pain,

fame and disrepute

are the eight worldly winds.

They ceaselessly change.

~Buddha

The long hallway looks like that of a school that has emptied out for the summer. It is a great symbol for the school of life we constantly attend. The open door suggests the question, "Are you putting into practice what you have learned to meet the vicissitudes of life?" Sometimes it seems easier to keep repeating the same behavior rather than making an effort to change, but doing and thinking differently moves us toward the sunlight. The Compass Rose cautions that we may need to keep checking our direction as we go along - distractions can easily take us off course from our spiritual principles. I find it helps to keep things simple, as the wise words of Jack Kornfield indicate: “In the end, just three things matter: how well we have lived, how well we have loved, how well we have learned to let go.”