A Loony Tune for the Blood Moon

 Tonight brings the "blood moon", sign of a super full moon eclipse in which instead of being blacked out, the moon is reddened by shadow. Last one: 1982, next one: 2033.  So this is nothing new and nothing singular, yet certain true believers who don't question anything take a blood moon to be the sign of the apocalypse. No wonder our word "loony" comes from luna, the Latin and romance language word for moon.

We don't need a blood moon to remind us of apocalypse. We've got the frustrated men of ISIS and the rest of their ilk in the Shabab and Taliban and Boko Haram down here bloodying up the Earth. Apocalypse is simply hell oozing from minds overwhelmed by anger burning out of control.  I call it nuclear resentment.  

We don't do apocalypse in Dharma because we are busy trying to clear our mind of every sort of anger, knowing it leads to no good. We get loony in the Dharma over the "water moon", symbol of how life works. So here is one I captured through the bedroom window, sorry about screen interference: 

Two moons! An actual moon that is actually reflected, reality and virtual reality mimicking it. Sometimes, as in this photo, it's difficult to distinguish one from the other: what is real and what we see of it. There is life's absolute reality and the relative way it gets reflected in our particular mind. This photo is precious because the reflection is near perfect. If the water had been kicked up by wind and waves--emotions and thoughts in the ocean of mind, it would have looked like something else altogether. So the trick is to understand the way our mind reflects reality: calm and accurate or jumpy and distorted? Do we see it as it is or as we want it to be or fear it will be. A water moon is a great reminder, a powerful symbol of how life works.

And by the way, Traleg Rinpoche in his teaching on dealing with this phenomenal world says there is absolutely no problem with getting angry. That's an impulse. The problem is hanging on to that impulse and enlarging into resentment, spite, jealousy and hatred that you keep accessible in your carry-on baggage. Sucking on your anger the way you might nurse a drink leads to the hell of apocalypse now. Very bloody. Very loony. Here's to a water moon.

~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
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