This week has been a good reminder of just how the law of karma works. Like a big pendulum, everything swings back and forth with time. In the wake of the Blue Wave, we witness a big pivot in the body politic. With it there is tremendous optimism, possibility, and newfound faith. The remarkable turn offers hope for a more caring, equitable, inclusive nation. But it is a reminder that it is the nature of karma to always ping-pong back and forth between extremes.
During the original ministry of the Buddha around the 5th century BCE, monks were taught to watch out for the classic “four pairs of opposites”: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, success and failure, praise and blame. These opposites were thought to be like blustery “winds” that stir up the mind and heart. Keep this in mind whenever you feel lost, hurt, or at odds with the world. Know that everything swings back and forth in time like the pendulum of an old grandfather’s clock.
A yoga and meditation practice is all about finding midline. It is a practice to help reconcile divisions inside oneself. We may believe “Oh, I am so good” or “Oh, I am so bad”. In Hatha yoga, this reconciliation is described as the balance between the polarities of “sun” and “moon”. The ultimate place to realize the undivided is the center of your heart. Your spiritual heart is the one place that never swings left and right, high and low. It never takes sides. It is simply full of a wide-open, loving presence. So, as you open to new beginnings in wake of the midterms this week, center inside and rest in the infinite space of awareness that is always and forever free from the pull of opposites.
-Tias Little
