CNN recently ran a story about the devastating wildfires raging across southern Australia, a natural disaster that may have involved climate change, normal weather patterns, and even arson. 200 people have died so far and the loss of homes and property is stunning. The story included an interview with a man who sent his family to safety and then endured the utter and complete loss of his home near Melbourne. Life as he knew it was over, and the man could have allowed himself to be crippled by grief, overcome by loss, or paralyzed by tragedy. Instead he responded like water to the obstacles before him and moved immediately to redefine his role in the world by becoming a relief worker who helped neighbors preserve what they could and reach safety. Heroic and straightforward, it is a tale of instantaneous transformation, an example of the ability of the human mind to avoid attachment and reach a state of higher consciousness.
The same morning I heard the story, I taught a class in sword sparring in a local park. I was reminded that such fluidity of mind is rare and wonderful. Showing my students a particular attack, I was surprised to see that they were unable to counter it even when they knew it was coming. In other words, shown the problem and shown the solution they had trouble adopting that solution even when it was physically trivial. Over and over again they would fall into the same trap, repeatedly making the same wrong move in response to the attack and then cursing themselves for doing it. Typically it took twenty to thirty tries before all of them could inhibit whatever reflexive panic reaction the attack had initially elicited in favor of a new, better response—one that allowed an effortless and effective defense.
It was a fascinating lesson in what creatures of habit we are, and in just how unusual and amazing was the Melbourne man’s ability to shift gears. We all suffer from an emotional and intellectual inertia that may in the case of physical movement also involve so-called muscle memory, but is more likely to stem from the way our brain works. We really are creatures of habit, and our tendency to get attached to things, habits, routines and reactions runs deep. While it is possible that the magnitude of the tragedy ripped the fire victim from his patterns and roots, it is also a well-known fact that even the threat of death does not always do so: soldiers freeze in battle and get blown away; pedestrians hesitate in the middle of the street and get run over, swordsmen of yore, stuck in their patterns of movement, were routinely cut in half.
Learning to remain relaxed and go with life’s flow is a high achievement indeed. Mind-body practice helps, meditation helps, but in the end it is self-awareness that is required—an ability to turn the zoom lens of the mind to the widest possible angle, one that allows us to see ourselves trapped in our habits and to see our place in the world in broader perspective. We must not expect ourselves not to feel—to do so would be to yearn to become a robot—but rather to feel, experience, and then regain our equilibrium and move on.
A recent San Francisco State study (http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/02/09/Happiness_study_Imagine_no_possessions/UPI-52681234159631/) shows that possessions don’t bring lasting happiness. Australian fire victims, facing the loss of their homes and possessions, are unlikely to find much succor in this news. Certainly the fires are a horror, a terrible human tragedy to be rued and mourned by all of us. Yet for the one person (perhaps there are many more) who managed to transcend suffering and act in a way that redefined himself, this particular example of material loss turned out to be a freeing and empowering development—a step toward something he might not otherwise have achieved.
Should we court disaster, natural or unnatural or wish it on anyone for the sake of personal growth? Obviously that’s a preposterous idea, and indeed perhaps the exception fire victim was already a living Bodhisattva, a person of enlightenment devoted to service who needed no such hot boot to behave as he did. If this was not the case, something both terrible and wonderful happened. The rest of us can only hope that when life takes a difficult turn or twist we find ourselves able to rise to meet it with grace.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
On Mastery
Some women claim their ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously is confirmation of the obvious superiority of the female mind; some men respond that multi-tasking is simply a term for doing a bunch of things badly. Parents lament that computer games and Internet surfing is costing their kids their intelligence; a new study http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081014111043.htm shows that searching the Internet actually makes us smarter. However you spin it, the complexity of modern life has us more distracted than ever, and inundated by stimuli and messages that divide our time in such a way that no one activity is likely to bear the brunt of it.
It’s a pity, this, because while being a jack of all trades may make it easier to slip into current of 21st century life, the weapons of mass distraction around us make it harder and harder for us to achieve any kind of mastery. Without narrow focus, long practice and plenty of patience we are likely to see the beauty of the landscape around the lake, perhaps even notice the patterns on the water when the wind blows or we skim a stone, but we will probably miss the plants growing at the bottom, the baby garfish swimming between the tall weeds just above the bottom, and the flash of a watersnake’s tail as it navigates a cluster of thick branches just below the surface.
Has mastery become an old-fashioned notion? Maybe so, with information developing at such a rate that whatever we learn in school is obsolete by the time we get out and whatever technology we come to command at our first job will likely be considered archaic by the time we arrive at our second. Still as any quantum physicist or superstring theoretician knows, there are layers upon layers to experience, and universes within worlds. Spending time at one thing long enough to develop mastery develops a quantum awareness within us, lends us ability to see past the differences in things and tease out the similarities, to understand the sort of foundation truths that transcend fields of study, industries, software programs and even particular human relationships—truths that are all pervasive, meaningful and useful.
Some of us are lucky enough to have engaged a career whose dimensions have remained stable over time, allowing us to go deeper and deeper into our chosen field and thereby develop insights that not only make us valuable to employers, but which reveal the world to us in irreplaceable ways. In addition to a vocation or job, we might have worked long and hard at a succesful marriage. It seems we are increasingly unlikely to develop mastery in an avocation or hobby these days, not only because our culture puts a tremendous financial slant on activities and experience (if it doesn’t make you money, doesn’t get you something, why in the world are you doing it?) but because we have so many choices for each hour of free time that we’re unlikely to stick with any one for very long.
Mastering a hobby is unlikely in the zany “rush to the end” frenzy of modern life. We might like to garden but be pulled out of the yard and into the house by eBay auctions or on-demand video. We might like to play football but notice that our knees are often sore and anyway the kids like the Nintendo Wii more than mixing it up on real turf. We might in the past have learned to play a classical instrument or at least become knowledgeable connoisseurs of classical music, preferably at a live performance or on a really great high-fidelity system. Now we find that live orchestras are rare, hi-fi is an indulgence for a few wealthy folks, and most of the dynamic range and quality is removed from music by the recording process anyway. We listen rather than play, and sample a bit of this or a bit of that on our MP3/MP4 player, thereby missing the deeper experience of music and gaining no mastery over anything but switches and buttons.
Mastery takes time, something most of us have trouble finding. It takes discipline, a quality in short supply today. It takes patience, an attribute best appreciated in its absence. It takes dedication, something peer pressure and changing social mores makes more difficult all the time. And yet staying with a practice or a field for years on end offers even more than the insights already cited. Mastery, it turns out, is not merely valuable for the pure joy of gaining command of a flute, a sword, a foreign language, a woodcarver’s chisel, an artist’s palette, a golf club, tennis racket, calligraphy pen or guitar; mastery is all about self-knowledge. Nobody seems to talk about it anymore, but decades spent mastering something we truly love reveals us to ourselves in ways nothing else can.
So let go of fear and excuses and distractions and delay. Pick whatever really rings your chimes—you probably already know what it is—and commit to mastering it no matter how long it takes. The decision itself will make you stronger, and the rewards are sweeter than you can possibly imagine at the start.
It’s a pity, this, because while being a jack of all trades may make it easier to slip into current of 21st century life, the weapons of mass distraction around us make it harder and harder for us to achieve any kind of mastery. Without narrow focus, long practice and plenty of patience we are likely to see the beauty of the landscape around the lake, perhaps even notice the patterns on the water when the wind blows or we skim a stone, but we will probably miss the plants growing at the bottom, the baby garfish swimming between the tall weeds just above the bottom, and the flash of a watersnake’s tail as it navigates a cluster of thick branches just below the surface.
Has mastery become an old-fashioned notion? Maybe so, with information developing at such a rate that whatever we learn in school is obsolete by the time we get out and whatever technology we come to command at our first job will likely be considered archaic by the time we arrive at our second. Still as any quantum physicist or superstring theoretician knows, there are layers upon layers to experience, and universes within worlds. Spending time at one thing long enough to develop mastery develops a quantum awareness within us, lends us ability to see past the differences in things and tease out the similarities, to understand the sort of foundation truths that transcend fields of study, industries, software programs and even particular human relationships—truths that are all pervasive, meaningful and useful.
Some of us are lucky enough to have engaged a career whose dimensions have remained stable over time, allowing us to go deeper and deeper into our chosen field and thereby develop insights that not only make us valuable to employers, but which reveal the world to us in irreplaceable ways. In addition to a vocation or job, we might have worked long and hard at a succesful marriage. It seems we are increasingly unlikely to develop mastery in an avocation or hobby these days, not only because our culture puts a tremendous financial slant on activities and experience (if it doesn’t make you money, doesn’t get you something, why in the world are you doing it?) but because we have so many choices for each hour of free time that we’re unlikely to stick with any one for very long.
Mastering a hobby is unlikely in the zany “rush to the end” frenzy of modern life. We might like to garden but be pulled out of the yard and into the house by eBay auctions or on-demand video. We might like to play football but notice that our knees are often sore and anyway the kids like the Nintendo Wii more than mixing it up on real turf. We might in the past have learned to play a classical instrument or at least become knowledgeable connoisseurs of classical music, preferably at a live performance or on a really great high-fidelity system. Now we find that live orchestras are rare, hi-fi is an indulgence for a few wealthy folks, and most of the dynamic range and quality is removed from music by the recording process anyway. We listen rather than play, and sample a bit of this or a bit of that on our MP3/MP4 player, thereby missing the deeper experience of music and gaining no mastery over anything but switches and buttons.
Mastery takes time, something most of us have trouble finding. It takes discipline, a quality in short supply today. It takes patience, an attribute best appreciated in its absence. It takes dedication, something peer pressure and changing social mores makes more difficult all the time. And yet staying with a practice or a field for years on end offers even more than the insights already cited. Mastery, it turns out, is not merely valuable for the pure joy of gaining command of a flute, a sword, a foreign language, a woodcarver’s chisel, an artist’s palette, a golf club, tennis racket, calligraphy pen or guitar; mastery is all about self-knowledge. Nobody seems to talk about it anymore, but decades spent mastering something we truly love reveals us to ourselves in ways nothing else can.
So let go of fear and excuses and distractions and delay. Pick whatever really rings your chimes—you probably already know what it is—and commit to mastering it no matter how long it takes. The decision itself will make you stronger, and the rewards are sweeter than you can possibly imagine at the start.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Pushing Hands
The more troublesome the nation’s economic woes become, the more each of us seems to complain about all the bad things “happening to me”. The distinction between happening in the world and happening to me may seem specious or trivial or even irrelevant, but in fact it could not be more important. Interpreting external events through our own eyes is a necessary consequence of having eyes, and indeed of being human, but interpreting events as aimed at you by some vast unknown conspiracy or because the university doesn’t like you or because God is punishing you is simply a road to misery. Pain, as the Buddhists say, is inevitable, but suffering is optional.
Some of us are inextricably married to the beleaguring idea that the world is cruel and unfair and choose to live in a judgmental, negative state that separates us from others. Others of us, by contrast, disconnect from the world because we find it too painful, building emotional or physical walls to prevent people, and pain, from entering. Both these tactics bring little joy and require lots of energy. The good news is there is a third option: to engage things more deeply, bringing our passion and energy and intelligence to bear on creating a whole that includes us, although it may not be controlled by us, a whole that evidences a harmonious interplay of opposing forces.
The sublime Chinese martial art of tai chi teaches the “mechanics” of this option in a lovely, lasting way, offering a laboratory for learning it so well you can easily apply the skill to real life. To do so, tai chi employs a game called Pushing Hands (some say sensing or sticking rather than pushing). There are various postures and patterns to the game—meaning we make different patterns and engage different timing with our hands and feet—but all involve the same principles.
The first stage of the game is to learn to keep our balance. To do this we try to relax, to offer no resistance, to feel light as a cloud in the torso and sunken, strong and rooted in the lower body. We also learn how to grip the ground with our feet and turn our waist to deflect a partner’s incoming force (note that tai chi uses the term partner, not opponent in this context because in Pushing Hands we help each other) as well as to keep our spine straight and our eyes level and to breath smoothly and easily.
The notion that job one is to keep our own balance is a consummately useful one out there in the world, not merely in tai chi class; without our own emotional and physical equilibrium how can we respond to what life dishes out? Taking care of yourself first is the principle on which the airline safety dictum install your own oxygen mask before assisting others is based. If we cannot breathe, we cannot help. If we are angry, desperate, fearful, depressed or falling down, we can’t see clearly or act appropriately.
In the next stage we concentrate on sensitivity. Our palms and fingers and forearms become hyperaware. We turn them into organic devices—think human stethescopes or x-ray machines—with which to see into our partner’s body and ultimately sense his or her intention even before there is the tiniest physical movement. Cultivating sensivity and applying it requires our complete attention. If the mind wanders for a moment we can lose track of what our partner is doing and he or she may then take us off balance. Concentrating on the other person in our two-person world—trying to feel what they are doing with their body so as to predict when and where their force will come—draws us out of our own dramas and pushes back our boundaries. Imagine how such skills could serve us not only as fighters but as lovers. Imagine how such a skill could enhance our ability to empathize, to sympathize, to understand another’s plight or point of view. Imagine what negotiators and diplomats we would all be if we were so sensitive to others.
At the highest level of Pushing Hands we lose the distinction between our partner and ourself. Gone is the notion of other, the sense of me and him or her. Gone are the senses of antagonism, preservation, agenda, reaction or even ego. When we have practiced to this level of achievement we have come to realize that there is no conflict if we choose to meld with it. The dual nature of mind, the notion of a world outside us that stands apart from us to either hinder or help us—is a misconception of our own making.
Does this third option require us to be passive? Does it obviate the possibility of evil or injustice in the world? Does it preclude the imperative that we should stand up for our own interests? No and no and no. What it does do is give us a nuts-and-bolts way both to duck life’s curve balls and when we can’t, to recognize they are not aimed at us.
Some of us are inextricably married to the beleaguring idea that the world is cruel and unfair and choose to live in a judgmental, negative state that separates us from others. Others of us, by contrast, disconnect from the world because we find it too painful, building emotional or physical walls to prevent people, and pain, from entering. Both these tactics bring little joy and require lots of energy. The good news is there is a third option: to engage things more deeply, bringing our passion and energy and intelligence to bear on creating a whole that includes us, although it may not be controlled by us, a whole that evidences a harmonious interplay of opposing forces.
The sublime Chinese martial art of tai chi teaches the “mechanics” of this option in a lovely, lasting way, offering a laboratory for learning it so well you can easily apply the skill to real life. To do so, tai chi employs a game called Pushing Hands (some say sensing or sticking rather than pushing). There are various postures and patterns to the game—meaning we make different patterns and engage different timing with our hands and feet—but all involve the same principles.
The first stage of the game is to learn to keep our balance. To do this we try to relax, to offer no resistance, to feel light as a cloud in the torso and sunken, strong and rooted in the lower body. We also learn how to grip the ground with our feet and turn our waist to deflect a partner’s incoming force (note that tai chi uses the term partner, not opponent in this context because in Pushing Hands we help each other) as well as to keep our spine straight and our eyes level and to breath smoothly and easily.
The notion that job one is to keep our own balance is a consummately useful one out there in the world, not merely in tai chi class; without our own emotional and physical equilibrium how can we respond to what life dishes out? Taking care of yourself first is the principle on which the airline safety dictum install your own oxygen mask before assisting others is based. If we cannot breathe, we cannot help. If we are angry, desperate, fearful, depressed or falling down, we can’t see clearly or act appropriately.
In the next stage we concentrate on sensitivity. Our palms and fingers and forearms become hyperaware. We turn them into organic devices—think human stethescopes or x-ray machines—with which to see into our partner’s body and ultimately sense his or her intention even before there is the tiniest physical movement. Cultivating sensivity and applying it requires our complete attention. If the mind wanders for a moment we can lose track of what our partner is doing and he or she may then take us off balance. Concentrating on the other person in our two-person world—trying to feel what they are doing with their body so as to predict when and where their force will come—draws us out of our own dramas and pushes back our boundaries. Imagine how such skills could serve us not only as fighters but as lovers. Imagine how such a skill could enhance our ability to empathize, to sympathize, to understand another’s plight or point of view. Imagine what negotiators and diplomats we would all be if we were so sensitive to others.
At the highest level of Pushing Hands we lose the distinction between our partner and ourself. Gone is the notion of other, the sense of me and him or her. Gone are the senses of antagonism, preservation, agenda, reaction or even ego. When we have practiced to this level of achievement we have come to realize that there is no conflict if we choose to meld with it. The dual nature of mind, the notion of a world outside us that stands apart from us to either hinder or help us—is a misconception of our own making.
Does this third option require us to be passive? Does it obviate the possibility of evil or injustice in the world? Does it preclude the imperative that we should stand up for our own interests? No and no and no. What it does do is give us a nuts-and-bolts way both to duck life’s curve balls and when we can’t, to recognize they are not aimed at us.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Roles of the Spirit
I was visiting a friend at work the other day when an attractive woman walked by his office, looked in and winked. He smiled back, then turned to confide that she had expressed an interest in him. Knowing he was married with three children and that the workplace is a common place for romance, I was surprised when he closed the office door and began to regale me with the possibilities, the fantasies, the opportunities and temptations of a liaison.
“Too bad it’s not a video game,” he mused. “Role playing has gotten so sophisticated you can be whoever you want to be. Take the latest version of Grand Theft auto. You can do good things and help people or you can be a thug who goes on a murder spree. Of course if you go bad, the cops chase you and you gotta run and hide.”
“Consequences,” I said. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
“Right,” he nodded. “You turn off the game and you’re done.”
“At least until you get a long-distance call in the middle of the night that doesn’t fit your agreement.”
“Ouch,” he smiled, a little bit thinly.
I got to thinking about the common denominator between the virtual world and the real world, between the world of the business hotel and the home. Long after the plane has landed, long after the game is switched off the ideas, images, rules, and even the energy of what was done in the video game remains in the mind of the traveler, the gamer. There’s a link there, a bridge of memories, values and emotions. Once the game is turned on again, or the plane’s wheels go up, that traffic begins to flow once more.
If this were not true, if there was no emotional resonance stirred by the games we play, the TV we watch, the movies we see, then studies would not find a correlation between on-screen violence and real-world violence; but they do. The mind is a delicate and complex entity. It can suspend the disbelief created by one set of senses to enjoy the reality created by another. That’s what makes the small screen, the big screen, and the computer screen so compelling. In the not-too-distant future perhaps we will have helmets and sensors all over our body and be able to “enter” worlds of technology’s making. In those worlds we will voyage to other planets, fight dinosaurs, rob banks, breathe quickly, feel fatigue and pain, shoot each other, and have pangs of guilt—or not—over morally reprehensible actions.
Probably it’s a good time to start considering how the mind—rife with sensory and motor nerves and including its bodily extensions, circulating hormones, pheromones, neurotransmitters and more—is shaped by experience. What we do in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. It comes home with us, and worms around inside us. What we do on the computer does the same thing. Over time, the worms of betrayal, wantonness, lust, dishonesty and violence bear fruit. That fruit may be something as truly horrific as a school shooting, but more likely it’s just a sense of unhappiness, uneases, or even self-loathing.
I happen to be a fan of video games, especially if I can play them with my son. As a martial artist I particularly favor those that involve a good round of kicking and punching or better yet some swordplay. I even wrote a video game parlor scene in my most recent novel, The Crocodile and the Crane. In it, an immortal plays the game in front of his student, and his foes evoke some of the real life challenges of his 3000 years on the planet. That immortal is a character of great substance, though, a semi-supernatural creature in no danger of being dragged down by two-dimensional war.
Although society demands a certain common ground, when it comes to our private lives, we all have our own ideas about what is right and what is wrong and we may well have different susceptibilities to experience and patterning too. A person’s beliefs and faith and choices are personal, so long as they don’t affect others. Free will is great, free choice is great. Business trips often bear great fruit, and there are many terrific options in the virtual world; action simulators, puzzles of beautifully drawn worlds within worlds, fascinating absorbing games like Spore and the Sim series. It’s a new frontier and the profit and possibilities draw some of our most creative minds.
In the end it turns out it’s all about what’s inside us, not what’s out there. Despite the barrage of temptations and entertainments, our lives continue to be about the choices we make; the resulting emotions are most often of our own making. Technology may support us and deepen our experience, or it may threaten to pull us away from our core and threaten our sense of reality.
As President Jimmy Carter famously confessed to doing, maybe we all lust in our minds from time to time, and maybe we all entertain shooting fantasies too. It’s great to imagine and it’s great to have fun, but if we are going to strive to be the best people we can be, to elevate ourselves according to a spiritual model we each carry with us in our heart, to touch something ineffable and larger than ourselves, then we have to be aware of the flow of energy within us and consider how even our virtual worlds affect us.
“Too bad it’s not a video game,” he mused. “Role playing has gotten so sophisticated you can be whoever you want to be. Take the latest version of Grand Theft auto. You can do good things and help people or you can be a thug who goes on a murder spree. Of course if you go bad, the cops chase you and you gotta run and hide.”
“Consequences,” I said. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
“Right,” he nodded. “You turn off the game and you’re done.”
“At least until you get a long-distance call in the middle of the night that doesn’t fit your agreement.”
“Ouch,” he smiled, a little bit thinly.
I got to thinking about the common denominator between the virtual world and the real world, between the world of the business hotel and the home. Long after the plane has landed, long after the game is switched off the ideas, images, rules, and even the energy of what was done in the video game remains in the mind of the traveler, the gamer. There’s a link there, a bridge of memories, values and emotions. Once the game is turned on again, or the plane’s wheels go up, that traffic begins to flow once more.
If this were not true, if there was no emotional resonance stirred by the games we play, the TV we watch, the movies we see, then studies would not find a correlation between on-screen violence and real-world violence; but they do. The mind is a delicate and complex entity. It can suspend the disbelief created by one set of senses to enjoy the reality created by another. That’s what makes the small screen, the big screen, and the computer screen so compelling. In the not-too-distant future perhaps we will have helmets and sensors all over our body and be able to “enter” worlds of technology’s making. In those worlds we will voyage to other planets, fight dinosaurs, rob banks, breathe quickly, feel fatigue and pain, shoot each other, and have pangs of guilt—or not—over morally reprehensible actions.
Probably it’s a good time to start considering how the mind—rife with sensory and motor nerves and including its bodily extensions, circulating hormones, pheromones, neurotransmitters and more—is shaped by experience. What we do in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. It comes home with us, and worms around inside us. What we do on the computer does the same thing. Over time, the worms of betrayal, wantonness, lust, dishonesty and violence bear fruit. That fruit may be something as truly horrific as a school shooting, but more likely it’s just a sense of unhappiness, uneases, or even self-loathing.
I happen to be a fan of video games, especially if I can play them with my son. As a martial artist I particularly favor those that involve a good round of kicking and punching or better yet some swordplay. I even wrote a video game parlor scene in my most recent novel, The Crocodile and the Crane. In it, an immortal plays the game in front of his student, and his foes evoke some of the real life challenges of his 3000 years on the planet. That immortal is a character of great substance, though, a semi-supernatural creature in no danger of being dragged down by two-dimensional war.
Although society demands a certain common ground, when it comes to our private lives, we all have our own ideas about what is right and what is wrong and we may well have different susceptibilities to experience and patterning too. A person’s beliefs and faith and choices are personal, so long as they don’t affect others. Free will is great, free choice is great. Business trips often bear great fruit, and there are many terrific options in the virtual world; action simulators, puzzles of beautifully drawn worlds within worlds, fascinating absorbing games like Spore and the Sim series. It’s a new frontier and the profit and possibilities draw some of our most creative minds.
In the end it turns out it’s all about what’s inside us, not what’s out there. Despite the barrage of temptations and entertainments, our lives continue to be about the choices we make; the resulting emotions are most often of our own making. Technology may support us and deepen our experience, or it may threaten to pull us away from our core and threaten our sense of reality.
As President Jimmy Carter famously confessed to doing, maybe we all lust in our minds from time to time, and maybe we all entertain shooting fantasies too. It’s great to imagine and it’s great to have fun, but if we are going to strive to be the best people we can be, to elevate ourselves according to a spiritual model we each carry with us in our heart, to touch something ineffable and larger than ourselves, then we have to be aware of the flow of energy within us and consider how even our virtual worlds affect us.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
On Consumption
Despite the failing economy, or perhaps because of it, much is being made these days about the perils and pitfalls of our consumer society. We rue what we can’t have or what we’ve lost when things go sour; when everything’s rosy, it’s easy to ignore our bad habits. There is a bit of the flavor of slamming the barn door after the horse has fled, but pundits still defend us for having been unwittingly trained to consume so as to build our consumer economy, environmentalists bewail our appetites as beyond the ability of the planet to support, religious and spiritual leaders and teachers warn that in consuming we are trying to fit a square peg of comfort into a round hole of despair. Despite all the commentary, nobody seems willing or able to tell us what to do about the problem, not even when it reaches such a head that Walmart door worker is trampled to death http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.htmlby a frenzied mob so in love with their stuff that they’re willing to kill for it.
Contrary to popular belief, consumption is not materialism. Materialism is another phenomenon entirely. On one level it can be seen in rural Africa in villages where people have nothing, in the Paraguayan bush surrounded by children who subsist exclusively on manioc, a root vegetable that has starch to offer and not much else, and of course in the face of fire poverty around the world. There, materialism is survival; as the people lack even enough for a reliable aboriginal existence. Their diet is inadequate and their shelter is too—never mind medical care, comforts, or an intellectual life.
For folks who have more, materialism reached its zenith during the European Renaissance in the west and the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the east. These were grand, celebrated times when people appreciated the beauty of objects made by man: a painting, a bowl, a knife, a piece of silk, a church, a mural on the wall, a piece of furniture, the tiles on a roof, a sterling fork or spoon. Beautiful tapestries and books of poetry arose from those ages, as did Faberge eggs. Materialism in those days meant the ability to enjoy the work of man as an echo of the work of God or nature. Valuing beauty and function defined folks as connoisseurs. It gave a loft feeling of sophistication. It had nothing to do with survival. It had nothing to do with a base, animal life; if anything, it was a thing that differentiated people from other animals.
There are few materialists left among us here in America, it seems, save perhaps the ultra-educated, aesthetes, and the superrich. We are consumers through and through and our job seems to be to go through as much as we can as fast as we can if we can afford it and if we can’t to scrimp and save with an eye toward being able to do so. We are ingesting the planet by taking its raw offerings and ores, transmuting them into some specific form—a big-screen TV, a fast car, a refrigerator, a carton, a plastic bag, a boat, a new jacket, earrings, panties, a fancy wristwatch, another pair of running shoes—which we acquire, wear out, pass on, sell, or put into a landfill. That’s consumption. It’s an action, not a state of being, although it reflects the state of being incredibly unhappy and confused.
The pundits are right: we have been trained. The environmentalists tell it truly, the Earth cannot sustain us in this way. The spiritualists and preachers are dead-on when they say we’re acting out of emotional desperation. Mostly we cleave to things out of a false sense of security. We sense our impermanence and we want something with us to gird us from what we think are the harsh forces of the naked world, things that we imagine will stave off aging and hardship and death.
There are two ways to break the consumption habit: you can follow a path, or you can experience a breakthrough. If you follow a path, you go step by step. If you like this idea, try starting with the substitution method. Instead of pressing the “add to shopping cart” button, jump to another website and spend an equal of greater amount on a charity site and give to those in need. Take a picnic to the mall and eat it after window-shopping, so you still have the social experience without carrying home a bunch of goods. Take a few spiritual books out of the library and try to reorient your attentions away from material goods and onto the condition of the world and its inhabitants. Cultivate compassionate acts instead of collecting things.
Another good method is to write a check out to yourself when you’re about to spend it on something, then deposit the checks at the end of the week. You’ll feel you earned free money, and you won’t suffer the burden of stuff. If there’s something you really need, the money will be there. Speaking of need and of charity, bear in mind that most of us feel unhappy when we compare ourselves to others. If we lack in comparison, we suffer. It’s not an absolute material level that determines success for us, but a relative one.
Try taking better care of the dwelling you were born with than the one you bought. Your body is your real home, and taking care of it provides much more security and, courtesy of endorphins and a lack of pain and abundant energy, more succor than stuff does. There’s no mortgage on your body, but there is upkeep and your time and money are best spent there because it’s a place you’re going to spend your entire life. Skip the new furniture and the kitchen renovation, pass on the new refrigerator and the driveway repairs for now and go for the tai chi class, the yoga class, the gym membership, the fresh produce and the free-range flesh.
Of course you can forsake the path to no consumption if you’re willing to take a leap toward enlightenment. Sound mystical and hokey? That’s okay. Maybe it is, but you can do it! Start charting the number of errands you run in support of your stuff or chasing after it and you will feel the urge for freedom from it all pretty quickly. Understanding that trading time for stuff is trading a non-renewable resource for a renewable one will drop the scales from your eyes in a flash. Worrying about your credit card debt rather than snuggling with your loved one can make you suddenly aware that you’ve enslaved yourself and have you yearning to break your bonds. Shed the habit. Become a materialist. Appreciate the beauty in things both man-made and natural, but leave the consumption behind. Appreciation is a boon, but ownership of what you don’t need bought with money you don’t have is a burden.
Contrary to popular belief, consumption is not materialism. Materialism is another phenomenon entirely. On one level it can be seen in rural Africa in villages where people have nothing, in the Paraguayan bush surrounded by children who subsist exclusively on manioc, a root vegetable that has starch to offer and not much else, and of course in the face of fire poverty around the world. There, materialism is survival; as the people lack even enough for a reliable aboriginal existence. Their diet is inadequate and their shelter is too—never mind medical care, comforts, or an intellectual life.
For folks who have more, materialism reached its zenith during the European Renaissance in the west and the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the east. These were grand, celebrated times when people appreciated the beauty of objects made by man: a painting, a bowl, a knife, a piece of silk, a church, a mural on the wall, a piece of furniture, the tiles on a roof, a sterling fork or spoon. Beautiful tapestries and books of poetry arose from those ages, as did Faberge eggs. Materialism in those days meant the ability to enjoy the work of man as an echo of the work of God or nature. Valuing beauty and function defined folks as connoisseurs. It gave a loft feeling of sophistication. It had nothing to do with survival. It had nothing to do with a base, animal life; if anything, it was a thing that differentiated people from other animals.
There are few materialists left among us here in America, it seems, save perhaps the ultra-educated, aesthetes, and the superrich. We are consumers through and through and our job seems to be to go through as much as we can as fast as we can if we can afford it and if we can’t to scrimp and save with an eye toward being able to do so. We are ingesting the planet by taking its raw offerings and ores, transmuting them into some specific form—a big-screen TV, a fast car, a refrigerator, a carton, a plastic bag, a boat, a new jacket, earrings, panties, a fancy wristwatch, another pair of running shoes—which we acquire, wear out, pass on, sell, or put into a landfill. That’s consumption. It’s an action, not a state of being, although it reflects the state of being incredibly unhappy and confused.
The pundits are right: we have been trained. The environmentalists tell it truly, the Earth cannot sustain us in this way. The spiritualists and preachers are dead-on when they say we’re acting out of emotional desperation. Mostly we cleave to things out of a false sense of security. We sense our impermanence and we want something with us to gird us from what we think are the harsh forces of the naked world, things that we imagine will stave off aging and hardship and death.
There are two ways to break the consumption habit: you can follow a path, or you can experience a breakthrough. If you follow a path, you go step by step. If you like this idea, try starting with the substitution method. Instead of pressing the “add to shopping cart” button, jump to another website and spend an equal of greater amount on a charity site and give to those in need. Take a picnic to the mall and eat it after window-shopping, so you still have the social experience without carrying home a bunch of goods. Take a few spiritual books out of the library and try to reorient your attentions away from material goods and onto the condition of the world and its inhabitants. Cultivate compassionate acts instead of collecting things.
Another good method is to write a check out to yourself when you’re about to spend it on something, then deposit the checks at the end of the week. You’ll feel you earned free money, and you won’t suffer the burden of stuff. If there’s something you really need, the money will be there. Speaking of need and of charity, bear in mind that most of us feel unhappy when we compare ourselves to others. If we lack in comparison, we suffer. It’s not an absolute material level that determines success for us, but a relative one.
Try taking better care of the dwelling you were born with than the one you bought. Your body is your real home, and taking care of it provides much more security and, courtesy of endorphins and a lack of pain and abundant energy, more succor than stuff does. There’s no mortgage on your body, but there is upkeep and your time and money are best spent there because it’s a place you’re going to spend your entire life. Skip the new furniture and the kitchen renovation, pass on the new refrigerator and the driveway repairs for now and go for the tai chi class, the yoga class, the gym membership, the fresh produce and the free-range flesh.
Of course you can forsake the path to no consumption if you’re willing to take a leap toward enlightenment. Sound mystical and hokey? That’s okay. Maybe it is, but you can do it! Start charting the number of errands you run in support of your stuff or chasing after it and you will feel the urge for freedom from it all pretty quickly. Understanding that trading time for stuff is trading a non-renewable resource for a renewable one will drop the scales from your eyes in a flash. Worrying about your credit card debt rather than snuggling with your loved one can make you suddenly aware that you’ve enslaved yourself and have you yearning to break your bonds. Shed the habit. Become a materialist. Appreciate the beauty in things both man-made and natural, but leave the consumption behind. Appreciation is a boon, but ownership of what you don’t need bought with money you don’t have is a burden.
Monday, November 24, 2008
A Chat With Lao Tze
I rang Lao Tze this morning to ask his help sorting through the befuddlement I’m suffering at the hands of the media and its endless stream of bad economic news. I told him I was confused about current events, didn’t understand what was happening to the economy, and was half blinded by fur flying and name-calling and finger pointing going on between such players as Pelosi, Bush, Obama, Paulson, Greenspan and others. I said I didn’t understand what they were saying about free-market capitalism, bailouts, rescue plans, socialism, Big Government, Small Government and more.
Lao Tze is probably the greatest of the Chinese sages (he vies for the title with his student, Confucius) and wrote a little book that has been more widely translated, and read by more people, than every piece of printed matter save the Bible. Because of this, or maybe despite it, the old sage is a gravelly sort and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly and in this area and many others I’m a fool so I only call him when I absolutely must.
He started by reminding me that things go in cycles, and that being in the middle of a rise or a fall makes it hard to see up or down or farther along the path. He said there are little cycles and big cycles and that people who learn to see them can predict earthquakes and the sudden appearance of miracles and also make a lot of money in the stock market. He said the best reason to study cycles is to keep from getting too excited when they go up and when they go down. He said keeping a cool head and having perspective is the sign of a superior person and since I called him in a breathless panic I was far from superior.
I admitted this was true.
He went on to say that despite all our dazzling technology we are not nearly so far from our animal nature as we think we are, and that this is a good thing, not a bad thing, for the farther we stray from nature the more trouble we find. He digressed for a moment to remind me to take a walk on the beach and then went back to discussing communism and socialism and capitalism. He said that communism was a utopia. I interrupted to point out that neither the USSR nor Communist China seem to utopian to me. He nearly smacked me.
“Those places weren’t communist,” he said. “They were just countries ruled by bad guys who stuck that word on a banner to make themselves look good and fool people. Real communism is about rights and equality and sharing. Real communism is a vision of a world in which everyone works together and has enough, a world in which nobody goes hungry or freezes to death in the forest. It’s a beautiful idea, and most thinking people embrace it as such, but it’s useless because it’s not human nature to be so kind. Left to their own devices, many people would share and get along but there are always going to be those who come in the night and whack you on the head and steal your stuff or kidnap your children or drag away women.”
It was my turn to interrupt him and point out that Buddha, his competition, seemed a lot more positive about human nature.
“Are you kidding? The guy talked about suffering all the time and spent his whole life teaching people to learn self-control. He wasn’t any more positive than I am about things. He was a realist and so am I and by the way he was way, way too skinny.”
“So what about free-market capitalism?” I asked. “What about letting the markets find their own level, let businesses do what they want unhampered by regulation or government tinkering?”
He sounded like he wanted to come to my house and hit me. “It’s the same thing,” he said. “People get greedy. Look at what’s been going on in your crazy, round-eye country. If government mixes out too much, thieves take over and they bribe government officials and pretty soon the people in power and their friends are getting rich and everyone else is bled dry.”
He must have heard me sniffling at all this because he softened a little bit after that. “Look. Lots of the Chinese kings read my book and I knew they would so I put in some passages to help them. I said governing a country is like frying a small fish. You have to pay attention and keep turning it: gently, so it doesn’t break into pieces, and often, to make sure it doesn’t burn.”
“You’re saying we should be socialist.”
“I’m saying that people have animal nature and need checks and balances. If that were not true you would not need police and you would not need soldiers, because nobody would ever try to break into your house or overrun your country. You need the kind of government that pays attention to what’s going on all the time, not the sort that concentrates on political diatribes, trumpets their own celebrity, spouts religious nonsense, or looks in the mirror too often.”
“How do we get that kind of government?” I broke in.
“Democracy,” he cried, a little bit hoarsely because he is, after all, 2500 years old. “Democracy is great. We never had it in China. Why do you think I spent so much time babysitting kings? But democracy takes a lot of the responsibility off the shoulders of the king and puts it on the people. That means people have to pay attention to whom they elect. It means they have to watch what their leaders are doing and make sure they’re turning the fish often enough.”
“Attention and responsibility,” I repeated.
“The kind of country you have is up to each and every one of you,” he said in that heavy accent of his.
Then, as he always does, he hung up without saying goodbye.
Lao Tze is probably the greatest of the Chinese sages (he vies for the title with his student, Confucius) and wrote a little book that has been more widely translated, and read by more people, than every piece of printed matter save the Bible. Because of this, or maybe despite it, the old sage is a gravelly sort and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly and in this area and many others I’m a fool so I only call him when I absolutely must.
He started by reminding me that things go in cycles, and that being in the middle of a rise or a fall makes it hard to see up or down or farther along the path. He said there are little cycles and big cycles and that people who learn to see them can predict earthquakes and the sudden appearance of miracles and also make a lot of money in the stock market. He said the best reason to study cycles is to keep from getting too excited when they go up and when they go down. He said keeping a cool head and having perspective is the sign of a superior person and since I called him in a breathless panic I was far from superior.
I admitted this was true.
He went on to say that despite all our dazzling technology we are not nearly so far from our animal nature as we think we are, and that this is a good thing, not a bad thing, for the farther we stray from nature the more trouble we find. He digressed for a moment to remind me to take a walk on the beach and then went back to discussing communism and socialism and capitalism. He said that communism was a utopia. I interrupted to point out that neither the USSR nor Communist China seem to utopian to me. He nearly smacked me.
“Those places weren’t communist,” he said. “They were just countries ruled by bad guys who stuck that word on a banner to make themselves look good and fool people. Real communism is about rights and equality and sharing. Real communism is a vision of a world in which everyone works together and has enough, a world in which nobody goes hungry or freezes to death in the forest. It’s a beautiful idea, and most thinking people embrace it as such, but it’s useless because it’s not human nature to be so kind. Left to their own devices, many people would share and get along but there are always going to be those who come in the night and whack you on the head and steal your stuff or kidnap your children or drag away women.”
It was my turn to interrupt him and point out that Buddha, his competition, seemed a lot more positive about human nature.
“Are you kidding? The guy talked about suffering all the time and spent his whole life teaching people to learn self-control. He wasn’t any more positive than I am about things. He was a realist and so am I and by the way he was way, way too skinny.”
“So what about free-market capitalism?” I asked. “What about letting the markets find their own level, let businesses do what they want unhampered by regulation or government tinkering?”
He sounded like he wanted to come to my house and hit me. “It’s the same thing,” he said. “People get greedy. Look at what’s been going on in your crazy, round-eye country. If government mixes out too much, thieves take over and they bribe government officials and pretty soon the people in power and their friends are getting rich and everyone else is bled dry.”
He must have heard me sniffling at all this because he softened a little bit after that. “Look. Lots of the Chinese kings read my book and I knew they would so I put in some passages to help them. I said governing a country is like frying a small fish. You have to pay attention and keep turning it: gently, so it doesn’t break into pieces, and often, to make sure it doesn’t burn.”
“You’re saying we should be socialist.”
“I’m saying that people have animal nature and need checks and balances. If that were not true you would not need police and you would not need soldiers, because nobody would ever try to break into your house or overrun your country. You need the kind of government that pays attention to what’s going on all the time, not the sort that concentrates on political diatribes, trumpets their own celebrity, spouts religious nonsense, or looks in the mirror too often.”
“How do we get that kind of government?” I broke in.
“Democracy,” he cried, a little bit hoarsely because he is, after all, 2500 years old. “Democracy is great. We never had it in China. Why do you think I spent so much time babysitting kings? But democracy takes a lot of the responsibility off the shoulders of the king and puts it on the people. That means people have to pay attention to whom they elect. It means they have to watch what their leaders are doing and make sure they’re turning the fish often enough.”
“Attention and responsibility,” I repeated.
“The kind of country you have is up to each and every one of you,” he said in that heavy accent of his.
Then, as he always does, he hung up without saying goodbye.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Tai Chi Sex
On November 6th, US News and World Report featured a blog by Deborah Kotz discussing natural ways to boost a woman’s sex drive. http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-women/2008/11/6/5-natural-ways-to-boost-sex-drive.html Kotz cites a study that finds that while 40% of women “have sexual problems” only 12% are concerned about them. She challenges the notion that such women need to be treated with drugs, and suggests a number of ways to enhance the female libido. One of these methods is exercise.
It’s not clear from the article who is suggesting there are problems, and exactly what the problems are, but everyone knows that exercise makes us feel sexier. Slimming down, getting stronger, seeing muscles grow, experiencing the flow of endorphins and having more stamina makes us more interested in lovemaking and makes us more desirable too.
Not all forms of exercise are created equal, though, particularly when it comes to sex. Tai chi’s philosophical and energetic underpinnings have everything to do with the binary universe—the brilliant observation made by Chinese sages thousands of years before the on/off switch created the computer age—that the world is defined by the harmonious interplay of opposing forces. Harmonious? Opposing? That’s right, light and dark, up and down, warm and cold, and of course male and female. Tai chi is a very sensual art in the sense that practicing it heightens our awareness of those very opposites. Every movement in tai chi both features male and female elements, hard and soft dimension, a weighty and a weightless arm or leg. Mastering tai chi requires great sensitivity, and women often attain mastery more easily and more quickly than men do because they are accustomed to using both softness and force to achieve their objective whereas many men rely on force alone.
Tai chi is as much medicine as philosophy though, and the medicine on which it is based studies and employs energy rather than pills. So in addition to heightening sensitivity and creating new awareness of the male and female elements of words, deeds, movements, feelings and forces, the art builds sexual power by enhancing the circulation of qi, life force, to vital areas including the sexual organs. In fact, a core goal of the practice (core is double entendre here because there is no better core-strengthening routine than a rigorous tai chi class) is to increase the sexual essence, or jing. In the best mind/body tradition, this means building reservoirs of power in both genders not only through the movements themselves, but through meditation, dietary changes, and mental training.
Last but not least, tai chi conveys a wealth of knowledge useful in lovemaking and in stimulating performance and desire, including: creative unpredictability, relaxation, rhythms, self-expression, going with the flow, receiving and giving, and more. The practice is a laboratory in which practitioners (known as players) study their own body in depth, learning new dimensions of their physical and mental being. There is nothing sexier than a healthy body and a healthy interest in how that body works. If your sex life is feeling dull or you are feeling stuck and just can’t get rolling, tai chi may be just to awaken your true and powerful sexual nature.
It’s not clear from the article who is suggesting there are problems, and exactly what the problems are, but everyone knows that exercise makes us feel sexier. Slimming down, getting stronger, seeing muscles grow, experiencing the flow of endorphins and having more stamina makes us more interested in lovemaking and makes us more desirable too.
Not all forms of exercise are created equal, though, particularly when it comes to sex. Tai chi’s philosophical and energetic underpinnings have everything to do with the binary universe—the brilliant observation made by Chinese sages thousands of years before the on/off switch created the computer age—that the world is defined by the harmonious interplay of opposing forces. Harmonious? Opposing? That’s right, light and dark, up and down, warm and cold, and of course male and female. Tai chi is a very sensual art in the sense that practicing it heightens our awareness of those very opposites. Every movement in tai chi both features male and female elements, hard and soft dimension, a weighty and a weightless arm or leg. Mastering tai chi requires great sensitivity, and women often attain mastery more easily and more quickly than men do because they are accustomed to using both softness and force to achieve their objective whereas many men rely on force alone.
Tai chi is as much medicine as philosophy though, and the medicine on which it is based studies and employs energy rather than pills. So in addition to heightening sensitivity and creating new awareness of the male and female elements of words, deeds, movements, feelings and forces, the art builds sexual power by enhancing the circulation of qi, life force, to vital areas including the sexual organs. In fact, a core goal of the practice (core is double entendre here because there is no better core-strengthening routine than a rigorous tai chi class) is to increase the sexual essence, or jing. In the best mind/body tradition, this means building reservoirs of power in both genders not only through the movements themselves, but through meditation, dietary changes, and mental training.
Last but not least, tai chi conveys a wealth of knowledge useful in lovemaking and in stimulating performance and desire, including: creative unpredictability, relaxation, rhythms, self-expression, going with the flow, receiving and giving, and more. The practice is a laboratory in which practitioners (known as players) study their own body in depth, learning new dimensions of their physical and mental being. There is nothing sexier than a healthy body and a healthy interest in how that body works. If your sex life is feeling dull or you are feeling stuck and just can’t get rolling, tai chi may be just to awaken your true and powerful sexual nature.
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