Sometimes we’ve just got to wonder about how the world got into such a mess; or alternatively, how did I get into such a mess? Or even, upon great good fortune, how did I get so lucky? And there can be all this see-sawing back and forth between “Oh, no,” and “Oh, wow.”

Mostly, I think, we just try to keep up with current events, internal or external, meeting the moment, meeting the moment. After all, that’s what meditation helps us to do. Meet the moment. Meet the moment. In fact, getting a grip on it, or trying to make sense of it, forms the foundation of all the great spiritual teachings of the world.

I am particularly drawn to The Heart of Recognition, (the Pratyabhijñahrdayam), that 11th century Reader’s Digest version of a much larger, earlier text, which states in Sutra 4, loosely translated, “Even the individual, as a contracted form of Consciousness, still embodies the whole in a contracted form.” So, on the one hand, if each of the parts recapitulates the whole, all in their separate forms, no wonder me ‘n the world is such a hodge podge; and on the other hand, it kind of makes more sense that all the contradictory opposites can co-exist, including our equanimity as well as our reactivity.

Anyway, that’s what’s drawing my attention these days, and it’s what Kathleen and I are currently giving workshops about. Sometimes, studying the ancient texts elucidates what we already know and what we just need to be reminded of from time to time. That’s why practice and study go so well hand in hand.

Happy Hodge Podge, however it is manifesting for you these days.