Essays due January 4th
Andrea Russell
Essay Assignment:
Below are two questions to serve as topics for the essay assignment; please choose one. Respond with a 400 word, double-spaced, 12pt, response. Email your completed essay, clearly include your name, to: michael[at]centreofgravity.org
Essays are due January 4th
1)
In Living With the Devil (134) Stephen Batchelor writes: "In letting
someone else into your life, you open to the risk of being astonished.
For intimacy to remain alive, the other must remain a mystery for you.
To know someone intimately is to embody the unknown. ...Over time, you
tend to enclose the other within limits that define them according to
your own needs and desires."
Please write a response to this
passage relating it to: 1) one of the five precepts, and 2) your
personal life. The "other" can be a human, or maybe even an animal or
the natural world.
2) Each of the yamas/precepts is a practice
we undertake to wake up and realize our lives intimately. What does the
instruction “practicing the wise use of sexual energy” mean to you? What
does this practice look like in language, and can you (or could you)
share this language with friends and familiars? The cultural samskaras
are particularly deep around sexual energy, they short circuit fantasy,
providing containers for experiences that haven't happened yet. How do
you negotiate these societal habit patterns?
Best wishes,
Andrea
