We all have two choices in life: change our perception or change our procedure

“Wu-Wei” is the concept of creative quietude, an important concept in Taoism. In the western world it is more commonly referred to as the concept of “Flow” – the state of peak performance whereas one achieves results without effort. It is most commonly felt as that moment when the conscious concept of time disappears. Oneness with your “work”. Oneness with all.

This is where I’m striving to be at all times. Good luck on your own personal travels and recognize how far you’ve already come.

“Some feel the rain, others get wet”.

Thank you for connecting,

Cooper

Das Dao als Schöpfer ist eine coincidentia oppositorum (Vereinigung der Gegensätze) von Sein und Nicht-Sein, in bekannt und namenlos, als Ausdruck des dynamischen Lebens selbst. Dieser Doppelaspekt des Dao erinnert an den Begriff des t`ien in seiner Doppelbedeutung von “Vor der Zeit”: Himmel und “Nach der Zeit”: Himmel in seinem Bezug zur Welt. Und aus dem Vergleich läßt sich schließen, das Dao als Nicht-Sein, “Namenlos”, das Dao an sich bedeutet, das Axiom der akausalen Ordnung, während Dao als Sein, das mit Namen-Genannte, das der Zeit verhaftete und den Bedingungen unterworfene Sein ist.

Das Dao, oder die Erfahrung des Dao im Zustand der Leere und Stille, der Kontemplation, ist die Heimkehr zum Leben. Die Ruhe und Stille des Sitzens ist die “Rückkehr zur Wurzel”, Rückkehr zum Urquell, zum Großen Einen. Diese Rückkehr ist allein in der Stille der Meditation möglich. (vgl. das 10 und 16 Kapitel im Daodejing von Laotse, später hier…)

“Verweile im Wunschlosen, so wirst Du das Wunder erschauen”.

wu bedeutet wunsch-los, frei von der Vergiftung durch Begierden; nur in dieser geistig-seelischen Haltung vermag man das Wunder, die geheimnisvolle Tiefe des Dao zu erschauen. Mit anderen Worten: Der Mensch vermag das Dao zu erfahren nur wenn er seinen Geist frei von menschlichen Wünschen und Strebungen zu halten vermag, im Zustand von wu-wei, Nicht-Tun. Oder besser gesagt: Dao manifestiert sich im und durch den Zustand von Begierdelosigeit, Herzensreinheit, Einfalt des Geistes – und diese Erfahrung von Dao offenbart sich uns als Wunder und tiefes Geheimnis, es ist die coincidentia oppositorum, ewig, namenlos. Dieser Zustand, da unseren unruhigen, egozentrischen Wünsche und Sehnsüchte schweigen, ist jene Stille der “Wiederkehr” zum “Anfang” des schöpferischen yin-yang-Dao! (Mokusen Miyuki).

“Se não privilegiamos os bons, o povo não compete

Se não valorizamos os bens custosos, o povo não rouba

Se não exibimos coisas desejáveis, o coração do povo não erra.

Por isso o governo do homem sábio:

Esvazia os corações e sacia as entranhas

Enfraquece as vontades e revigora os ossos

Nunca deixa o povo ter conhecimento e desejos

Para o douto não ousar agir.

Agindo no não-agir, assim não há desgoverno.”

traduzido pela comunidade do wikisource

capítulo 4

todos os capítulos

The Heavenly Lord said:

All rivers, which have myriads of branches, return to the ocean;
All things, which are various and tangled, return to Tao.

Living beings are attached [to various things] so that discriminations arise. However, there is a perfect and penetrating truth, which you will find out when you master and digest the meanings of all things without missing any of them.

The Heavenly Lord said to Wonderful Practice Real Person:

If you wish to learn my Tao, your mouth should be free from gossips, your Heart should be free from the appearances of others and yourself, and your body should be free from defilements and attachments, then you will correspond to the Tao of Non-action.

All beings are illusory created; they fall into various appearances because of their various causes. You should realize that enjoyments are equal to sufferings, and terminate all of them by One thought to reach the Non-action.

——————————————–
From Dao Zang (Daoist Canon), The Scripture of Forty-nine Chapters, translation by Silfong Tsun.

See full text here. Replacing some Chinese pronunciations by its Arabic equivalents (e.g. Allah or Haqq for Tao), who can realise it originally is not a Sufi text?!

Taoist Yang Yin symbol

“There is no need to run outside

For better seeing,

Nor to peer from a window. Rather abide

At the center of your being;

For the more you leave it, the less you learn.

Search your heart and see

If he is wise who takes each turn:

The way to do is to be.” – Tao Te Ching verse 47

I love the poet, Muriel Rukeyser, because she understood that “the world is made of stories, not atoms”.You don’t have to be a poet to understand this, but it helps. Have a look around. Stories are a force of nature. We didn’t evolve from apes; we sprang into life, full-blooded and thoroughly anxious, embodied by “tales of the tribe”.

Story is our essence, the source and expression of every dream, dread, vision, death, birth and discovery. Our humanity and inhumanity is rooted in it, tangled in the mystery of “how come?” and the suspense of “what next?”

When James Joyce was asked where he came up with the stories that inhabited his books, he gestured round the pub: “from that couple over there, and those men by the door, and that woman washing up behind the bar…”

Story is Nature’s way of becoming conscious of itself, and as storytellers we work with it in order to become conscious of ourselves. One writes a story to find out why one is writing it, and in the process discovers that the story is writing us as much as we are writing it.

This issue of THE GROUP was meant to be an exploration of screen storytelling, but alas – it has taken on a life of its own. What is common to all the contributors in this issue is their willingness and ability to “enter the drama”, and through that courage to offer their audience a chance to enter it as well.

Many of the writers, artists, filmmakers and poets that appear in this issue work as “mediums”. To work as a medium is not so much a matter of what an artist does, as what he/she doesn’t do; it is akin to the Chinese idea of wu-wei (non-action), a concept that denotes effortlessness, spontaneity, or what Chuang Tzu refers to as “flowing”. It is the ability of getting out of the way and letting the event, emotion, experience express itself-as-itself.

Every well-told story and poem flows, as does the act of every artist when he/she operates “mediumistically”. The art of flowing, requires that the artist/writer get out of the way. A dramatist must become “empty”, unobtrusive, so that the characters can become whatever the characters are, so that that which is yet-to-be can come into being, allowed to birth itself through the agency of the storyteller-made-medium.

Indeed, one might say that unless a story – or any work of art – is birthed in this manner it can have no lasting raison d’être, and as such, cannot endure.

- Billy Marshall Stoneking. From “The Group Online Magazine”, to be found here.

El concepto de wu wei, se resume en una sola frase.

“No hacer nada pero que nada quede sin hacer”

No forzar, pero no perder el tiempo en tonteras.

Si bien lo que sentimos es visible por los demas , lo unico que queda en el tiempo es lo que construimos.

asi que “no hacer nada” no equivale a desperdiciar tu vida haciendo lo que los demas quieren de ti….sino que lo que hacemos es el fiel reflejo de nuestro ser.

      Wu wei is the Chinese Taoist term for the advice I was given. The doing of not doing.

     “If you have the time get into the woods with your dog or horse . . . just sit with them . . . for days. Don’t be looking for some answer. Turn off your brain as much as possible.”

     So goes the advice of another therapist, advice I would if someone were asking me. So often we know the answer but forget the doing and seldom can do what we know it is the thing to do.

     I discovered this therapist’s blog the other day while surfing the web looking for information about equine facilitated therapy. His blog speaks about how his twenty years of work turned him upside down – “so abused by the system with 16 hr days, 10 on w/e, 24/7 on call, no vacations for a good 15 years I am wondering if I can undo the damage . . . ”

     I commonly hear this refrain when I am in touch with others in the profession. I suspect it is more than just psychotherapists who sing this song.

     In this time of re learning wu wei I think of often Colorado, the place I fell in love with the west as a boy. I miss the Collegiate peaks – the snow blowing off of the tops of the mountains, the tall pines, the willows and the cottonwoods along the banks of the streams that carry the melted snow from the sky to the valley below. How was it the woman who is recovering form cancer said – “be as the Mountain and the storms and everything passes.”

     Picture a small place on a flowing river – not an expensive place. A small place with a few acres and horse corrals made of lodge pole pines. Corrals full of shaggy horses. A round-pen made of lodge poles as well. And children, and warriors home from the wars, coming to learn by being with horses and in the being with horses learning to have peace again. Surrounding this small place of peace are mountains, high, soaring real mountains with snow capped peaks. The wind tailing snow off the tops and filling all our spirits with peace.

     Wind Horse Ranch.

     Beyond the mountains, my other lasting impression of Colorado is of the houses in Aurora, big houses, five thousand square foot houses with no curtains – houses all lined up like -

1. Little boxes on the hillside,                                                3.  And they all play on the golf-course,

Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,                                         And drink their Martini dry,

Little boxes, little boxes,                                                        And they all have pretty children

Little boxes, all the same.                                                       And the children go to school.

There’s a green one and a pink one                                     And the children go to summer camp

And a blue one and a yellow one                                         And then to the university,

And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky                            And they all get put in boxes

And they all look just the same.                                           And they all come out the same.

2. And the people in the houses                                    4.  And the boys go into business,

All go to the university,                                                         And marry, and raise a family,

And they all get put in boxes,                                              And they all get put in boxes,

Little boxes, all the same.                                                      Little boxes, all the same.

And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers                          There’s a green one and a pink one

And business executives,                                                       And a blue one and a yellow one

And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky                           And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky

And they all look just the same.                                          And they all look just the same.

Houses born of the business of business as people crowd into cities.

Calvin Coolidge said the business of America is business. I think “business” is just another word for illness, a consumptive illness like tuberculosis. “Busy ness” by any measure is just busy, busy looking out and taking control – an over doing.

Wu wei – the doing of not doing – the polar opposite thinking of bus-i-ness.

We are all busy and burned out on the drive behind making a great deal of money then consuming and making more and consuming more. The business of life should not be business it should be being – loving, living, laughing.

In this enforced wu wei am returning to my grandfather’s socialist roots. I need to – not a life of consumption but a life of community. Consumerism for its own sake – capitalism for its own sake – there is no wisdom there.

That is why the mayor of this town is a fool and so unwise.

I think, too, some days, about the idea of blooming where you are planted. Then more welcomed advice comes from a friend who knows me all too well-

‘”Start small – Find a small place in the mountains where there is a market for “Equine Facilitated Therapy” (need to do some homework here) somewhere where Kathryn can do her work while you do yours, (there’s BOUND to be some places to choose from) sell the houses, use the money to move and get malpractice insurance. Get busy. Kathryn would probably love it as well, as soon as she got over the shock. I do know for a fact that living with a poor, HAPPY man is much easier (and more fun) than living with a well to do UNHAPPY man. Figure out the worse case scenario and whether or not you could live with it, should it happen. Always keep in mind, however, that I am NOT AN EXPERT and, according to my Mother, ‘fear nothing.’”

It is no longer fear that drives me but uncertainty. And tiredness. And the fact I now have friends here. I have been an expert and find that experts are in the end pretty useless so I am glad my friend is not an expert, just a friend.

I miss winter and “the ways in which winter frees our imagination and invigorates our feet, mind and soul -” the emptiness of winter that ” frees us from the fear that our ‘democracy of gratification’ has irreparably altered,” us. Twenty three years ago I left winter behind and have missed it ever since. I know that winter is a luxury of youth and hard, hard, hard. Without winter though I got fat and lazy and find that my parts don’t work as well. In winter I used to run eight miles a day – in perpetual summer I barely walk – nothing draws me out – I look forward to colder days when I am more inclined to sleep well and play with the dogs and the horse. I miss the starkness forests too and the rustle of leaves, dry in the cold air. Winter always invigorates. Summer oppresses.

Picture a boy, twelve – his step-father and a young beagle. The man and boy carry shotguns and walk over brown fields of harvested corn and wheat, pastures last cutting of hay left standing as graze for the wintering horses and cows. Along the margins, woods. Bare naked trunks, dark gray, a woven impenetrable wall of crooked iron bars. The man and boy walk quietly. The beagle bays as it pursues long-eared rabbits circling for the shelter of the woods. A cold day of blue gray clouds. In the distance farm houses and barns. A day like an Andrew Wyeth painting.

And later, the boy cold and happy falls asleep in the warmth of the car on the way home, the man aware of this moment wishing it would last and not knowing how to keep the gap bridged, knowing that all other times the boy is simply afraid of him. The man hates it, hurts from it. Maybe I want days like that again.

I feel that it was after I left winter behind that I lost that. It was in summer, the heavy sweltering heat of summer I lost myself in the stories of others. I told my fellow psychologist that I know within ten minutes of my clients arrival what the stories would be. He replied

“Actually, you knew the story within the first 30 seconds more often than not.” That is more the truth.

I traded the forests of my youth for these stories and was left cheated in the bargain. It was a long time discovering that one should never trade a life for a story, not even for a million stories.

In my life I have been:  

          a medical technician doing alterative service from war only to find another kind of war in a trauma center.

          a phlebotomist drawing blood until one day I saw it turn green in the tubes in my hand.

          an art historian looking for peace in the life of the mind and finding only competition and battles between people of such certainty they were uncertain and could only tear each other down.

           a public school teacher teaching English and EH/SED and found the joy of children as they excitedly discovered the power of the Red Pony to express their own lives.

          a therapist listening to stories not as good as the Red Pony, stories that tore me down.

          a part time deputy sheriff,

          a part time fireman and

          a part time leader of search and rescue.

The most rewarding of all these was the riding with a partner in a car, patrolling the night or standing on the fire line of a wild fire with men of common desires or the seeing the faces of children finding the Red Pony.

No, the reality is, the truth is, that the most rewarding was the boy and his dad and a beagle coming in from the cold – the dad not drunk for once and the boy feeling safe enough for once to fall asleep and the Dad wise enough to gently wake the boy when they got home. Wu wei, the doing of not doing.  

That late December day is what I really am looking for – the ability to turn off my brain and just be – to live in natural action – as planets revolve around the sun, or as trees grow. To “do”, but without “doing”. Thus knowing when (and how) to act, doing the natural thing instead of the un-natural. “If you have the time get into the woods with your dog or horse . . . just sit with them . . . for days. Don’t be looking for some answer. Turn off your brain as much as possible.”

Simply be . . . In His Service

On a crisp Spring day in 2009, after Mr. Green’s comprehensive exam at Harbour Centre in the board room with Colonel Mustard, Dr. Avraham Cohen concluded with this deductive reasoning,

Philosophydoll, you have such a way of saying something by saying nothing… who would ever have thought YOU would be writing about hockey…

I once had a dream about a brand new pack of tarot cards and a paintbrush… the cards were blank… and the instructions were clear…

In listening to myself, I always do what I’m told… with increasing intensity…

When I was little, back in the days of suburban ditches, there was no such thing as girls’ hockey…

So finding my legs in a cage on hockey skates is an adjustment … and so is working up a quick shot with soft hands…

Unlike many of the boys in my classroom, I never had to take a girl aside for a quiet conversation about playing pocket billiards during Calendar…

Different equipment typically determines different perception… and although this may seem like a verbal Suduko puzzle to some… others will get it right off the bat…

After only three weeks at the local rink the shine is already wearing thin as self-appointed coaches irritate my sciatica with their uninvited hotstove…

Here is what I heard at Stick and Puck last Friday…

1) Get some new moves, you’re too predictable… (projection)

2) It’s a waste of time to skate with a stick and no puck… (from the old guys)

3) Ignore the old guys… (from the young guy)

4) You don’t need a cage… (from a healthy scratch)

Listen Mr. Hockeyhands I didn’t suffer through two years of braces with headgear in junior high to risk getting my teeth knocked out by a puck during a mid-ice crisis… 

It’s funny to see the Peanut Gallery choke on itself in response to the following epi-question…

Who’s department are YOU in right now???

I haven't been shopping for any new shoes...

It may be conspiracy theory, but apparently NASA expended major energy this month by slamming a probe into the Moon’s south pole… it shouldn’t have to take a team of rocket scientists to figure out that even with persistent strikes Luna would not offer up the expected response…

My doctor of TCM hit the nail on the head, as I was impersonating a pin cushion on an amethyst mat,

when she said… That is such a yang way to get some yin… 

With so much ancient knowledge, and genius, available to mankind, it is beyond comprehension that a more sophisticated way of coming together isn’t collective practice…

In commitment to a wu wei of evolving the origin of the species…

不尚賢，使民不爭
No ensalzar a los talentosos, para evitar discordias en el pueblo.

不貴難得之貨，使民不為盜。
No apreciar los lujos, para que no surjan ladrones en el pueblo.

不見可欲，使民心不亂。
No exhibir lo codiciable, para evitar confusión en la mente del pueblo.

是以聖人之治，
Por lo tanto, el sabio gobierna a las gentes:

虛其心
Vaciando sus corazones (de vicios),

實其腹，
llenando sus estómagos,

弱其志，
debilitando sus deseos (dañinos),

強其骨；
fortaleciendo sus huesos.

常使民無知、無欲，
Hace que el pueblo no tenga astucia ni deseos (malsanos).

使夫智者不敢為也。
De modo que los astutos no se atrevan a actuar.

為無為，則無不治。
Por medio de la ‘no-acción’ todo lo gobierna.

天下皆知美之為美，斯惡已；
Debajo del Cielo cuando todos reconocen lo bello como bello, entonces aparece lo feo;

皆知善之為善，斯不善已。
cuando todos reconocen lo bueno como bueno, entonces aparece lo malo

故 有無相生，
Por lo tanto, tener y carecer mutuamente se engendran.

難易相成，
Lo difícil y lo fácil mutuamente se producen.

長短相形，
Lo largo y lo corto mutuamente se contrastan.

高下相傾，
Lo alto y lo bajo mutuamente se inclinan.

音聲相和，
La voz y el tono mutuamente se armonizan.

前後相隨。
El antes y después mutuamente se suceden.

是以聖人處無為之事，
Por eso, el sabio maneja los asuntos por medio del wu-wei (no-hacer),

行不言之教。
y enseña sin palabras.

萬物作焉而不辭。
Hace diez mil cosas y nada se le escapa.

生而不有，
Produce y de nada se apodera,

為而不恃，
actúa y de nada se aprovecha,

功成而弗居。
consigue buenos resultados y no se apega a ellos.

夫唯弗居，是以不去。
Y cómo no se apega, los méritos no le abandonan.

“…or “non-doing.”  Wu-wei refers to behavior that arises from a sense of oneself as connected to others and to one’s environment.  It is not motivated by a sense of separateness.  It is action that is spontaneous and effortless.  At the same time it is not to be considered inertia, mere laziness, or mere passivity.  Rather, it is the experience of going with the grain or swimming with the current.  Our contemporary expression, “going with the flow,” is a direct expression of this fundamental Taoist principle, which in its most basic form refers to behavior occurring in response to the flow of the Tao.

“(…) Lao Tzu writes that we must be quiet and watchful, learning to listen to both our own inner voices and to the voices of our environment in a non-interfering, receptive manner.  In this way we also learn to rely on more than just our intellect and logical mind to gather and assess information.  We develop and trust our intuition as our direct connection to the Tao.  We heed the intelligence of our whole body not only our brain.” (Ted Kardash, “Taoism”)

My selection for the title of this blog was not intentional – that is, it was for no specific, life-changing purpose.  I just thought it sounded good, and was an obvious play on titles I’ve seen in bookstores: The Tao of Pooh; the Tao of Piglet – neither of which I’ve read.  I did have a light grasp of some Taoist principles, but they were tenuous at best, which is to say I had an intellectual, or conceptual understanding of them, and not much else.  They read beautifully, that much I would concede, though personally thought the passive way of living a great idea for one who was not so consciously and deliberately going after something – in my case, published writing.  On some subconscious level, perhaps, I wanted that kind of effortless peace, but on the whole considered the contrast to my “driven pursuits” as a given.

Things have changed since I’ve shaken of the “drive for fame.”  Of late, my focus has been on the creative process itself, and it has, again, been slow going.  Though ever since making the connection that good writing is as much emotion-driven as it is logic-driven, I’ve been floundering even more.  If you had to write with an emotive bent, then you listen to what your heart is telling you.  Besides that, I’ve heard (and known) enough about the creative process to know that in many ways, it defies logic altogether, is pretty much mood-based, and comes with its own darn schedule.  So when it does come, you’d almost have to be really busy or embroiled in an emergency in order to justify turning away and shrugging it off.  On the other hand, it’s difficult enough to turn away from the current progress of an ongoing work to address a new, completely different creative impulse.  I’ve made the habit of writing the seeds of those ideas down, but “returning” to those ideas later, absent that creative impulse, just doesn’t do it.

Taoism seems to offer a solution anyway, in its wu-wei principle, and while wu-wei tells you a lot of things, at its most basic level it tells you to just “go along with the flow.”  Surrendering the excessive need for control and trusting that it’s all to the good, in the end, and all a part of life’s grand flow.  The yogis, I believe, call this “mindfulness” (the Sanskrit term escapes me at the moment), but it all amounts to the same thing: stop fighting it.

Un intervista eseguita sui Monti Wudang nella caverna di Tai Zi.
Si parla della filosofia del Taoismo ed anche della sua applicazione.
“Quando sorge un problema allora sorge anche la saggezza”

Anche in questo video si parla di Wuwei “senza agire” o “agire non intensionalmente”
principio alla base della filosofia Taoista e del Taiji Quan.

“This [Tao] simplicity will end desire, and if desire be absent there is quietness” –Laotzu Laotzu’s Tao & Wu Wei (translated)

“Philosophy cannot and should not give us an account of faith, but should understand itself and know just what it has indeed to offer, without taking anything away, least of all cheating people out of something by making them think it is nothing.”  –Soren Kierkegaard  Fear and Trembling

“A cloud gathers, the rain falls, men live.” –William Thesiger  Arabian Sands

” ‘It doesn’t take a genius to see the world has problems.’ ‘No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they’re small enough for them to handle.’ ” –Alan Moore The Watchmen

Sugiendo un poco con la idea de transformarse solamente dejandose llevar, volvi hacia un topico intrigante en mi vida y que algunos meses atras concentró mi atencion: La seduccion.

El tema, a pesar de parecer limitado a la relaciones con el sexo opuesto, tiene que ver con todo lo que hacemos, desde como nos sentimos ahora, hasta como logramos un objetivo en mente.

Simplemente, tomando un poco de los pasos en el nivel anterior, me propuse introducirme en el framework, pero sin ningun afán de sentir “esta es la panacea!”. Simplemente, dejar que una pequeña parte de las 24 horas del dia, sea para introducirme voluntariamente en un mundo realmente interesante (ni mas ni menos)

Precisamente, aquel enfoque del post anterior, el desprenderse de un afán, me llevo hacia un par de autores que enfocaban el problema desde un punto de vista totalmente distinto. Si hubiese estado en modo “stress por cambiar”, simplemente no lo hubiese visto. Y precisamente el enfoque de estos autores, tiene que vel con el wu.wei.

En pocas palabras, lo que hace atractivo a un hombre no es lo que siempre creemos: la fama, el dinero, el verse bien, el hacer reir, un don especial, etc….nada de eso. Simplemente la clave es soltar nuestro interior cuando estamos rodeados por mujeres atractivas, soltar el deseo,  simplemente es sentir un candor que hasta el dia de hoy me llevaba resistiendo y que genera ansiedad y nerviosismo al tratar de apagar fuego con bencina. Boom, nos descontrolamos, la volundad consciente ya no sirve y estamos fuera, el deseo nos controla a nosotros y no viceversa (y caemos hondo).

En fin, nada mas acertado estaba hacia el concepto de “no hacer nada”, es decir, dejar suceder, sentir esa pasion y no forzar ni retener las cosas, y eso resulta de algun modo totalmente atractivo, ese espacio de libertad es poderosamente magnetico.

People have been asking me, “Philosophydoll, now that you’re friends with hockey, how will you prepare for the upcoming season???”

I tell them that I have an intensive training camp… 

My Wu Wei of hockey…

For starters I go slow… it is never a good idea to rush into anything… even fitness…

I begin with casual conversation on my front porch about the latest addition to the starting line-up…

and the weather…

Yesterday doesn't matter because it's gone...

some holy pressure on Luongo’s mega-contract…

and minimum speculation on season outcome with relaxed focus on goals…

Anticipation of the best dinners for watching hockey…

I could drink a case of you...

A bit of stretching to avoid a groin injury (these can be VERY painful… not to mention a real drag on one’s mobility)…

12 working up to 22 kilometers of roller-blading up and down hills in the woods of the Seymour Demonstration Forest…

 A few minutes on the bench for awareness of woodpeckers and other fauna…

Love where you live...

A brisk walk down a steep hill and along a river path with intentional breathing into the soles of my feet and the crown of my head while tongue presses gently on soft-palate…

Sitting by the waters edge contemplating a plunge into the pool of stillness behind my eyes…

Turns in to something beautiful...

Knitting a few rows on a especially for watching home games sweater just to keep the fingers nimble and the hands good…

(Note to Ryan Johnson: according to Russell Crowe knitting is manly… according to me it will be excellent rehab for your finger…)

Then diving into the stream of consciousness and going with the flow…

But this is only the half of it…

I leave the return trip up in the air…

and wait to see what happens on the ground…

Following what arises…

with the wisdom of a horse…

and no fear of real Expression…

Me pregunto ¿por que un hombre se siente mal?

1.-  Sentirse inferior.
2.- No cumplir espectativas (propias y ajenas)

Estas 2 respuestas son totalmente validas, pueden hacernos caer en un circulo vicioso, un espiral descendente que nos lleve a un estado miserable.

Sabemos que ambas van de la mano, pero podemos hacerlas funcionar en el sentido correcto.

Para llegar a un objetivo, no basta con la mierda de pensar positivo. Para lograr, hay que sentirse ahi antes. Tampoco se trata de visualizar ni ejercicios raros. Se trata de estar en el framework correcto, que nos haga olvidarnos de la accion concreta.

Muchas veces tratamos de cambiar, y nuestras acciones se van por la borda. ¿por que?. Es porque estamos forzando, y toda accion forzada se ve forzada y es digna de rechazo, ya sea interno o externo. Nos vemos en la accion de “cambiar”. Y la accion de cambiar no existe. Simplemente el cambio es algo que nos rodea.

Los chinos tienen un concepto muy bueno para solucionar la paradoja del que yo llamo “stress de cambiar”. Se llama wu.wei. Hacer en el No-hacer. Ellos NO suponen que existe un sujeto dispuesto a realizar una accion para lograr algo. Simplemente el sujeto es la accion. SER=HACER. Esta diferencia conceptual en la cultura occidental es fatal para lograr sentirnos bien. Ya que siempre suponemos un YO que modela un resultado ideal… y que en función de parecerse al resultado, van nacen naturalmente las acciones. Esto es una solucion que permite bajar el nivel de stress en cada accion pero esto tiene un alto precio . La cultura occidental utuliza la obstinación para lograr cosas, es decir, afanarse en algo ciegamente para que cada accion minima resulte fácil, pero con este metodo al final del camino SIEMPRE vamos a descubir algo diferente a lo que pensabamos, y eso es frustrante :A algunos les toca algo bueno, a algunos les toca algo realmente desagradable y los hace reflexionar sobre los años perdidos.

Siguiendo el supuesto de que “si nos concentramos en la accion, esta resulta estresante y forzada” La solucion al modo oriental es no tener accion, es trabajar primero con una mente tranquila, sin ambiciones. Una forma de entenderlo a mi manera es tomando el concepto de un atajo.

El atajo es buscar el framework mental que nos permita llegar a algo sin movernos del escritorio. Manipular nuestro marco mental desde una perspectiva superior. En donde nosotros mismos somos nuestras marionetas, es decir, nos dejamos llevar por una decision propia y consciente.

Lo primero, es olvidarnos de quienes somos. El pasado fuera. HOY somos el titiritero, el que toma las decisiones, el que tiene poder total.

Segundo. Lograr el framework sin google: conversar con gente, ir al lugar, ver como actuan los que logran lo que nosotros queremos, copiar, analizar, reflexionar , ver desde afuera ANALIZAR EL PERSONAJE, sin aun realizar una accion determinada. Entre mas tiempo veamos el framework, mas fuerte se hará. Aqui se requiere cierta constancia, en cada momento nuestras ideas antiguas serán cuestionadas, llevadas al límite. Aqui es necesario asumir que no hay vueta atras. Aunque no nos guste, ese es el precio.

Tercero. Estado de wu-wei. Una vez que estamos en el personaje, nos dejamos llevar. No realizamos ninguna accion, tampoco hay que cuestionar los pasos anteriores, No escapar tampoco hacia otras formas de ver el mundo. Ya que salir equivale a hacer algo. Simplemente dejarse llevar sin stress. Asumiendo la simulación como algo normal. Como un viaje, como un sueño. No forzar nada, relajarse, pero siempre ESTAR AHI.

Cuarto. Llegado el momento. Volver al paso Nº1.

This has to be one of the best Monastic architecture we have ever seen. The austere style characteristic of the taste in Avignon at the time of

Pope Innocent VI is reminiscent of the “qing-tan” 清淡 (“pure and simple”) taste favoured by the ancient Chinese due to the Daoist influence, especially in art and poetry.

“Qing-tan” means an object is created in it most simple and direct form without any embellishment or ostentation and that is exactly how the housing for the 12 members of the first foundation of this Carthusian Monastery is organized.

The 12 cells are grouped around the Cloister of the Dead, where the monks are eventually buried without a name. There are 3 ambulatories giving access to the monk’s lodging and the form is simply expressed externally with a raised roof. Internally, the space is designed based on the daily life of a Carthusian monk, who has completely renounced all commerce with the world.

As it can be seen from the photographs, being pure and simple do

es not mean it has to be boring, on the contrary, when we try to do architecture with a capital A we tend to destroy the spirit of a building, which should reflect the “ben-xing” 本性 or the “original nature” of  a building is meant for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthusian

The Chartreuse did it in a “wu-wei” 無為 way (achieving the most with the least) and expressed succinctly the philosophy of the Carthusian order founded by Saint Bruno in 1127. The “ben-xing” of the building is clearly articulated by Saint Bruno in his “Letter to Raoul le Verd”:

“The silence and the solitude of the desert…For here men of strong will can enter themselves and remain there as much as they like… Here they can acquire the eye that wounds the B

ridegroom with love, by the limpidity of its gaze, and whose purity allows them to see God himself”.

First picture shows Saint Bruno who founded the Carthusian Order.
Second picture shows a photo of a monk doing manual work in his cell.
Third picture shows interior of a cell where a monk can work.
Fourth picture shows the ambulatory with the doorway to a monk’s cell on the left. 
Fifth picture shows the fireplace where the monk can read and pray.
Sixth picture shows the Cloister of the Dead looking at the ambulatory and the raised roof of each of the monk’s cells behind.

Einsamkeit der Nacht K. Dreisörner

Kloster Schöntal. In wenigen Tagen ist es so weit.  Von Freitag, den 04.  bis Sonntag, den 06. September findet im  Haus der Stille, im Bildungshaus Kloster Schöntal ein Wochenende der Meditation und Kontemplation statt, das östliche und westliche Spiritualität miteinander verbindet.

Von Teilnehmern des Seminares  im Januar gibt es hier Rückmeldungen.  Das Wochenende leiten der Autor und Dozent für Meditation Heinz Scheel und der Komponist und Musiker Kurt Bubeck.

Hier geht es zu Blätter aufgelesen Nr. 032.