So off I went to the Tantra workshop, at the other
end of the hotel. A lot of people were
crowded into the room when I arrived—I had to grab one of the few remaining
empty seats, next to an acquaintance of mine.
I tried not to be overly distracted by the pretty faces and bodies I saw
as I came in. Since this was a Tantra
workshop, I was naturally thinking about sensuality, sexuality, sex—because
that is what everyone first thinks of when someone mentions Tantra!
Now it turned out that the person originally
scheduled to facilitate this workshop had cancelled,; the presentation was
going to be given by a last-minute substitute.
The new facilitator had to ask for a review of the class description
from the Pantheacon brochure. The
description had referred to the intersection of Paganism and Hinduism.
Given that the facilitator had volunteered for this
assignment at the last minute, I really can’t fault him for appearing a little
confused about how to present his material—which of course he had had to pull
together at the very last minute. He was
an experienced presenter about Tantra; he just hadn’t been planning to present this workshop.
He began by asking what we thought Tantra was
about. People mentioned duality, breathing,
enlightenment through sensuality and the physical and the material—and I waited
for the instructor to tell us that Tantra wasn’t really about sex; that this is
just a western misconception. As I
recall, he didn’t do that. Instead, he contrasted
Tantra with sutra. This completely
surprised me. Of course the Kama Sutra
is a sutra about Tantra, it would seem.
But for him, as far as I can recall, “sutra” meant something like the theory of something, while “tantra”
meant the practice. He also mentioned “vajra”, which I recognized
as a word for lightning—generally I would interpret this as the Lightning-Bolt
of Enlightenment. But I don’t recall
that he connected it to enlightenment.
He led us in an exercise. Choosing a partner (mine was my somewhat
handsome acquaintance), I placed my right hand upon his heart (the middle of
his chest), and he did the same for me. Then
we looked into each other’s eyes. We did
this for one or two minutes. A little
later, the presenter suggested a different exercise. We moved away the rows of chairs and walked
around the now open space in the middle of the room, looking for someone we did
not know that we might talk to. I was conscious
of being perhaps the oldest person in the room.
I was reluctant to look anyone in the eyes. Several times I spotted someone I found
interesting, but they were not looking at me.
Several times someone appeared to walk towards me; but I was trying not
to look desperate or lonely or needy. It
felt like a dating exercise. As it
turned out, I never did find someone to work with. And I felt lonely
What did I take away from this workshop? I think the feeling that I was not connecting
well with people at the convention; the fact that I was feeling disconnected
and lonely, a little depressed. Also
an awareness that I was feeling quite self-conscious. I spent a lot of time worrying about the
people around me. I was feeling old and
unwanted. I felt detached from the
crowds of people surrounding me at the hotel.
And I wasn’t sure I’d learned anything about Tantra. I wasn’t sure what the presenter had been
trying to tell us.
But then, the exercises had caused me to pay more attention to myself and my surroundings. And that was a good thing! My increased discomfort was increasing my
attentiveness. A good thing!
So ended the second day of Pantheacon. I left after this workshop, not staying past
11 pm, not staying for the final workshop of the evening. That way, I could get a little more rest than
I had gotten the previous evening. I
would hopefully be better rested for the third day of the conference.
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