Wisdom Archives - Page 2 of 6

41. Water

5 February 2021

Think of Water in its many various contexts: the bubbling brook, the steady flowing river, the lake, the waterfall and the ocean. Water never strives to go up hill. It makes no effort of its own. If an obstacle is in its way, it goes around, it is patient, it finds a way without effort. Picture the fluid motions of a good dancer, but one who dances with perfect ease. A great river will, with apparent indifference, sweep away anything on its banks if it rises just a little. A waterfall is not without its power. A lake, even a pond, can sit still and be at perfect peace. If a pond sits still for too long however it becomes stagnant and foul.

The Water element represents various times in one’s life as we move through ever changing cycles. It is associated with Winter, the time when the hard work of harvest is done. It is a time for darkness and rest. The world recovers and waits patiently. It is a time to hunker down and be quiet. A time for restorative contemplation.

Yin Water represents deep feelings and psychic gifts. This is the element that is so in touch with nature that it relates on a metaphysical or spiritual level. It interrelates so richly with the physical that it goes beyond into the metaphysical principals underpinning nature. In this element is the ability to fluently communicate profound and poetic truths.

Yang Water represents self-directed, expressive enterprises. Not necessarily knowing where the journey will lead to, but confident to go. In this element it is natural to smooth talk others to accompany you on your journey as the easy confidence is contagious.

Water periods are a time for relaxed contemplation. For allowing thoughts to flow where they will, whether along well-worn routes or new surprising channels; but both without judgement or concern. This is a time for refreshing, recharging, not necessarily being productive in the social or financial arenas, but absolutely essential for long term health and balance.

Water can be seen as a negative period also, as it can be chaotic and disordered. It is important to understand the elements are neither good or bad. So, water can be destructive or nourishing depending on the context.

In the previous blog I outlined the elemental relationships, but here is quick reminder of how water relates to the other elements.

Water nourishes Wood, and is nourished by Metal. No plant survives without Water. Water readily appears as condensation on any cold metallic surface. Notice also that through Fire, Metal can be made to run like Water!

Water is controlled by Stone/Earth and controls Fire. The shape of the earth directs the course of a river and Stone can be made to damn it up. Clearly in most cases Water can be used to quench Fire.

40 The Elements

2 February 2021

As students progress through the Masters’ Course at our Norwich Academy, they develop their understanding of the Elements that they have been learning about during the Advanced Course. The five advanced Tao Te Kung Fu forms are based on these elements utilising the different dynamics and strategy that each one implies. I thought it might be helpful to introduce some of these ideas here; there is no particular reason to leave these ideas to later if you are interested now. Also the ideas are relevant to the whole of life, once you can understand them.

Remember, when we talk about the elements we are not talking about science; not trying to describe the physical reality that is otherwise explained by atoms etc. The elemental explanation can be seen as a map or perhaps a dynamic flowchart of the human emotional structure or the intra-personal and interpersonal process. It is intended to help us navigate and understand ourselves and how we work with others.

So, in addition to appreciating how the Elements represent attitudes, approaches, times & seasons and even techniques, you can begin to appreciate how they all interact with each other in an holistic view of life as well as within Kung Fu.

When we start to consider how an element relates to the others, we notice that each one invokes all the others. You can’t consider one without considering all. Let’s consider Wood. In the Sheng cycle of nourishment or generating, Wood nourishes Fire, but is nourished by Water. In the Ke cycle of control or overcoming, Wood controls Stone, but is controlled by Metal. The same is true for each of the elements, consideration of each one invokes all the others in a relationship of either nourishing or control.

This means that you really need to understand each part to understand the whole, but also need to understand the whole to make sense of each part. In practice this means there is going to be a point when it all clicks together and you have fabulous four-dimensional moving diagram in your head and stuff makes sense.

I want to give you a very simple introduction, I might say a flavour of how to make sense of these interactions.

The order of the Sheng cycle of nourishing, runs Wood, Fire, Stone, Metal, Water.

The order of the Te cycle of controlling, runs Wood, Stone, Water, Fire, Metal.

Let’s examine each relationship in turn.

Wood controls Stone/Earth
When a situation or an individual is being belligerently stone; blocking movement like a bolder blocking a stream. Planting the right seed of an idea and waiting for it to grow into a change of attitude might be the best approach. A delicate plant can break through concrete, or a root will split a rock, or just wait and a desolate barren landscape will be softened and changed by the plants that will grow, given half a chance. All the plants need is the right environment and they have the energy stored within them to grow, but they will grow at their own pace, you can’t rush them.

What will the plant need most to nourish it?

Water will of course nourish the Wood
Water is associated with relaxed contemplation, finding the easiest way, the downhill route. It represents patience and confidence that the hidden seed will emerge in its own time.

Metal controls Wood
When a situation has grown out of control or a person’s problems have become a tangle of thorns to smother and engulf them, grown from a negative seed planted perhaps years before, it will take the precise swift cut at the right place to free them. A word can be carefully honed to cut deep and separate a person’s present from their past.

Stone will nourish the Metal
A stone Can be used to sharpen a blade, but also Metal is found in the ground. Stone, is centred, like a mountain, it is solid and dependable, it takes endurance and solid persistence to forge a quality tool. Stone is about hard productive work, just what it takes to make a Metal tool that cuts easily.

Fire controls Metal
It is in the first moments of a metal tool’s production that it is most easily shaped when it is straight out of the Fire. Soft and pliable.

Whatever is produced through long hard work that ends up as a thing of lasting efficiency, was first shaped by the passionate optimistic drive that inspired it. Fire controls Metal. It is the passion of the warrior that wields the blade. It is the warm humour, the candlelit, red wine seduction that melts the cold efficient hard edge.

Wood will nourish Fire
The natural energy of growth contained in a seed will ensure that it grows if only the right environment is available, nothing forced, just let it happen at the right time? It takes free organic creativity to allow optimistic passion to emerge. As spring and small beginnings will lead to summer and abundant growth, so Wood will nourish Fire.

Water controls Fire
When passion is driving someone in an “all or nothing” “fly or crash and burn” attempt at the rashly considered, it is the relaxed contemplation of Water that will bring such a passion under control. In finding the easy way, using gravity as it’s driving force, Water will be the antidote to reckless aggression. Stressful anxiety can become like a brushfire, turning into fearful paranoia and eventually, a burnt out black depression. A period of hunkering down, not trying to be productive, just quiet restorative contemplation might be all that is needed. The drive to always be super productive all the time is no more natural than asking a field to yield abundant crops all year round. Winter, the season associated with Water, is as essential part of the production cycle as high summer. While fire will burn up the available resources, Water can produce an enormous force as a river heads on resolutely towards the sea.

Metal nourishes Water
Before the days of plentiful glass, on a cold morning, people would notice that on Metal tools Water droplets would appear. How does one develop the relaxed contemplative attitude that confidently identifies and follows the easier route through life? Only the steady, patient tempering, grinding, sharpening and polishing, associated with Metal will enable one to develop the apparently effortless attitude of Water. The sharp Metal tool, makes the job easy, because the work all went into preparing the tool. To learn to see the ebb and flow of situations, to recognise where the way of least resistance lies, to calmly, confidently follow the Tao, this takes patient practice and dedicated focus. Metal nourishes Water.

Stone controls Water
Water will sink to the lowest point and sit still in the darkest places becoming stagnant, toxic. Water can also rampage over a valley destroying homes in its way. There are times when putting no effort into one’s progress will leave one stuck and flat. Sometimes confidently charging forward without control of the direction will create havoc for everyone around. Stone or Earth represents the head down, hard work of quarrying and building, essential for social progress and the creation of heritage and solid structures. Stone creates the traditions that direct and form the barriers that help to channel our energies into safe and productive routes, the way that canals, levies, and flood defences guide the otherwise wild and pathless.

Fire will nourish Stone/Earth
The warm love of family drives us to build for posterity, working hard to create a heritage both solid and enduring. The passion of faith will lead to monuments that will last millennia. The desire of the end result will keep us slogging through when the going gets tough, even if the Fire in our bellies has to be stoked every so often. Fire nourishes Stone.

39. Ancient advice

24 December 2020

Original Jing or telomeres

It is very easy to ignore ancient wisdom when it is presented dressed in the language of a different paradigm. When this happens, we have to hold our judgement and dig a bit deeper.
I was re-reading a book about Chi Kung and noticed an interesting detail. The writer was referring to what is usually called Original Jing, (sometimes Water Chi), and is the source of life & growth, and ultimately limits our life expectancy. This Original Jing is continuously converted into Chi which in turn nourishes Shen.
Now, this Original Jing we get from our parents. If you’ll excuse the metaphor while I try to make this idea intelligible, It is like the capital in a savings account or a trust fund. We only have so much of it. We could spend it fast and run out early or spend it slowly and it will last longer. But, if we take care of it (invest wisely) we can encourage it to produce interest. While we might be hard pushed to get it to grow faster than we use it, we can certainly make it last much longer.
If the idea of Original Jing seems to you just so much Eastern mystical mumbo-jumbo, let me mention telomeres. Telomeres are the noncoding DNA sections at the end of the chains. I’ve heard them described as being like the plastic sheath at the ends of shoe laces called aiglets; their job is to stop the lace from fraying at the ends. It seems that they are of limited length and they gradually get shorter with each cell division, a process that continues though life. When they are gone the cells ability to reproduce accurately or functionally is inhibited. This is part of the ageing process. So, this reducing process is like a slow burning fuse towards cell disfunction and death. Now while we inherit from our parents a genetic potential for the telomere length, we can live in such a way that speeds up the shortening or we can live in a way that protects and prolongs them.
It may be that all the metaphors for Jing and telomeres are over simplistic, essentially wrong in their description of the processes involved, and will one day be replaced by better. But. Here’s the thing. If you follow the advice for how to preserve and slow the rate that you use Original Jing or if you follow the advice on how to preserve and slow the rate that you reduce your telomeres length, you will live a longer and healthier life. Guess what, the advice is very, very similar. Eat lots of various vegetables: leaves, fruits, berries, roots, nuts, seeds, minimal (or none, Taoist teaching recommends being vegan) animal products. Live without stress or learn to reduce your stress. Have a positive attitude. Let the past go and live in the moment. Meditate daily. Do Chi Kung. Exercise moderately, (long walks, gentle flowing movement, occasional short bursts of high energy sprints or resistance). Get plenty of sleep. Develop nourishing, loving relationships.
Now from a health perspective, does it matter if you visualise a store of Jing energy or lengths of noncoding DNA? Be careful of disregarding good advice just because the visualisation of the effective process doesn’t fit your cultural paradigm.

38. Meditation & The Brain

22 December 2020

In the last article I talked about stress. Stress, you may recall, is the result of prolonged activity of the sympathetic nervous system. It is the curse of our age. We live in an age of information and because of the operation of supply and demand, a lot of our daily dose of information is bad news. Part of the reason for this is that a mild dose of adrenalin is arousing or exciting. So, hearing about a very scarry situation that doesn’t actually affect us personally is stimulating and excites us. Not unlike watching an action-adventure film or playing a computer game. But when added to real situations that actually affect us, the effect is accumulative. To put this in perspective, if the current pandemic happened 300 years ago, you might only be aware of anything significant happening if a local doctor mentioned that there had been more old people dying of pneumonia this year than was usual. I’m not underplaying the seriousness of the illness for many younger people, but if you lived in a village of a thousand people you might have one younger person get very ill, that would not be significant enough to overly worry you. Now we know about every conflict or riot that happens worldwide. There is more information in one edition of the times than a medieval man would have read or heard of in a lifetime. A lot of this information will cause us to become alert to danger or stressed. We can easily find ourselves in an almost permanent state of alert in which the sympathetic nervous system is activated, preparing us for a quick response to a type of danger that never materialises.

Meditation is one of the very best ways of dealing with this stress. I could mention Self Hypnosis at the same time, because the brain state is essentially identical to that induced by meditation. We are talking about a low Alpha wavelength or even a Theta state. If you are not familiar with this idea, I’ll summarise what you need to know to make sense of what I’m writing about. The brain is an electrochemical organ. The electrical activity of the brain is usually described as brainwaves. There are four general classifications of these brainwaves, ranging from the highest frequency to the lowest. When the brain is aroused and actively engaged it generates waves in a frequency of 15 – 40 cycles per second, but of a relatively low amplitude. This range is typical of someone debating, teaching, giving a speech or hosting a game show. This range is classified as the Beta wavelength range, or as a Beta brain state.

Slower than the Beta range is the Alpha frequency range. In an Alpha state the frequency ranges from 9 to 14 cycles per second, but with a higher amplitude. A person taking a break from work, who takes a leisurely walk in a garden, is often in an Alpha state. This is the normal range for most people’s meditation, until they have achieved a degree of mastery.

Theta brainwaves, are of slower frequency but much greater amplitude. This frequency range is classified as between 5 and 8 cycles a second. This is the state that hypnosis will generally induce. When you are glazed over and just staring out of the window and someone askes you what you are thinking about and you realise that you were thinking of nothing, you are in Theta. When you are driving on a motorway and realise you can’t remember the last 10 miles, you were in Theta. What is fascinating about this state, is that you will often get a flow of great ideas. It is as if your unconscious mind is more open, or better able to communicate, because your more conscious mind has shut up and stopped its constant chatter. People often say that their intuition is more active in this state. Repetitious mantras or prayers, that you know so well they require no active or conscious thought, are often used to induce a Theta state.

For the sake of completion, I will mention Delta waves. These are generally in the range of 1.5 – 4 cycles per second and you will be asleep. At the lower end of this range, you are in deep dreamless sleep. If you ever get down to 0 cycles, you will be pronounced brain dead.

What do we know about the benefits of meditation? I shall summarise some of the results of the tens of thousands of scientifically conducted studies into meditation.

Brain electrical activity slows down and brain waves slow down to low Alpha or even Theta.
The sympathetic nervous system reduces activity and this is mirrored by an increased activity in the parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates heart rate, breathing and the other involuntary motor functions. This includes, but is not limited to, a reduction in cortisol, adrenalin, blood coagulant, heart rate & blood pressure, an improvement in peristalsis (the process of moving food through your digestive system) nutrient uptake and an improvement in the immune system.
Meditation increases relaxation, not only when meditating, but during the rest of the day.
Improved accuracy of perception. This has been demonstrated by a tendency to be less fooled by optical or other illusions.
Need for less sleep, because much of the bodies recuperating processes can function during meditation.
Less stress as reported by people in clinical trials.
Evidence of marked decrease in the thickness of artery walls.
Significantly reduced risk of stroke and heart attack.
Less depression, anxiety, anger and confusion.
More energy, fewer heart and gastrointestinal problems.

If you have listened to any of my guided meditations and if you have any background in hypnotherapy you may well have noticed that I use a number of linguistic devices generally used for hypnosis. It is important to understand that no one hypnotises you; they guide you into consciously shifting yourself into a slower brainwave state. The best hypnotherapists are teaching you how to meditate, even if neither you nor they know that’s what they are doing. The best guided meditation is teaching you how to enter into a state of hypnosis, again, whether either of you know that’s what’s happening. I have met someone who told me that when they go fishing, they can stare at the water rippling for hours, lost in the moment. They said that hours can fly past when they haven’t even considered the float, but they’d been totally relaxed and daydream a bit. They were also someone who wouldn’t go to a hypnotherapist or use “strange eastern meditation mumbo-jumbo” practices. These practices may have developed in different ways, but whether you call it ‘relaxing, staring at a river,’ ‘self-hypnosis’ or ‘meditation.’ I can assure you, you are inducing the same brain state. The biggest difference is that the angler is not deliberately using his brain state to produce changes in his thinking process; any benefit is accidental and haphazard rather than planned.

What I do, in the Guided Meditation, is simply enable you to achieve this low frequency, high amplitude, brain state and show you how to consciously and deliberately use it for personal development.

37. Understanding Stress Better

18 December 2020

Previously I mentioned that what we think of as our stress reaction is principally our whole system moving into survival mode because our unconscious response to what the conscious mind perceives to be a threat. This response is called the sympathetic nervous system and it arouses the body, preparing it for vigorous activity. Often referred to, inaccurately, as the “fight or flight response” it is a complex psycho/chemical mechanism that enables us to behave appropriately in very particular situations.

A sound, an image or even a smell can alert us to danger. This need not even, initially, be consciously observed. For example, information from the eyes doesn’t only go to the visual cortex. Some of that data is diverted to the amygdala, a little lump of brain in the limbic section, a very primitive bit of the system; primitive in the sense that it evolved early on. The amygdala, using simple recognition software, that we almost certainly have inherited from our ancestors, then triggers a chemical cascade that prepares us for various actions. It may well be the case that once upon a time our ancestors were so well tuned to their environment that the response perfectly matched the demands of the given situation. Whether we responded automatically, or whether some learning was involved, it is certainly the case that today we do not always respond appropriately.

There are five different responses to danger.

Fight, flight, freeze, fawn and resign. There is some overlap and it is possible to shift from one to another as we change our perception of the situation. So, a mugger, thinking he is advantaged, might be in full fight mode, but realising his intended victim is confidently counter-attacking, might shift to flight mode in the blink of an eye.

In some circumstances, aggressive and vicious fighting is your safest response, for example against most primates (including other humans). If you are attacked by many different carnivores, freezing is safest. When a herbivore is spooked, running is often your best bet. When confronted by a larger or otherwise dominant or aggressive human, fawning, or trying to be submissive and doing everything to placate the larger individual, will often work. Sometimes, when you are definitely going to die, when you are about to be ripped apart and eaten, when you are resigned to your fate, your body is flooded with drugs that put you in a state of euphoria, to sedate you for the coming pain.

All of these possible responses are programmed into us, but for whatever reason, we aren’t tuned to use them always appropriately. Probably because we don’t live in an environment in which the appropriate response can be taught from one generation to the next. Instead, we learn in early childhood to use one or another of these responses, predominately, because they worked for us once or twice and became our habituated response.

The chemical cocktail and physiological mechanisms are initially similar for these responses, but the balance of chemicals soon shifts as we are unconsciously directed to one in particular. In the short term these physical mechanisms are useful if, once in a blue moon, you have to run from bull, or stand still while a wolf pack sniffs around you; but you can’t live in that state.

When, in a state of “fight or flight” your blood has increased coagulates, so that if your arm is ripped off you won’t bleed to death. However, if you spend too long in that state, you just have poor circulation. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, has a purpose when you need to be highly alert for a short time, but is associated with cancer development when the levels are high for a prolonged time. The high blood pressure and increased heart rate, that would be helpful when you need to run or fight, has a number of detrimental effects on your health over time.

In short, being in an alarmed state is lifesaving in the short term, but if you stay in that state for any length of time it is disastrous for your health. But we live in a world that is constantly alarming us. We hear news of a war that can’t affect us personally, but our primitive brains respond as if the danger were present. The roar of traffic may not be a danger, but our brains interpret it as a pack of carnivores. Even adverts shout at us as if we should be alarmed. We have not significantly evolved from the humans that lived in relatively quiet rural settings, where dangers were occasional and short lived. If we are going to live in an environment that almost constantly alarms us, we have need of a way to quiet the alarm or we will burn out.

This burning out is what is often called Stress. It is the result of prolonged activity of the sympathetic nervous system and there are a number of possible solutions. This is the theme of so much of what we do.

36. Stress. What is it and how to reduce it

14 December 2020

We hear so much talk about stress that you’d think we all knew what it was. The reality is that we use the word so much that it has no clear meaning. In engineering stress is a definable effect on a material or a joint or whatever. But what is it when we are talking about people? Is it, by analogy, the same as it is in engineering? Do we picture a person as subject to some external effect such that eventually they break? Whatever that might mean! As far as I can tell, we usually mean that a person is having their fight or flight response (their sympathetic nervous system) triggered and is suffering from the physiological implications of an extended period of being in this state. In the short term this response to danger is very useful; an increase is heart rate, breathing, blood pressure etc. will help to deliver oxygen to the muscles that might need it. All functions superfluous to immediate survival are depressed to focus energy, so things like digestion and the immune system can shut down. The body is flooded with cortisol, adrenaline and blood coagulant (is case a beast rips your arm off). All of these things will help keep you alive in the event of being attacked by some beast. If this happened once in a while, it wouldn’t be a problem. However, if you live in a state of fight or flight for a prolonged period it could be disastrous. Not merely unpleasant, but terrible for your health.

Now the problem with simply defining a situation as ‘stressful’ is that it makes us all victims. I used to hear it in teaching all the time, “oh this is such a stressful job.” You can hear it given as a reason for high levels of sickness amongst medical personnel; “Of course they are often ill, they are under a lot of stress.” We even define some illnesses as “stress related” as if that means anything. But when you look at the number of working days lost and the amount of drugs dished out for these “stress related illnesses” we appear to have an epidemic. If any other single factor were involved in so much sickness, we would be all over it. If some chemical caused so much illness, we would stop its use in the work place.

The problem is that what one will describe as stressful, another will describe as exciting. Some people will find any job stressful. Some people appear to sail through life, taking everything in their stride. The reality of course is that it is our personal reaction to a given situation that dictates whether it is stressful, in the sense of causing illness.

I offer a simple tip that I find helpful. Open up your peripheral vision. I don’t mean simply as an exercise of using your eyes differently. I mean in cosmic and temporal terms. Take a look at the size of the universe and the expanse of time. I remember some years ago another Head of Department in a high school telling me, rather frantically that they hadn’t had time to complete a bit of data analysis that we had been asked to do. Nor had I, and I said so. “But,” they said, “aren’t you worried about it?” “No” I said, “because in a hundred years I’ll be dead and it won’t matter.”

What is the point of anything? Now I don’t want to get all metaphysical here, but you have to stop and ask yourself what actually matters; what is the point, what is the purpose of your life. Because that will help you consider what is worth getting upset about. If you assume there is no great cosmic purpose, then this life is like a game that we play for a while. The purpose of listening to a piece of music, or enjoying an amazing sky, or being in love, or creating art, or making a business empire is simply the experience of doing it. If you see the whole of your life in the same way it becomes less stressful. You can enter into a computer game and feel the excitement and enjoy it, even though you know it’s a game, but I think (unless you are in fact psychotic) you shouldn’t really find it badly stressful, because all the time you know it’s purpose is for the experience, it doesn’t fundamentally matter if you kill the zombie, win the race or get to the next level. Taking the long view of life enables you to see it in the same way.

35. Unconscious messaging

10 December 2020

There is a certain conversation that I have often had with people after they have been training for a while; anything from a few months to a couple of years.

The conversations I’m referring to, all started with a student saying something like “One of the reasons I wanted to learn Kung Fu was that on several occasions I got beaten up / bullied / threatened / picked on, and now that I know I would be able to deal with a violent confrontation, I’ve had no trouble”.

Invariably people find this confusing because as far as they are concerned, they aren’t behaving any differently. They aren’t five stone of muscle bigger, they haven’t got “I do Kung Fu” tattooed to their foreheads or anything, so why, they wonder, are people behaving differently towards them?

The answer of course is that, at an entirely unconscious level, they are behaving differently and, at an equally unconscious level, others notice.

Unless someone is deliberately doing some quite sophisticated method acting, most of the messages we convey to others are unconscious. We all understand that our body language will demonstrate a bewildering number of things about us and because we get that, we can often deliberately change aspects of our body language, but even the most expert actor will only be able to fake a few details. At a simple level, we might try to look more confident, threatening or relaxed in a particular social situation. At a more sophisticated level we might deliberately mimic a person’s body posture, breathing rhythm or speech cadence to make them feel more at ease with us. But there is a limit to what can be done with the deliberate adoption of such techniques. This is usually evident when we become aware that someone is not being sincere. We observe someone and think, ‘wow he’s trying hard to look hard’ or ‘relaxed’ or ‘friendly’ or whatever. We often see through someone’s attempt at deliberate manipulation of their body language, particularly if we are looking for it. Of course, sometimes we are easily fooled because we want to believe the message we are being given; we want to believe that the person talking to us likes us, for example.

It is because most of the details that we observe in another are unconsciously observed that we are usually unaware of their complexity. Let me point out some of the more obvious factors first. The angle or set of the spine and the position of the head, the position of shoulders and hands, where exactly the eyes are looking and how steadily, the tone and texture of the skin. Breath is very complex; the rhythm and speed are obvious, but also there is the smoothness of the breath, whether the breathing is being done high or low in the chest. A person’s speech is constantly changing according to how they feel; the vocal cords undergo subtle changes of tension according to one’s emotional state. And I haven’t even mentioned pheromones! Again, at a profoundly unconscious level, we are constantly reading each other’s chemical signatures. Apparently lap dancers who are taking contraceptive pills take, on average, significantly less tips. (“significantly” in this context refers to statistical analysis; i.e. not a small enough difference to be mere chance) It is believed that men are unconsciously aware of which women are fertile! From a negative perspective, have you ever tried to hide, from someone who knows you, that you are feeling angry or worried? You might carefully control you posture; your body language, but they might hear it in your voice, see it in your skin tone, detect it in your breathing or be actually smelling it in your sweat.

The reason that those, who become proficient at Kung Fu, don’t often get picked on, is simply that they project their sense of self assurance, whether they realise it or not. Other people are reading them, at an unconscious level, and what they read is not “potential victim” but instead they read “potentially dangerous!”

34. Balance and Freedom

20 November 2020

It is typical to understand many Zen masters as teaching that we should aim to be above such things as emotions. Taking everything in one’s stride, finding the balanced path between extremes. Neither getting over excited or happy, nor angry and frustrated.

After looking at such teaching for many years now I believe that the point of such teaching has two reason. First is to learn a great measure of control over one’s emotions. If you can learn to practice archery with an aim on feeling neither elated if you hit the target, nor disappointed if you miss, you’ll certainly keep your head in a real battle; staying focused and calm, shooting carefully with perhaps a cavalry charge coming straight at you. The second teaching I believe is that it is in the attempt, you discover the realisation that, while some control is possible, you can’t and shouldn’t try, because in fact the suppression of your emotions is impossible. In much the same way that trying to not think of something is impossible. You can choose one thought instead of another and, as in some forms of meditation, you can keep a tight focus like holding a spring closed until the tension gets too much and it explodes in all directions and none. But you can’t pick one thing and focus on not thinking it. So with emotions, you can deliberately supress or replace one with another. While you can’t, for example, focus on fear to stop fear, you can however choose to interpret the physiological experience as excitement instead. Notice that if this control is not done deliberately, your mind can do it in very unhealthy ways. The suppression of an emotion without choosing a healthy way for that energy to be expressed is like keeping the lid on a pressure cooker indefinitely; no one wants to be around when that finally blows. The emotional energy of a suppressed emotion need to be vented either deliberately in an emotion of your choice or will be vented in random way, sometimes with surprising and shocking results.

No, no and a hundred times no. Have them all, emotions are literally the spice of life. We are emotional beings and without them we are flat, depressed and life becomes meaningless. What is the point without them? If you ask anyone what they hope, strive or aim for, they will end up saying something like, happiness, harmony, peace, empowerment, satisfaction or love. Even a goal like contentment, which sounds very low key and not at all that exciting, is in fact an emotional experience and can be a very intense emotional experience. Living life to the full means experiencing all the emotions. Learning to let go of persistent negative emotions, those that cling like a bad smell, and learning to choose a different, healthier direction for emotions as the form. That is true freedom. It is freedom from the negative emotions of the past and freedom to enjoy this moment without fear of the future.

Balance means having great love and great grief, great anger and great joy, great excitement and great contentment. All of these are appropriate in their own place and time. Balance is not about being in the center, flat, feeling nothing strongly. That would be inhuman. Balance is the sun on the side of a mountain, followed by the shade of the storm. It is loving so strongly that the grief of loss is almost unbearable. It is feeling the joy of feasting with friends so much that the suffering and want of others causes you rage and fury.

Balance is flowing with the constant cycles in life, being able to fully enter into each phase, completing the transitions from one to another without getting stuck in any.

mushroom cloud feel the fear see the beauty

33. Feel the Fear and see the Beauty

17 November 2020

I grew up during a time of international anxiety. When I left school in 1979 the principal topic of conversation among my peers was, what would we do when the 4 minute warning came? Notice, not, ‘if’ but ‘when.’ We totally expected that at some point we would be in a nuclear war with the USSR. We were babies when the Cuban missile crisis put us on the brink, and our whole lives had been a preparation for global annihilation. People actually discussed whether the super powers had enough missiles to turn the Earth into a new asteroid belt where the planet used to be or only sufficient explosives to scorch every living thing on the surface, creating a global radioactive desert. I was thinking about the effect of such deliberations recently because of a renewed concern over war. In the last couple of years, the Chinese minister of defence has said that they (the civilians) should prepare for a nuclear war and Russia has run a disaster drill involving some 40 million people to ensure their preparedness for a nuclear strike. I’m actually not overly concerned about the prospect of war. Really. Such stories, I suspect, have their roots in other political agendas. If a government wants to justify spending a lot on defence, perhaps because some decision maker wants to do some manufacturer a favour, then such announcements will ease the way. If a government wants to distract its own people from one story, it feeds them another. There’s nothing like a bit of posturing, showing that you are prepared to go to war, before negotiations start over some apparently unrelated issue, to strengthen your position. No, I suspect that we are not really any nearer a war than we have been at any time over the last couple of decades. I’m interested in how such considerations affect us. It’s a bit like having a health scare. The doctor tells you that you might have some frightening terminal illness and while you are waiting to hear what is in store for you, you take stock of your life. You consider the purpose of your life choices. Some people will become more selfish and hedonistic; the realisation that one way or another, they are going to die and life is always short, causes them to think, let’s just have a good time and enjoy what time they’ve got. Others will try to make their life count by doing what they can to help others and make some positive impact with what little life they have. Others will determine to fight every inch of the way; they won’t go quietly and meekly into the grave. What is most significant is what they all have in common; they all examine the purpose of their life. They begin to value more every moment that they have. Very few people can live with high levels of fear and anxiety for long and simply go on with their life as they were. To this extent, the scare stories do us a favour, they make us look at our lives and question our attitude, our path, our choices. You could call this Mindfulness. You could call it living consciously with our eyes open to the reality of our mortality. Whatever you call it, it helps us to live in the moment, appreciating our life as we live it. Threats to our lives enhance the pleasures of the moment, the beauty of each breath, the joy of our relationships with loved ones, the exquisite details of the natural world in all its fascinating expressions.

It may be that when we live in such safe, (yes, in spite of the current pandemic) sanitised societies, so separated from the dangers of life in general that we can become distracted from the moment and the important things. Most of humanity have lived with the fear and anxiety of the prospect of imminent and brutal death, whether from natural disasters, famine, disease, war or whatever and we are in many ways the exception. We can easily live our lives isolated from such realities. We (our particular culture) are so separated from the daily threats to our lives that have been common to people throughout history and around the world that we can carry on as if we absolutely expect to live in peace and good health for long, happy and productive lives. Now I hope we all do. My point is that such a life has not been the norm for people and such high expectations might make us less able to cope with periodic scares and in some ways makes us more dulled to the wonders of life and more distracted from its more genuinely, meaningful experiences.

32. Personal Development?

13 November 2020

It is only that which has never known the actions of energy that is still and unchanging (e.g. mathematical axioms). Things that have had life and are now dead, change only contingently through the forces of other agents. But the living have the privilege of directing their own change. Change they must, it is the very essence of living. They can be like the dead and abdicate this privilege, being subject to every tide that touches them, or they can become masters of their Journey. It takes courage to pick up the reins; “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

Kung Fu should never be reduced to merely fighting skills; it is about developing mastery of life through disciplined work. First one becomes aware of one’s own life; perceiving everything about one’s environment, including one’s own state of mind. Then through self-discipline comes self-control; where one discerns and navigates a chosen path. Eventually one takes increasing control of the environment, including the power to influence the state of mind of those whose paths we cross. If that sounds like a dangerous power; it is and you should be credited for having a concern. This is where the fighting skills become an ideal analogy for the greater Kung Fu. Of course learning these skills is dangerous. You are learning how to hurt, injure and kill. Tao Te Kung Fu is not like many fighting styles where you learn how to fight; it starts with the assumption that you end violence as fast as possible; you don’t fight your opponent, you drop them, immediately, no fuss. If such skill concerns you; good, it should. That shows you are the sort of person that is suited to learning such skills.

If you learned only the fighting skills but didn’t also develop your spiritual insight, we would be behaving like irresponsible arms dealers. Having any power over those around you is a responsibility; whether you are a nursery nurse or a tax collector.

But “power tends to corrupts” so with every increase in power must come an increase in your integrity. Until recently, every martial tradition has developed a moral code, an ethical philosophy to guide warriors; the chivalry of medieval Europe, the bushido of the Japanese, etc. The more power over others one has, the more control over one’s self, one needs and when the power to kill is at your fingertips, your self-control must be of steel.

When you understand the nature of this world and the nature of yourself, you can find the ideal path for you; the way of integrity, the Tao Te.

Old maps often had large blank areas and to fill the spaces with something the cartographers would add details like “There be dragons here” thus ensuring that only the most courageous would venture into such areas. When you no longer fear people you are free to love them. You cannot love that which you fear. The man free from fear is able to take the time to consider those around him. When you notice that this person is unhappy, you can consider what you can say to cheer them up. When you notice that that person has low self-esteem, you can consider what will increase it. But fear is self-centered, so when you are fearful, you are too distracted with your own emotion to consider the viewpoint of others; you become less aware, more isolated, less integrated in the web of life, less able to navigate the best path through life because there are too many areas to be avoided because of dragons.

An essential part of Tao Te Kung Fu is therefore personal development; becoming a more spiritually mature person, more ethically aware, increasingly mastering your potential and taking control of your life, choosing your path based on knowledge of yourself and the world in which you live. Don’t be like a leaf on the river, become the master of your own journey.

Category Archives: Wisdom