IntenseDebate - johntarrant

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - Does meditation do it ... · 0 replies · +1 points

I like this Molly, it's one of the big issues

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - John Tarrant's "Escape... · 0 replies · +1 points

That is cool. I had a funny thought that I didn't put in the piece which is that the usual progression might be to move from vie de merde through fmylife then my life is g and then my life is average. Then you would become famous for being average and go back down the scale, get a Maserati and marry a star—my life is G—and have a messy divorce. fight over the kids and the money, and then you have fmylife and end up ruefully at viedemerde. Then you go into rehab and start all over.
I'm very interested in stories that don't do that of course—how people can live in the world and be happy and have a rich inner life, which is what I see escape arts as being about.

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - John Tarrant's Es... · 0 replies · +1 points

Yep I think that's what koans are: escape scripts. The same something is probably Buddha nature, what we always have, any time,

thanks

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - John Tarrant's Es... · 0 replies · +1 points

HI Jenny,
That's a very interesting comment. Yes, my god-daughter got three best actress nominations for her time up a tree in a swamp and her next movie will get her more, but the question is always, 'Can I have a life in the middle of all this?' I think we are well aware of how fame and fortune can turn us into lost pop stars or heartless investment bankers, but poverty and loneliness can have a dark influence too. So the question is, 'what arts allow for freedom under any conditions?' and that's what we are exploring I suppose.
Thanks for that.

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - John Tarrant's &q... · 0 replies · +1 points

Hi Sylvia

I like that—it's always nice when I find out that the world is more interesting than I was imagining—more welcoming too. That little demolition is something I think of as a moment of clarity, a little shard of enlightenment,
Thanks

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - John Tarrant's &q... · 0 replies · +1 points

Hi David,

I like that "you are structurally unsound"— the interest of the awkward, the joy of being awkward,
thanks

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - John Tarrant's &q... · 0 replies · +1 points

Hi Ashby,
So far so good, yes. The thing I'd add to that is that there's no need to be sad for the imperfection— it's endearing and connects us and might not be an imperfection to the person holding it. If it is something that is happening then it's more interesting than something that I think could or should be happening. So seeing the flaw gives us back our own lives and a kindness toward what we think of as our limitations. And still so far so good. After that we can have the lives we really have and find them beautiful, just as we find Susan Boyle, disabled as she is, beautiful.
Cheers,

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - John Tarrant's &q... · 0 replies · +1 points

you're welcome

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - John Tarrant's &q... · 0 replies · +1 points

Hi Sylvia

I like that story, nothing banal about it, it's the folk poetry of the mind to think those things and then to notice and even appreciate them is always freeing,
Thanks

14 years ago @ Shambhala SunSpace - Practicing in difficul... · 1 reply · +1 points

Hi Sharon,

I think that's right on, that art is a spiritual path and also the other way round: there is an art inside spiritual work. I think the art in Zen and spiritual work is that it's a journey not a plan—there is a discovery happening so you might arrive at a place more interesting than the one you set out to arrive in. And that's the way to navigate difficulties—the koan of that goes:
Step by step in the dark—
if my foot is not wet
I found the stone.

Thanks

IntenseDebate Comment System

Connect with johntarrant

People I'm following

johntarrant