Dear Aging Becomer
by Bob Cergol

A letter written by Bob to friends, many of whom have been "on the path" for 25 or more years, and read by him at the April 2005 TAT Spring Gathering:

You consider yourself more esoterically informed than most -- way, way ahead of the common masses and "Joe-six-pack." from animated postcard by Jeff Victor In the last 30 years, haven't you figured out yet -- how to become a reverse vector? Is it by more and more "doing" and "thinking" -- by running faster and faster, in ever decreasing concentric circles -- until ... you become like the "Do-Do Bird" Rose described. Is it through bodily action, or mental activity? Which of these follows which, and which is more substantial than Omar Khayam's "... snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little Hour or two -- [and] gone"?

If death equates to the absence of doing, thinking and experiencing, -- i.e. nothing, then aren't you on your way to becoming nothing -- with no effort required? Isn't that the direction of your life? Can you actually become something, fundamentally different, than what you are right now? Who or what is becoming? You used to be convinced that you could become, now you only hope that you can, that this leaden "YOU" that you know and love so well -- and hate -- can become a golden you, that will deserve your love forever -- and live forever -- PROVING ONCE AND FOR ALL WHAT IN YOUR HEART YOU DO NOT REALLY BELIEVE -- AND MOST FEAR. You the body-mind fantasize a vision of becoming something PERMANENT, and superior to yourself -- and that somehow YOU will remain anterior to everything -- intact as "you" -- containing God himself -- the timeless. WHERE DID YOU GET SUCH A DELUSION?!

I think it is your distorted seeing and hearing of the essential desire that comes to you from your true Self -- your Essence -- for even God does not have the power to split himself, and everything He touches was never separate from Him. (It is the INVISIBLE CURRENT from Rose's Jacob's Ladder diagram. This is pure metaphor, attempting to explain the mechanics of a creation that does not exist.) You the Shadow-Man cannot fail to act in accordance with your essence, your true source and fundamental nature. However, your actions are refracted according to the fixation of your attention on experience, refracted according to the resulting need for self-definition and personal survival, and refracted according to the resulting fears and desires generated by the experience. In other words, you the shadow man do not become or evolve or will your attention away from the false. You the shadow-man are watching two movies: one is the movie of your destruction, one is the movie of your denial and acceptance of this destruction. The theme of denial is depicted by the vision of becoming through acquisition. The theme of acceptance is depicted by one's own deconstruction through simple looking -- with acceptance.

Are you looking -- or acquiring? It is by virtue of your essence that your attention cannot be 100% glued to that which is separate. The desire and attempt to define your self, and to survive, is simply what manifests in the shadow of experience cast by the "Light of the body," that Christ said was "the eye." You, the Shadow-Man, are what manifests when Awareness reflects upon itself and finds no object to reflect upon. Your attempt to become is doomed to failure. This is beautifully stated in these thematic and climactic phrases from the poem The Hound of Heaven: All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.

Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.
Naught contents thee, who content'st not Me.
All things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Thou dravest love From thee, who dravest Me.

If your attempt to become transcendentally different is doomed to failure, what can and will you do about it? Can your actions lead to a change in anything other than your circumstances? You believe that it can because you mistake the after-the-fact reactive experience as you-the-doer. It is a wish of you-the-somatic-mind. Have you noticed that your actions have an effect upon your attention? What motivates your actions? The action of looking will further affect the focus of your attention. Becoming a reverse-vector is the opposite of external, worldly becoming. It is un-becoming.

It is your un-doing! It is the breaking of your fixation on all experience -- including the experience of identity -- until the attention collapses in upon itself and all experience either stops or is recognized as non-existent. Spiritual becoming is worldly and personal un-becoming through the reverse vector of the attention -- "that power of noticing" which is not your possession. The potential value in your activity aimed at becoming lies in the effect that it will have upon the direction of your attention -- not in becoming something other than what you already are or are not. Your desire to become was wisely exploited by your teacher, who coined the phrase: "milk from thorns." He also liked to recall the Radha Soami guru who answered his question about what can be done: "All that man can do is desire."

Rose knew full-well the ultimate Source of this desire, and how this desire manifested in the "mind realm" and in the "body realm." Your experience generates experience. Experience is to the identity as food is to the body. Your identity weaves itself in a self-perpetuating chain-reaction -- so long as the attention is glued to experience -- and so long as the body fuels the reactor. The "fabric" of identity unravels as the attention is turned to watching -- first experience itself, as an outside observer rather than a participant, and then when the attention is turned to watching the experience-er. Experience is binding.
Observing the process of experiencing is liberating. Good hunting, and may your life experience be decidedly disconcerting. As your faithful friend, I remain.... Bob

-------------------------


Only through the simple process of self-observation can this thing called the "self" be seen. We may need years of looking at it, seeing why it does what it does, thinks what it thinks, until we know it well enough to cease to believe in it. All of our energy, for all of our life, has been poured into this thing: our personality, the little self, the ego. A few moments of seeing, while of monumental importance, will not cause its complete demise. This demise is what we fear most; for it is seen by the thought-pattern we call "us" as death. At some point, the initial joy of seeing will turn to the pain of ego-death, as the Truth becomes known. It will not be pleasant. In fact, the pain and horror felt by the ego as it faces its own death, will be felt as yours. Hartmann's words again ring true: "Conquer the pains resulting therefrom." While all this may be just words to you for now, know that after you have gone beyond this realm of thought, beyond this self-surviving collection of reactions seeking nothing but its own continuity, "seeing" will still be there. You will then have no more need of thought or reaction to give you meaning and value, as the simple act of seeing will once again be enough. The world of thought will no longer be your home, having become a movie, a dream, as much a comedy as a drama, wherein the bit character you used to call your "self" is merely another player. Your interest will be only in a pure amazement at your own unknowable Being … and perhaps the need to help another find freedom from the trap of reaction, the world of "self."

It is the clinging to the false that makes

the true so difficult to see. Once you

understand that the false needs time and

what needs time is false, you are nearer

the Reality, which is timeless, ever in thenow.

Eternity in time is mere repetitiveness,

like the movement of a clock. It flows from

the past into the future endlessly, as empty

perpetuity. Reality is what makes the present

so vital, so different from the past and future,

which are merely mental. If you need time to

achieve something, it must be false. The realis always with you; you need not wait to be

what you are. Only you must not allow your

mind to go out of yourself in search. When you

want something, ask yourself: do I really needit? and if the answer is not, then just drop it.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That-

Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, The Acorn Press, 1973

Otherwise, you can add some weak acid at some point in the washing process. Since you need just a tiny amount, even cheap vinegar will do, without leaving a smell. You could make a soap goo out of soap and water, and add a bit of lemon juice. You could have a jug of water with a teaspoonful of vinegar in it, to rinse your hair with after soaping. Or how about pouring it into a plastic squirty bottle, so you don't spill it.

The world of Absolute Reality,
onto which your mind has projected a world of relative unreality
is independent of yourself, for the very simple reason that it is yourself.

Examine the motion of change
and you will see. What can change
while you do not change, can be
said to be independent of you.
But what is changeless must be one
with whatever else is changeless.
The main objective to grasp is
that you have projected onto
yourself a world of your own imagination, based on memories,
on desires and fears, and that you
have imprisoned yourself in it.
Break the spell and be free.
You are universal. You need not and you
cannot become what you are already.
Only cease imagining yourself to be
the particular. What comes and goes
has no being. It owes its very appearance to reality.
You know that there is a world, but does the world
know you? All knowledge flows from
you, as all being and all joy.

Realize that you are the eternal source and
accept all as your own.Such acceptance is true love.
Having never left the house you are asking
for the way home. Get rid of wrong ideas, that is all.
Collecting right ideas also will take you nowhere.
Just cease imagining.
Don't you understand?! Enough if you do not
misunderstand. Don't rely on your mind for liberation.

It is the mind that brought you to
bondage. Go beyond it altogether.
is beginningless cannot have a cause.
It is not that you knew what you are and
then you have forgotten. Once you know, you cannot forget.

Don't ask the mind to confirm what is beyond the mind.
Direct experience is the only valid confirmation.

- Nisargadatta

Stop taking yourself so goddamn seriously and chill the fuck out. Everything is going to be fine.

"To come out in plain words and say it, it isimpossible because if you carry enough fuel to thrustlong enough to travel at say nine tenths the speed oflight you could
never have enough fuel to stop. You would have to keep
traveling forever. "

That a really good reason, but there's one that's an
even bigger problem:
Space Isn't Empty.

IIRC, the density of the interplanetary medium is
about 1 atom of hydrogen per cubic meter. That's not
much in the way of resistance, but let's say the front
of the vehicle presents a face of 10 square meters.
That means every meter distance travelled it will, on
average, collide with 10 atoms of hydrogen. Now, let's
pretend that you get this machine to go only HALF the
speed of light. That means you will collide with
149,896,271 atoms of hydrogen every second.
You're dead. The kind of kinetic energy of 150 million
atoms slamming into your ship at 1/2 c EVERY SECOND
will eventuate in your ship becoming incredibly hot
and radioactive. And God ferbid you hit a grain of
sand at that speed - it would slice right through your
ship so fast - dead meat.

So: you're going to go all star trek on me and
postulate a huge "deflector array"? Where's the energy
going to come from for that? And besides, as you
approach C, your time dilation kicks in, so you have
some tiny fraction of time to deal with microscopic
bits of grit travelling at relativistic speed.

Deflecting it will require even MORE energy, and WHERE
is that going to come from? A small little lonesome
bit of crap is floating in space, minding it's own
dull business as it had for 4.6 billion years, when
suddenly Mr HotShot space truck comes blasting out of
nowhere saying "You have to get out of my way RIGHT
NOW" the energy required to do that would pretty much
not only vapourise the little piece of grit, which
would result in even MORE heat and radiation, on top
of all the other radiation. And if you're travelling
at say, 99% of c, you're looking at 300 million atoms
of hydrogen slamming into your machine at nearly light
speed - something it takes insane amounts of energy on
earth to do, just to get a few atoms in an
accellerator up to any appreciable speed.

Now multiply that energy by 300 million EVERY SECOND
and talk to me about some silly notion of a deflectorshield.
Quite simply, Mr Patterson is correct: It Just Ain't
Gonna Happen. Period. Not now, Not later, not ever.

HOWEVER: I do think that we can, and should, get out
of the gravity well. But I think a more likely way
than building ships that travel near c, would be to
evolve a special class of "humans" who have a genetic
code that is largely impervious to radiation (there
are bacteria that have this feature), eat rocks and
ice in the asteroid belt, have enourmous wing spans
that collect solar radiation and can live in a vacuum.
Once they eat the asteroid belt, they can grow bigger
wings and go work on the Kuiper Belt and then it's off
to the Oort cloud.Sound ridiculous? Yeah, It is. But it's one HELL of a
lot more achievable than travelling at c... That's
just a stupid hollywood fantasy.

Mister Studebaker

"What then is that precious something contained in our food which keeps usfrom death? That is easily answered. Every process, event, happening -- callit what you will; in a word, everything that is going on in Nature means anincrease of the entropy of the part of the world where it is going on. Thusa living organism continually increases its entropy -- or, as you may say,produces positive entropy -- and thus tends to approach the dangerous stateof maximum entropy, which is death. It can only keep aloof from it, i.e.alive, by continually drawing from its environment negative entropy -- whichis something very positive as we shall immediately see. What an organismfeeds upon is negative entropy. Or, to put it less paradoxically, theessential thing in metabolism is that the organism succeeds in freeingitself from all the entropy it cannot help producing while alive."

WHAT IS LIFE? by Erwin Shrödinger
First published in 1944.
http://www.dieoff.com/page150.htm

I asked once if Vlad could show me how to avoid a certain strike, he said, "No. I cannot. But if I attack you with sword you will run and move like crazy man. You already know how to move and avoid."

Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of
living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil
background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in
at the banquet.
— William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

"I built my cottage among the habitations of men,
And yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses.
You ask: 'Sir, how can this be done?''
A heart that is distant creates its own solitude.

I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
Then gaze afar towards the southern hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds in flocks return.

In these things there lies a deep meaning;
I want to tell it, but have forgotten the words."

~Tao YuanMing

100 Items that will disappear first during an emergency

1) Generators.
2) Water filters/purifiers.
3) Portable toilets.
4) Seasoned firewood.
5) Lamp oil, wicks, and lamps.
6) All types of fuel; Coleman, propane, gasoline, kerosene, diesel.
7) Guns, ammunition, pepper-spray, knives, bows/arrows, clubs, bats & slingshots.
8) Hand-can openers & hand egg beaters, whisks, paper/plastic plates and cups.
9) Honey, syrups, white, brown sugars.
10) Rice, beans.
11) Vegetable oil
12) Charcoal & Lighter Fluid.
13) Water containers
14) Mini heater head (Propane)
15) Grain grinder (non-electric)
16) Small propane cylinders and the adapter to refill them from the larger size
17) Goats, chickens, pigeons, ducks, rabbits, milk cows
18) Mantles: Aladdin, Coleman, etc.
19) Baby supplies, diapers, formula, ointments, aspirin, etc
20) Washboards, mop Bucket w/wringer (for laundry)
21) Cook stoves (Propane, Coleman & Kerosene)
22) Vitamins (Critical, due to forced daily canned food diets.)
23) Propane cylinder Handle-Holder. Small canister use is dangerous without this item.
24) Feminine hygiene, hair care, skin products
25) Thermal underwear, tops and bottoms
26) Bow saws, axes and hatchets & wedges
27) Aluminum foil.
28) Gasoline containers (plastic or metal)
29) Garbage bags (impossible to have too many.)
30) Toilet paper, Kleenex, paper towels
31) Milk -powdered & condensed (Shake liquid every 3 to 4 months.)
32) Garden seeds (non-hybrid A MUST)
33) Clothes pins, line, hangers
34) Coleman's pump Repair Kit:
35) Tuna fish (in oil is preferable over water)
36) Fire extinguishers (or a LARGE box of baking soda in every room...)
37) First aid kits.
38) Batteries (all sizes)
39) Garlic, spices & vinegar, baking supplies
40) BIG dogs (and plenty of dog food)
41) Flour, yeast & salt
42) Matches "Strike Anywhere" preferred. Boxed, wooden matches will go first.
43) Writing paper, pads, pens, pencils, solar calculators
44) Insulated ice chests (good for keeping items from freezing in wintertime)
45) Work boots, belts, Levis & durable shirts
46) Flashlights, light sticks & torches
47) Journals, diaries & scrapbooks (Jot down ideas, feelings, experiences: Historic times!)
48) Garbage cans, plastic (great for storage, water, transporting - if with wheels)
49) Men's Hygiene: Shampoo, toothbrush/paste, mouthwash/floss, nail clippers, etc
50) Cast iron cookware (sturdy, efficient)
51) Fishing supplies, tools
52) Mosquito coils, repellent sprays/creams.
53) Duct tape and WD40.
54) Tarps, stakes, line.
55) Candles.
56) Laundry detergent (Liquid).
57) Backpacks & duffle bags.
58) Garden tools & supplies.
59) Scissors, fabrics & sewing supplies.
60) Canned fruits, Veggies, Soups, stews, etc.
61) Bleach (plain, NOT scented: 4 to 6% sodium hypochlorite)
62) Canning supplies (Jars/lids/rings/wax)
63) Knives & sharpening tools: files, stones, steel, oil.
64) Bicycles, tires, tubes, pumps, chains, etc.
65) Sleeping bags & blankets, pillows, mats.
66) Carbon monoxide alarm (battery powered).
67) Board games cards, dice.
68) Rat poison, roach killer.
69) Mousetraps, ant traps & cockroach magnets
70) Paper plates/cups/utensils
71) Baby wipes, oils, waterless & anti-bacterial soap
72) Rain gear, rubberized boots, etc.
73) Shaving supplies (razors & creams).
74) Hand pumps & siphons (for water and for fuels).
75) Soy sauce, vinegar, bouillons, gravy, soup base.
76) Reading glasses
77) Chocolate, Cocoa, Tang, Punch (water enhancers)
78) Lanterns, Coleman, kerosene
79) Woolen clothing, scarves earmuffs, mittens
80) Hats & cotton neckerchiefs
81) Gloves, work, warming, gardening and etc.
82) Graham crackers, saltines, pretzels, trail mix, jerky
83) Popcorn, peanut butter, nuts
84) Socks, underwear, t-shirts, etc. (extras)
85) Lumber (all types)
86) Wagons & carts (for transport to & from open flea markets)
87) Cots & inflatable mattresses (for extra guests).
88) Atomizers (for cooling/bathing).
89) Wire of all types, bailing, fencing, (barbed and smooth), electrical (all gauges).
90) Screen patches, glue, nails,
91) Teas.
92) Coffee.
93) Cigarettes.
94) Wine, liquors (for bribes, medicinal, etc.).
95) Candies of all kinds.
96) Screws, nuts & bolts.
97) Chewing gum.
98) Any type of food not listed above.
99) All kinds of pharmaceutical supplies.
100) Nails, string, twine, rope, spikes.

The beatings will stop when morale improves.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die."

- Blade Runner

Blues for Buddha

By Jed McKenna

Being critical of Buddhism isn't easy. Buddhism is the most likable of the major religions, and Buddhists are the perennial good guys of modern spirituality. Beautiful traditions, lovely architecture, inspiring statuary, ancient history, the Dalai Lama — what's not to like?

Everything about Buddhsim is just so... nice. No fatwahs or jihads, no inquisitions or crusades, no terrorists or pederasts, just nice people being nice. In fact, Buddhism means niceness. Nice-ism. At least, it should. Buddha means Awakened One, so Buddhism can be taken to mean Awake-ism. Awakism. It would therefore be natural to think that if you were looking to wake up, then Buddhism, i.e., Awakism, would be the place to look.

The Light is Better Over Here

Such thinking, however, would reveal a dangerous lack of respect for the opposition. Maya, goddess of delusion, has been doing her job with supreme mastery since the first spark of self-awareness flickered in some chimp's noggin, and the idea that the neophyte truth-seeker can just sign up with the Buddhists, read some books, embrace some new concepts and slam her to the mat might be a bit on the naive side. On the other hand, why not? How’d this get so turned around? It’s just truth. Shouldn’t truth be, like, the simplest thing? Shouldn’t someone who wants to find something as ubiquitous as truth be able to do so? And here’s this venerable organization supposedly dedicated to just that very thing, even named for it, so what’s the problem?

Why doesn’t Buddhism produce Buddhas?

The problem arises from the fact that Buddhists, like everyone else, insist on reconciling the irreconcilable. They don’t just want to awaken to the true, they also want to make sense of the untrue. They want to have their cake and eat it too, so they end up with nonsensical theories, divergent schools, sagacious doubletalk, and zero Buddhas. Typical of Buddhist insistence on reconciling the irreconcilable is the concept of Two Truths, a poignant two-word joke they don’t seem to get, and yet this sort of perversely irrational thinking is at the very heart of the failed search for truth. We don’t want truth, we want a particular truth; one that doesn't threaten ego, one that doesn’t exist. We insist on a truth that makes sense given what we know, not knowing that we don't know anything. Nothing about Buddhism is more revealing than the Four Noble Truths which, not being true, are of pretty dubious nobility. They form the basis of Buddhism, so it's clear from the outset that the Buddhists have whipped up a proprietary version of truth shaped more by market forces than any particular concern for the less consumer-friendly, albeit true, truth. Yes, Buddhism may be spiritually filling, even nourishing, but insofar as truth is concerned, it's junkfood. You can eat it every day of your life and die exactly as Awakened as the day you signed up.

Bait & Switch

Buddhism is a classic bait-and-switch operation. We’re attracted by the enlightenment in the window, but as soon as we’re in the door they start steering us over to the compassion aisle. Buddhists could be honest and change their name to Compassionism, but who wants that? There's the rub. They can’t sell compassion and they can’t deliver enlightenment. This untruth-in-advertising is the kind of game you have to play if you want to stay successful in a business where the customer is always wrong. You can either go out of business honestly, or thrive by giving the people what they want. What they say they want and what they really want, though, are two very different things.

Me Me Me

To the outside observer, much of Buddhist knowledge and practice seems focused on spiritual self-improvement. This, too, is hard to speak against... except within the context of awakening from delusion. Then it's easy. There is no such thing as true self, so any pursuit geared toward its aggrandizement, betterment, upliftment, elevation, evolution, glorification, salvation, etc, is utter folly. How much more so any endeavor undertaken merely to increase one's own happiness or contentment or, I'm embarrassed to even say it, bliss? Self is ego and ego is the realm of the dreamstate. If you want to break free of the dreamstate, you must break free of self, not stroke it to make it purr or groom it for some imagined brighter future.

Maya's House of Enlightenment

The trick with being critical of so esteemed and beloved an institution is not to get dragged down into the morass of details and debate. It's very simple: If Buddhism is about enlightenment, people should be getting enlightened. If it's not about enlightenment, they should change the sign. Of course, Buddhism isn't completely unique in its survival tactics. This same gulf between promise and performance is found in all systems of human spirituality. We're looking at it in Buddhism because that's where it's most pronounced. No disrespect to the Buddha is intended. If there was a Buddha and he was enlightened, then it's Buddhism that insults his memory, not healthy skepticism. Blame the naked emperor's retinue of tailors and lickspittles, not the boy who merely states the obvious. Buddhism is arguably the most elevated of man's great belief systems. If you want to enjoy the many valuable benefits it has to offer, then I wouldn't presume to utter a syllable against it. But if you want to escape from the clutches of Maya, then I suggest you take a very close look at the serene face on all those golden statues to see if it isn't really hers.

-Jed McKenna

"It is apparent that in the not too distant future nature must institute bankruptcy proceedings against industrial civilization, and perhaps against the standing crop of human flesh, just as nature has done many times to other detritus-consuming species following their exuberant expansion in response to the savings deposits their ecosystems had accumulated before they got the opportunity to begin their drawdown".

Catton, 'Overshoot', Page 172

"The world of mechanism is not a manufactory, in which energy iscreated, but rather a mart, into which we may bring energy of one kindand change or barter it for an equivalent of another kind, that suitsus better - but if we come with nothing in hand, with nothing we willmost assuredly return."

[Balfour Stewart, 1883, pp. 26-7; 34]

A definition for loving-kindness and samadhi
ericparoissien

...

an attitude where you let everyone around you believe in the niceynessthat "has to be" found at the heart of each creature ... thusminimizing the risk of being rejected, ignored, misunderstood, takenfor a fool, a madman or a simpleton. Considering that there is no mystery, no beyond, no transcendence, nocore to experience or humankind, thus no hope for evolution (thereforeno dissatisfaction or disillusion) ...at Dante's inferno's gate:"Leave all hope behind you, you who enter here"is a message of freedom .. but inferno for the seeker of truth; surely when nothing i carry or believe is my heart, is taken seriously, each moment takes care of itself. What if Buddha was so enlightenend that he did not need to believe in heavens and afterworlds and tomorrow will be better because of today's effort and meritorious deeds.

Why do all these teachers have to prepare us for something glorious to come, or take us out of an undesirable state in which we are enmuddled. As soon as we had the need/fear, we rushed out to a specialist...

Do we rely on him to tell us to question the need/fear, and how to achieve that? thus entrapping us in his wisdom to tell us how much wedon't need anybody's wisdom to make it on our own. Please don't give us, any more samadhis, trips, thrills, higher states, orgasms, experiences ...WE ARE FINE... all there is to know about the world is contained in one pause. Hey teachers leave those kids alone!

Do I use a fist or a fancy theory to knock down people in my way? It doesn't matter.

Mystery and transcendence is where the lazyness settles of not wanting to be just what is there.

That's the beginning of wisdom - when one can discard a figment of one's imagination and choose better figments.

it reminds me of a story Stephen Gaskin used to tell,
> about how he came to be enlightened. He said he was living
> with a bunch of people and he didn't like any of them. And
> he was kind of wrestling with this, because it was actually
> more than not liking the people in his household, it was
> more like he hated everyone and it was tearing him apart to
> borrow a phrase from James Dean. And he knew this feeling
> was crazy and he needed to come to some sort of resolution
> about it because it was destroying him to have this kind
> of feeling inside of him. And he went and meditated on this
> idea and feeling and eventually saw that having that kind of
> feeling created the foundation for his ground of being and
> everything was being extruded out of that and seeing this
> exploded his mind and he became enlightened, kind of a version
> of who am I? only what is this feeling?

*_* That's interesting.Could you elaborate?

-ok, sure, here's my understanding.

He said that reality ismultidimensional and the key element is the feeling/tone. Thatyou have your own personal one plus if there's more than one person in an area, there's a collective feeling/tone, similarto having an orchestra. A collective vibration. And this is the most important part of beingness. Rather than the thoughts part being the most important. If one can be shown or sees the truth of this, it 'could' cause a shift of consciousness from being anchored in thought, the usual place of anchorage. So, using this new model, attention is routed thru awareness of the energy body at all times to accurately measure the quality of one's thoughts.

GJC: The concept that cuts through the fog of ignorance and secrecy, the concept that allows the student to use Chi with purpose, to cultivate Jing, to develop and "burn" it into form, to become a dynamic self-powered individual is "The Condensing Principle." "The Condensing Process" is one of creating an inner vacuum with Chi, Jing, and Shen all at the same time. It's the process of packing the essence of things into every thought, intention, and action. Here's one basic condensing technique for developing Jing: whatever the posture, on the inhale focus on the body to expand, and at the same time focus on the inhaled Chi to contract, to condense, into the core of the body; then, on the exhale focus on the body to contract, and at the same time focus on the inhaled Chi to expand. On each inhale and exhale there is a simultaneous mental focus to expand and contract. This particular technique does two things: first, it sensitizes you to where you are in space as a physical, material body, and second, it introduces you to the first glimmer of Chi sensation, so much used in later training. This is just step one. As we go on and on, what we're doing is refining this same basic technique to the point where it goes from as gross as the body contracts, to where all the molecules in your body condense into one single atom.
(Gary Clyman)

I just had some fucker come into the gym the other day telling me that this one grandmaster's "chi" is so fucking great that my bones would melt. I'm like get the fuck out before I show you how to break bones the easy way.

--Omega

The perfect man has no self
The spiritual man has no achievement
The sage has no name

- Chuang Tzu

plane has its own illusion, which can be destroyed only by another illusion on the same plane. For example, a man takes a full meal and goes to sleep. He dreams of being hungry in spite of the jagrat food in his stomach. To satisfy the dream hunger, he has to take dream food.

Similarly the illusion of ajnana (ignorance) can be destroyed only by the illusion of guru upadesa (the Master's teaching). Mukti (liberation) is ever present, and bondage is for ever absent, yet the universal experience is the reverse.

- Ramana Maharshi, Thus Spake Ramana

He Sees the Truth

O Rama, he sees the truth who sees the body as a product of deluded understanding and as the fountain-source of misfortune, and who knows that the body is not the Self.
He sees the truth who sees that this body pleasure and pain are experienced on account of the passage of time and the circumstances in which one is placed; and that they do not pertain to him.
He sees the truth who sees that he is the omnipresent infinite consciousness which encompasses within itself all that takes place everywhere at all times.
He sees the truth who knows that the Self, which is as subtle as the millionth part of the tip of a hair divided a million times, pervades everything.
He sees the truth who sees that there is no division at all between the self and the other, and that the one infinite light of consciousness exists as the sole reality.
He sees the truth who sees that the non-dual consciousness which indwells all beings is omnipotent and omnipresent.
He sees the truth who is not deluded into thinking that he is the body which is subject to illness, fear, agitation, old age and death.
He sees the truth who sees that all things are strung together in the Self as beads are strung on a thread, and who knows ‘I am not the mind’.
He sees the truth who sees all beings in the three worlds as his own family, deserving of his sympathy and protection.
He sees the truth who knows that the Self alone exists and that there is no substance in objectivity.
He is unaffected who knows that pleasure, pain, birth, death, etc., are all the Self only.
He is firmly established in the truth who feels: ‘What should I acquire, what should I renounce, when all this is the one Self?’
Salutations to that abode of auspiciousness, who is filled with the supreme realization that the entire universe is truly Brahman alone, which remains unchanged during all the apparent creation, existence and dissolution of the universe.
— Vasistha’s Yoga, translated by Swami Venkatesananda

Do what you feel like doing. Don't bully yourself. Violence will make you hard and rigid. Do not fight with what you take to be obstacles on your way. Just be interested in them, watch them, observe, enquire. Let anything happen - good or bad. But don't let yourself be submerged by what happens.

- Nisargadatta Maharai I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"When girls sense hesitation they get all weirded out and think you're a freak."

The Four Basic Truths of Violent Assault

By Rory A. Miller

I responded to an incident between two inmates. The first inmate was brushing his teeth. The second inmate came up from behind and struck the first on the right side of his head. The tooth brusher tried to turn, but was pressed into the corner, punched again and again with hard rights until he eventually curled into a fetal ball. Blood splashed (not smeared) onto the wall at shoulder height. Do you train for this? Do you respect the power of a sudden attack and a constant barrage?

The attacker broke several bones in his hand and did not know it. Not just the metacarpals of a boxer's fracture either. Also, one of his fingers became deformed. Something he did not realize during the attack. He just kept hitting. He only started complaining of the pain several hours later. Do you ever teach that pain alone will stop a committed attacker? That if you break a bone, it is over? I told the attacker that he was lucky- if the other guy had fallen or hit his head on the wall and suffered more serious injury, he could be looking at some heavier charges. He said, "Nah, I held his head with my other hand so it wouldn't hit the wall. I know how you guys trump up charges and if I'd let him hit the wall you'd try to get me for attempted murder."

Do you and your students realize how rational and how planned a sudden assault can be? It is only sudden for the defender. For the attacker, far too often, it is part of his plan. Do you understand that there is a sub-group of human beings who can savagely beat another human being all the while coolly thinking of their eventual court case? Assaults happen closer, faster, more suddenly, and with more power than most people can understand.

Closer: Most self-defense drills are practiced at an optimum distance where the attacker must take at least a half step to contact. This gives techniques like blocks enough time to have an effect. You rarely have this time or this distance in an assault. Give some thought as to how your technique will work if there is no room to turn or step. Remember that the attacker always chooses the range and location and will pick a place and position that hampers your movements.

Faster: When your martial arts students spar, use a stop watch and count how many blows are thrown in a minute. Even in professional boxing the number is not that impressive. Use the stop watch again, this time counting how many blows you can land on a heavy bag in a single second. Six to eight times per second is reasonable for a decent martial artist. An assault is comparable to that number. Because the threat chooses a time when the victim is off-guard, he can attack all-out with no thought of defense. A competent martial artist, who is used to the more cautious timing of sparring, is completely unprepared for this kind of speed. You can strike ten times a second, but you can’t block ten times a second. More suddenly: An assault is based on the threat’s assessment of his chances. If he cannot use surprise, he often will not attack. Some experts say that there is always some intuitive warning. Possibly, but if the warning was noted and heeded, the attack would have been prevented. When the attack happens, it is always a surprise.

More power: There is a built-in problem with all training - you want to recycle your partners. If you or your students hit as hard as they can every time they hit, you will quickly run out of students. The average criminal does not hit as hard as a good boxer or karateka can hit, but they do hit harder than the average boxer (because of gloves) or karateka has ever felt. More often than not, the first strike in an ambush lands cleanly. Fighting with a concussion is much more different than sparring.

Responses to the Four Basic Truths

There are specific ways to train in order to deal with these truths about assault. You must get used to working from a position of disadvantage. Put yourself and your students in the worst positions you can imagine (face down, under a bench, blindfolded to simulate blood in the eyes or with one arm tied in your belt) and start the training from there. No do-overs. Work from the position you find yourself in. There is no “right” move anyway, just moves that did work or did not work that one time.

Contact-response training: Condition (as in operant conditioning) for a quick, effective response to any unexpected aggressive touch. When properly trained, a counter-attack will kick in before the chemical cocktail of stress hormones does. Contact-response training allows the expected victim to perform one technique at 100% and may give the initiative to the victim instead of the assailant. What is occuring is that through operant conditioning, you can get to near-reflex speed. If that occurs, and the student is trained to counter-attack, the first response will not have the 80% degradation caused by stress hormones therefore the first response can be at 100% skill which can turn the tables.

Train to “flip the switch.” Have your students practice going from friendly, distracted or any other emotion to full-on assault in an instant. Make them play music, converse, fold clothes, write or pour tea as an armored assailant attacks. The key is that the distraction must be natural and relaxed, not the jerky half-preparation of someone who expects an attack. When slow motion training, use realistic time-framing. Do not let the students pretend that “Monkey plucks jade lotus and presents to golden Buddha” is one move and do not let them pretend that a spinning kick is just as fast as a jab.

Get you and your students used to being hit and get used to being touched, especially on the face. For various reasons face contact between adults is loaded with connotations. Accidental face contact almost always results in both students freezing and can cause an outpouring of emotional sludge. Criminals use this by starting with an open-hand attack to the face (called a “bitch slap”) that has paralyzing psychological effects.

Teach common sensitivity. Students must respond to what is happening, not to their expectations or fears. The point is that students in self-defense training often pretend that things that are there (such as weapons on the wall or exits) aren't and that's a bad habit. This isn't about sparring, but about training for violent assault. It's one of the most important things to learn to keep from being stuck trying to make a "dojo solution" work.

Forbid giving up. Winning is a habit. Fighting is a habit. Put your students in positions where they are completely immobilized and helpless and set the expectation to keep fighting.

The Flaw in the Drill

In the end, a martial artist is training to injure, cripple or kill another human being. In any drill where students are not regularly hospitalized there is a DELIBERATE flaw, a deliberate break from the needs of reality introduced in the name of safety. In every drill you teach, you must consciously know what that flaw is and make your students aware of it.

A child on a farm sees a plane fly by overhead and dreams of a faraway place A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of home

- Carl Burns

And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

-Socrates (Plato The Republic Book VII)

Waves appear to be born, and to die.
But if we look more deeply, we see that the waves,
Although coming and going, are also water,
Which is always there.
Notions like high and low, birth and death,
Can be applied to waves,
But water is free of such distinctions.

Enlightenment for the wave
Is the moment the wave realizes that it is water.

- Thich Nhat Hahn

When men dream, each has his own world.
When they are awake, they have a common world.
- Heraclitus

I Have Come to Shine
I have come to pull you by your ear, and bring you to myself.
I will make you selfless, I will make you fearless,
then I will place you in the heart and the soul of the king of Souls.

I have come like a breeze of Spring to you, oh, field of flowers, so I can keep you by my side, and hold you tight.
I have come to shine on you, as you walk this path.
Like the prayer of lovers, I will help you reach the roof of the heavens.
I have come to take back that kiss
that you stole from me.

You are my catch, my game, my prey, my hunt.
You have escaped my trap so far, but run toward that trap once again. Run, run, or I will chase you there.

Remember what the lion said to the deer. "You are so beautiful, you are so lovely run in front of me,so I can catch you and tear you to pieces."

Be like the deer, accept the wounds
like a shield of a warrior. Don't listen to anything but the whooshing of the arrows heading toward you.

From the dust of the Earth to a human being
there are a thousand steps
I have been with you through these steps,
I have held your hand and walked by your side.
You may think that I have left you on the side of the road.
Don't complain, don't become mad, and don't open the lid of the pot.

Boil happily and be patient. Remember what you are being prepared for.

You are a lion's cub, hidden inside a deer's body, with one strike I will wipe that illusion
and rid you of it.

You are my ball, and you roll because of the strike of my polo mallet. Just remember, it is me who is chasing you even though it is me who is helping you run.

- Rumi, from Hush - Don't Say Anything to God - Passionate Poems of Rumi by Shahram Shiva

Your path lies before you. In each moment it is revealed. There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to do. Sit still and be patient; the secret freedom of your heart's true longing will unravel by itself.

- Jon Bernie

Ten years spent mastering Tai Mai Shu kung fu may keep you fit, flexible, and graceful. But just invest ten minutes reading these four tips and you may well save your life if violence ever does erupt.

These are simple ideas, but not common. They are easily implemented and don't require an arsenal of secret weapons to work. Since most people don't plan to be attacked, these ideas don't occur to them until they are remembering the event later and thinking, "GEE! If only I had ... "

TIP #1 - USE YOUR HEAD

First, stay calm and think as the situation develops. As soon as the adrenaline kicks in, everything will seem to happen in slow motion. If you are calm, if you do not panic, your mind will process thoughts so rapidly that it will seem like you have hours to make a decision about how to react.

Second, the human skull is an awesomely powerful weapon. Bashing your forehead into the goon's nose once is tremendously more effective than slamming your fist into his nose twice.
Similarly, ladies, if you are grabbed, bear-hug style from behind, don't waste your time trying to step on his toes, or elbowing his ribs, or kicking your heel up into his groin. It is highly unlikely any of hose moves will do anything besides anger your attacker.

Instead, start trying to bash his face with the back of your head.

All you have to do is connect once or twice with your attacker's face or collarbone and you have delivered some serious damage.

TIP #2 - ALWAYS HAVE A TOOL HANDY

Always, always, always have something easily and quickly accessible to use as a weapon. Note that I did not say, "have a weapon accessible" which is not always practical or advisable.
I mean, if someone surprises you, there should be something instantly accessible to aid in your defense.

It can be a pen,
a set of keys,
a can of vegetables,
an umbrella --
A N Y T H I N G.

If you remember this one absurdly simple rule about weapons fighting, you will see the potential weapon hidden in virtually everything around you AND be able to use it more effectively:
Anything you find that is hard and fast should be aimed at smashing against something made of bone, and anything with a point to it should be aimed at stabbing into soft tissue.

For example, if you found a blunt stick or a can of vegetables you would target bone: Aim this kind of weapon at the face, the skull, hip, shin, elbow, or kneecap.

However, anything hard or blunt would be less effective to use against, say, an attacker's abdomen.

Conversely, something with a point -- a knife or pen for example -- is much more effective when targeting something soft, like the throat, the eyes, crotch, armpit, or belly. If you do strike at something hard, like the kneecap, chances are the point will bounce off without doing any real damage.

Hard goes to bone, Point goes to soft tissue --

It's as simple as that. Remember this rule, and you will never be without an effective weapon again.

TIP #3 - MOVE ALONG A TRIANGLE (a bit of theory)

There is one tip about self-defense that is so important that entire martial arts systems are based upon it.

The tip? Don't get hit!

I mention that, because moving along a triangle goes a long way toward achieving the goal of not getting hit.

One of the most dangerous mistakes the average person makes during a fight is to move in straight lines. They will move in a straight line, either forward and backward, or side to side.
This is also the mistake that will cause the Tai Mai Shu black belt to get his or her butt whooped in very short order out on the street.

Imagine a vertical dividing line along your body, dividing your body into left and right halves. The aggressor is probably going to attack some point along or around that line: your face, your throat, your heart, your groin.

Moving in a straight line backward or forward will change the distance you are from your attacker, but it does not move your centerline out of the attack path.

Moving laterally (left or right) will change the location of your centerline, but it does not change the distance between you and your attacker.

Your attacker has mentally committed to striking at a particular target. His brain has sent the signal to his fist that your face, your throat, your heart, or your groin (the target he intends to hit) is located at a particular distance out there in a particular direction. When you change the target's coordinates, it spoils the effectiveness of the attack.

Your goal is to move that line of your body out of the path of the attack AND change the distance of the target from your attacker.

Your attacker may be able to recover from a change in target location or a change in target distance alone, but changing both factors is your best bet. Then, even if it does connect, the strength of the attack will be greatly diminished.

Moving along an imaginary triangle changes BOTH.

* * *
*
* * *
Imagine standing with both feet on the pointed end of a triangle and facing the bad guy. The other two points of the triangle can either be in front of you or behind you.

Each of the other triangle points are only about one medium-large step away from where you are now. One point is found one step forward and to the left. Then there's another point one step forward and to the right. Behind you one point of the triangle is one step backward and to the left. The other point is one step backward and to the right.

All you have to do is step one foot onto either of the two available triangle points in front of you or behind you. What have you done to the distance to and the location of the attacker's original target?

Bingo! You have changed BOTH your direction, and your distance.

Simply bring your other foot up, and you are now at the starting point of another triangle. Use this concept every time you move and you will continue to confuse your attacker.

TIP #4 - ALWAYS ADVANCE WHEN YOU SHOULD RETREAT

During a fight, as during a game of chess, the experienced player is already planning the second or third move before the first one is ever completed. In fact, many of the experienced fighters' moves are used solely to get the opponent to react in a predetermined manner.

Fight you own instinct and do not back up.


Your instinct is wrong!

For example, imagine I am throwing a flurry of jabs at you. In my mind, I "know" exactly what you are going to do: backpedal to escape my vicious attack.

In fact, I am counting upon you backpedaling into that corner behind you, then I'll pound you into a liquid, right? How surprised am I going to be when you step forward, along your trusty triangle, and not backward?

I would be very surprised because you are not "supposed" to step into a savage attack; You are "supposed" to step away from it.

Look at this scenario. You've just stepped forward along the triangle. While your attacker is busy trying to adjust his thinking to handle this unexpected event you are now inside his defenses. You now have access to his unprotected ribs, armpit, neck, head, abdomen, flank, and knee -- Suddenly YOU have a virtual smorgasbord of targets.

That's when you slip back to using tip #2:

Smash anything HARD against something made of bone,
Strike anything you have with a point at something soft.

All of these tips are simple common sense. If you are smart you'll never have to use them because SMART people never put themselves in situations which may become violent.
As I see it, the goal of your self-defense training is to have the ability to utterly destroy another person, but the foresight to avoid situations where you might have to demonstrate that ability.

“There were no more than 12,000 crusaders that, in July 1099 after a three year campaign, got to camp under the walls of Jerusalem. Their emotion in sighting the sacred city changed into surprise when the presiding Muslim garrison declared to be ready fot an armistice. That garrison wasn’t Turkish but Arab, because the previous year Jerusalem had been retaken from the Selgiuchi by the Fatimidi, who had never confronted the Franchi. But they didn’t accept the offer perhaps because they thought a non-violent negotiation would have ruined their triumph. Therefore they demanded unconditional surrender.

The defenders, about 1000 men, resisted for 40 days. Then they surrendered. A witness present, Raimondo de Agiles, famous for his zeal described the scene as they were beheaded, killed by harrow or thrown from the towers. Others were tortured for days and days and then torched. The streets were strewn with heads, chopped hands and feet.”

"Those marvelous things lasted until the total consummation of the 70 000 citizens of Jerusalem, including the Jews, who were crowded and burned inside the synagogues.
Then the crusaders gathered in the grotto of the Santa Sepolcro that had hosted the remains of Christ, who had come into the world to preach “misericordia”, there they cried joyfully feeling worthy of him.”

--From vol. 7, pg. 112 of Storia D’Italia by MontanelliOn the first crusade year 1099

1852 Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a leader in the fight against slavery wrote:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?

I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Nutritional Stunner

I was struck by the tight relationship between diabetes and soda drinks described in a recent media report of a medical study. It was found the likelihood of diabetes increased by 73% with the consumption of just one soda drink a day. Apparently this is one study in which products like Coke or Pepsi don’t stand out; the large quantity of various sugars in all soda drinks, including the natural products, levels the playing field in the diabetes game. You may already know diabetes is the fastest growing disease in the country and, in the most pessimistic estimates, will result in 1 out of 2 to 3 persons’ affliction with it in only a few years if the current lifestyle of eating/snacking and exercise continues.

Believe me, you do not want to be in that game. Most who are, die, because they feel so discouraged by the presence and persistence—everywhere in their body—of this disease, that they just don’t take good enough care of themselves to survive. And up until the time they die, the cause labeled “kidney failure” or “heart disease” or “stroke” that is really a side effect of the diabetes, their life turns in its spin offs—surprises of fatigue, difficulties with weight, onsets of metabolically driven depression and, I think for many the most heavy is the feeling they are outside the freedom and sweetness of life looking in. Although all this—and much, much, much more—doesn’t have to be so in diabetes, I can tell you that for every 50 persons I have met with it maybe 1 is flourishing free of this basement description. Develop a love affair with good water and leave sodas with your past!

Matt.13

[44] Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field;
the which when a man hath found,
he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath,
and buyeth that field.

For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

~ W. H. Auden ~

about Giannfranco Pace (Chen taiji master from Italy)

"Then In December I had the opportunity to do a one-day workshop with Master Gianfranco Pace, a visiting Chen-style master from Italy who came to demonstrate and work with people. He had a rare touch that really reminded me of Sifu Chung, an ability to absorb any energy directed at him without giving way, the power to move you effortlessly. He was remarkable.I never went back.During the workshop I just kept putting myself in his shoes, imagining myself with the kind of power he had, and realizing that I did not want to spend years of my life learning how to injure people. Which is what it amounts to. The skill with which that man could hurt others effortlessly was astonishing, and frightening."

-David

"The greatest example of softness I've ever seen in Chen Style was demonstrated by Feng Zhiqiang, a famous student of Chen Fake. In 1982, Feng demonstrated his art with other Taiji masters outside of Shanghai in Jading. Feng's power was unbelievably concealed within the softness and resiliency of his joints. When he moved, the ground shook with what seemed like both primary and secondary seismic waves. (He gathered energy and used circulation not emission.) His body appeared to me to be as soft as jelly on the outside and as hard as a diamond on the inside. However, when a Chen family member, who also demonstrated in Jading that year moved, you it could see the force move and easily observe its origins. A definite difference in level and skill could be deduced. Feng Zhiqiang went on to demonstrate push hands and a variety of techniques with such deftness and softness, the power in what he did was clear. The reputation of Chen Style was enormously enhanced among the Taijiquan masters that were there for the demonstration. The one thing that is easy for the initiated to see is Feng's ability to extend and collapse his joints, especially the elbow, without the opponent being able to sense or detect Feng's sophisticated force. (This would not be the case if Feng moved from the waist first and shook in the way that some so-called master Chen Stylists do.)"

Turner had been meditating, by his own estimation, since he was three years old and had always felt isolated from others and unsure of his place in the world because of his inward-directed and deeply spiritual nature. In the presence of Nomura Roshi, who had just arrived from Japan the day before, Turner received instant confirmation of his own experience and promptly accepted him as his teacher. "After being initiated into the way of zazen [meditation] by the Master," he writes, "I continued to practice martial arts and do shikantaza [formless meditation] as if there were no relationship between the two. Imagine how surprised I was when one day as I sat in meditation there was a melting away of barriers, a blaze of light, and I immediately understood the secret of self-defense from the inside out. There was no mystery. When I arose from my seat, I felt as if everything was clear to me." With virtually no formal training in the martial arts, the youthful Vernon Turner had apparently—in "a blaze of light"—become a master.

Speaking of which, his gift offers a few side benefits, Adam says. "Inbasketball, when someone's going to pass the ball, there's a spike in theiraura. It only happens a split second before they pass, but that's enough togive you a bit of an advantage. I get a lot of interceptions that way."

"I had once talked to Billy Conn, the boxer, about professionals versus amateurs - specifically street fighters. One had always heard rumors of champions being taken out by back-alley fighters. Conn was scornful. "Aw, it's like hitting a girl," he said. "They're nothing."

- George Plimpton"Shadow Box"

"So-called solid reality is only crystallized dream. It can be undreamed. There is nothing stronger than dream, because dreams are forms of THE LAW."

-William S. Burroughs

Those of use who think that death is an evil are in error . . . . Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things:--either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. . . . Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is a journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? . . . What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. . . . Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. . . .

-Socrates

"the meaning of jutaijutsu" as Soke was presenting it :

1) Nothing you do should require any more physical "effort" than it takes to merely move your body through empty space without a training partner or opponent;

You Are That Which Never Moves

One day Bhagavan was looking at me intently and said: "It looks as if you are still hankering after meditation."

I replied: "What have I got except endless work in the kitchen?"

Bhagavan said with deep feeling:
"Your hands may do the work but your mind can remain still. You are that which never moves. Realize that and you will find that work is not a strain.

But as long as you think that you are the body and that the work is done by you, you will feel your life to be an endless toil.

In fact it is the mind that toils, not the body. Even if your body keeps quiet, will your mind keep quiet too? Even in sleep the mind is busy with its dreams."

I replied : "Yes, Swami, it is as natural for you to know that you are not your body as it is for us to think that we are the body....Why can't I remember always that I am not the body?"

"Because you haven't had enough of it."

He smiled.

Since everything is but an apparition,
perfect in being what it is,
having nothing to do with good or bad,
acceptance or rejection;
one may well burst out in laughter.

- Longchenpa

"Witnesses reported seeing the Daudi's mother carry him outside to a nearby bench, where paramedics were able to briefly revive him. But the child died about 5 p.m. at Celebration Hospital. "

Here's the kicker... He would likely have been fine to stay with his mom after being revived. But I bet they rushed him to the Hospital and promptly needled him up and started pumping crap into him. Every time I see someone admitted to the medical industry they do this. Stick needles in them and pump them up with crap.

Here, have a little trauma with your trauma...

[Listserv comment about 4 year old child who died after Disney Epcot Center space ride]

When people of this age think about knowledge worth saving, they usually think about belief in the Cartesian mechanical philosophy, that dead matter is the basis of reality, and about techniques for rebuilding and using machines that dominate and separate us from other life.

I'd like that knowledge to die forever, but I don't think it works that way. Humans or any other hyper-malleable animal will always be tempted by the Black Arts, by techniques that trade subtle harm for flashy good and feed back into themselves, seducing us into power, corruption, and blindness.Our descendants will need the intellectual artifacts to avoid this -- artifacts we have barely started to develop even as the Great Bad Example begins to fall.

In 200 years, when they are brushing seeds into baskets with their fingers, and a stranger appears with a new threshing machine that will do the same thing with less time and effort, they will need to say something smarter than "the Gods forbid it" or "that is not our Way." They will need the knowledge to say something like:

"Your machine requires the seed to be planted alone and not interspersed with perennials that maintain nitrogen and mineral balance in the soil. And from where will the metal come, and how many trees must be cut down and burned to melt and shape it? And since we cannot build the machine, shall we be dependent on the machine-builders, and give them a portion of our food, which we now keep all for ourselves? Do you not know, clever stranger, that when any biomass is removed from the land, and not recycled back into it, the soil is weakened? And what could we do with our "saved" time, that would be more valuable and pleasurable than gathering the seed by hand, touching and knowing every stalk and every inch of the land that feeds us? Shall we become allies of cold metal that cuts without feeling, turning our hands and eyes to the study of machines and numbers until, severed from the Earth, we nearly destroy it as our ancestors did, making depleted uranium and polychlorinated biphenyls and cadmium batteries that even now make the old cities unfit for living? Go back to your people, and tell them, if they come to conquer us with their machines, we will fight them in ways the Arawaks and Seminoles and Lakota and Hopi and Nez Perce never imagined, because we understand your world better than you do yourself. Tell your people to come to learn."

Ultimate Ki workout set:

1. Nishino Breathing Method - 1 or 2 reps.
2. CXW style of 1-hand basic Silk Reeling - few minutes each side
3. Systema drill: pushup start position (fully "up"), static hold for 5 minutes.
4. TienShanPai/Shaolin: lunge-step gentle bounces, 30 each side.
5. Silk Reeling low circular sidekicks: a few each side.
6. Wall handstand static hold: 10 or so breaths.

Optional if time permits:
Ravi Singh's 'navel power' - 1st half of the set (about 1 dozen exercises, minus Singh's chants and meditations)

"The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth."

Aldous Huxley 'Brave New World'

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."

- Voltaire

If the heart is pure, you are put to use.

Ordinary people have been revolving in circles since time immemorial, being born and dying. Because of clinging fixedly to self-images, false ideas, and misperceptions, the habits of illusion eventually become second nature to them. Even if they suddenly awaken in this life and realize that their essential nature is fundamentally empty and silent, no different from the Buddhas, nevertheless past habits are difficult to remove all at once.

- Master Chinul (1158-1210)

"As soon as you look at the world through an ideologyyou are finished.

No reality fits ideology.

Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life. But life has no meaning; it cannot have meaning because meaning is a formula; meaning is something that makes sense to the mind. Every time you make sense out of reality, you bump into something that destroys the sense you made. Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind"

.Anthony de Mello, SJ

Leonard Cohen's poem

"There is
something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man (or woman)
setting the universe in order..."

PENTECOST

Unless the eye catch fire,
God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire,
God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire,
God will not be named.
Unless the heart catch fire,
God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire,
God will not be known.

~ William Blake

The Little Vagabond

Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,
But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in Heaven will never do well.
But if at the Church they would give us some Ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
119
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day,
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.
Then the Parson might preach, & drink, & sing,
And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at Church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.
And God, like a father rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel,
But kiss him, & give him both drink and apparel.

-William Blake, Songs of Experience

Down some cold field in a world unspoken
the young men are walking together, slim and tall,
and though they laugh to one another, silence is not broken;
there is no sound however clear they call.

They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here,
but the air is too thin to carry the things they say.
They were young and golden, but they came on pain here,
and their youth is age now, their gold is grey.

Yet their hearts are not changed, and they cry to one another,
'What have they done with the lives we laid aside?
Are they young with our youth, gold with our gold, my brother?
Do they smile in the face of death, because we died?'

Down some cold field in a world uncharted
the young seek each other with questioning eyes.
They question each other, the young, the golden hearted,
of the world that they were robbed of in their quiet paradise.

Humbert Wolfe, Requiem: The Soldier (1916)

H.Sapiens violated the
first law of a successful parasite, moderation.
===================================
After I'm dead, I
don't really care what happens to the human race. The only way a massive
die-off might affect me after I'm dead is to drive up the price of real
estate in Heaven-or Hell. I'm sure both places will be booked solid until
the powers that be find another planet on which humans can run amok.
===================================
Book: Century's End- "We now know that the idea of the future as a
'better world' was a fallacy of the doctrine of progress." German novelist
Thomas Mann, 1938
===================================
I do not believe that people will stop using technology until the
system completely breaks down.
===================================
One reason I keep hanging on to life's cross of iron
is because I have an apocalyptic vision of a world laid to waste. I pray to
God that I live to see it! No matter how the world ends, it will be a
surprise. One day mankind may be hovering on the irrevocable brink of
nuclear war, with everyone thinking that this will be our common end, only
for everyone to be smashed out of existence at the eleventh hour by a stray
asteroid. No matter what the end, it will arrive accompanied by a load of
irony. I think mankind's end will occur as suddenly as a heart attack.
Everything will appear just as it always has until the blade suddenly
drops.
===================================
"The word "paranoid" is designed to make people not like it. There
is an implicit assumption that there's nothing to be paranoid about. In
fact, in a very dynamic and unsteady universe, paranoia may well be a true
sensitivity to the facts of the matter." -Terrence McKenna
===================================
Book: Cambodia: a book for people who find television too slow,
by Brian Fawcett.
===================================
"In Buddhist writings, mention is often made of "the abyss of birth". An
abyss indeed, a gulf into which we do not fall but from which, instead, we
emerge, to our universal chagrin."
===================================
"When they made a desert, they called it peace." -Tacitus
===================================
"Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the
rafters of which are rotten and worm eaten, and those who embark on them
are fated to be shipwrecked." -Buddha
===================================
"For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as
though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things
that seem than by those that are." -Machiavelli
===================================
* In medicine as in life, until the mind has been prepared to see
something, it will pass unnoticed, as invisible as if it did not exist.
-Ovid, ancient Roman poet.
===================================
* Do you not see how necessary a world of pain and trouble is to school an
intelligence and make it a soul? -John Keats, Letters
===================================
* The mad mind does not halt. If it halts, it is enlightenment.
-Chinese Zen Saying
===================================
* To see truth, contemplate all phenomena as a lie. -Thaganapa
===================================
* Our reason has driven all away. Alone at last, we end up by ruling over a
desert.
-Albert Camus
===================================
You dream you are the doer,
You dream that action is done.
You dream that action bears fruit.
It is your ignorance, it is the world's
delusion that gives you these Dreams.
-Bhagavad Gita
===================================
*"Paradoxically as it may seem, modern industrial society, in spite of an
incredible proliferation of labor-saving devices, has not given people more
time to devote to their all-important spiritual tasks; it has made it
exceedingly difficult for anyone, except the most determined, to find any
time whatever for these tasks." -E.F. Schumacher

Life is like being a skydiver without a parachute. At birth, we aredropped into the Void. At first, we scream in terror, but by and by, werealize that we're not going to die-just yet. So we settle down to thebusiness of living as well as we can in the interim, until the groundfinally comes rushing up to greet us.

http://www.pd.org/topos/perforations/perf8/bigdeath2.html

There is no greater mystery than this -
that being the Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.
We think that there is something binding our reality and
that it must be destroyed before the reality is gained.

It is ridiculous!

A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your effort.
That which is on the day of laughter is also now.

Ramana Maharshi

The year is 1877, southern Wisconsin"...

Dave was 37 years old, and his Whitehall homestead was running smoothly. That year he’d broken 15 acres of virgin prairie land. Number 1 Eureka wheat was sell ing for $1.57 the bushel. The new Baptist church, he reports, was attracting “a goodly attendance.”

Wife Mary’s chronic headaches had virtually disappeared. Sons Archie, age 13, and Jim, 10, were old enough now to help out with chores. Little daughters Kippy, 7, and Alta, 2, were healthy and lively kids, the apples of their father’s eye.Then, on Sept. 11, the day Holcomb’s threshing rig rolled into the yard, Dave reports that “Alta has signs of Diptheria to day.”

Succeeding entries give ample ev idence that life on that prairie frontier wasn’t all barn raisings, spelling bees and socials on the church lawn:

“Sept. 14—Alta has been better to day and played some.“

Sept. 15—Thrashed to day. 810 Bushels of oats & 150 bus. wheat. Alta is quite sick to night.“

Sunday, Sept. 16—did not go to (church) meeting to day . . . Alta is quite sick. Kippy is sick to day with sore throat.“
Sept. 17—Alta is very sick & it is likely to be a hard case for her.

“Sept. 18—-Thrashing to day. have not been near the machine. Was up all night with Alta poor Girl how she suffered till this morn, when death came to relieve her & leave us only sad hearts & the memory of her. Kippy quite sick allready.

“Sept. 19—little Alta was burned to day. We shall see her no more in this world but hope to in the better land. Kip is verry sick.

“Sept. 20—Kip had a verry bad day of it

“Sept. 21—Kip seems some better this mor. but has been bleeding at the nose. . . got Kip nose to stop bleeding

“Sept. 22—Kip seems to be better to day.

“Sunday, Sept. 23—Kip is very low,, but we have hope that she will recover

“Sept. 24—We are in care & sick ness & Trouble but hope God will sustain us in trial & affliction

“Sept. 25—Kippy is some better &, we hope to have her spared to us by the Master. Still she is weak & feverish.

“Sept. 26—Kip is quiet but weak & nervous, took wheat to town. Paid for a doll for Kip $.50

“Sept. 27—Kip is weak & low

“Sept. 28—Kip is some weaker to day & her pulse is low so we are giving her China (quinine)

“Sunday, Sept. 30—Kippy much the same she has no appetite yet. Archie came down with Diptheria this mor[ning].

“Oct. 1—Hazy & damp. Jim came down with Diptheria this mor. Archie is quite bad. Poor Kip is low & weak so that we have to give her China to keep her up. Will (the hired man) went to Independence & got a bottle of Brandy to bathe Kip with to night. Cost $1.25

“Oct. 2—Kip is growing weaker to day. the stimulants give her a nervous life & raise her pulse some. the boys are quite sick still we have hope

“Oct. 3—little Kip parted from us at six 0 clock this mor. Archies throat seems a little softer. Jim rather drowsy. how our poor hearts ache with sorrow but we can only trust in god & pray that he will direct us & give us strength to bear to trust in him.

“Oct. 4—fair cold & blustery. we buried little Kip to day & so we see our hopes & Joys fade & vanish away. yet God will be ever by the side of those who Trust in him. Will plowed to day.”

And so it went. Archie and Jim pulled through that autumn nightmare, went on to keep their own taciturn diaries, to get educations, to make peace (Archie) and war (Jim) with their Maker, to get married and to lead productive lives.

But Alta and Kippy never got to school, never learned to read and write, never were baptized in the muddy waters of the Trempealeau River, never met a beau at the annual Methodist ice-cream social and never discovered what it was like to stand by as a helpless adult and see one’s “hopes and Joy fade & vanish away.”..."

Ultimate Ki workout routine:

1. Spiral energy exercises / Chan si gong: of Chen style taijiquan, follow the version of this taught by Chen Xiaoxing and Chen Xiaowang, not other versions.

2. Abdomen/spine work based on kundalini yoga. Best known to me is "Navel Power" by Ravi Singh. Cheesy presentaiton but very effective. You only need to do the first half, about up to the first standing posture, and the meditation/chanting stuff and also be skipped. Any other yoga-oriented abdomen/spine strength/flexibility routine could be used instead.

3. Strength work: bodyweight stuff is simplest and best. For example I use: Hindu pushups; reverse pushups; gynmastics tuck planche (static hold); gymnastics L-sit (on fists, static hold), and wall handstand pushups or partial dips.

4. Cardio: jump rope in intervals (high intensitiy interval training style).

Key to all the above is the "chan si gong" as that is the best engine of ki generation known to me after practicing dozens of styles and methods over decades.

The strength and other stuff is only there to help build a strong physical platform for the ki, in an efficient and pleasant way.

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three
requirements for happiness, though if stupidity islacking, all is lost."

--Gustave Flaubert

These are some guidelines the Monk Ryokan wrote down for himself.

Ryokan's Precepts of Right Speech

Take care not to:

talk too much
talk too fast
talk without being asked to
talk gratuitously
talk with your hands
talk about worldly affairs
talk back rudely
argue
smile condescendingly at others' words
use elegant expressions
boast
avoid speaking directly
speak with a knowing air
jump from topic to topic
use fancy words
speak of past events that cannot be changed
speak like a pedant
avoid direct questions
speak ill of others
speak grandly of enlightenment
carry on while drunk
speak in an obnoxious manner
yell at children
make up fantastic stories
speak while angry
name-drop
ignore the people to whom you are speaking
speak sanctimoniously of gods and buddhas
use sugary speech
use flattering speech
speak of things of which you have no knowledge
monopolize conversations
talk about others behind their backs
speak with conceit
bad-mouth others
chant prayers ostentatiously
complain about the amount of alms
give long-winded sermons
speak affectedly like a tea master

—Ryokan (1758-1831)

Theory and Practice

Whichever path one follows, the thing is to follow it,not to argue about it.

A Christian priest once toldBhagavan that he considered the goal of mystic unionenvisaged by Christians to be different from the Hindugoal of moksha[liberation] and superior to it, and Bhagavan replied,"All right, attain that first and then see whether youstill find any difference or anything to criticize".

That was always his reply - to turn the critic fromtheory to practice. Argument did not interest him,only understanding and sincere effort.

Divorce, American Style

The Daily Reckoning

Baltimore, Maryland

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

---------------------

It's all sex and lies.

Everything. The debt bubble. The real estate bubble. The trade deficit
bubble.

Why is there a $600 billion trade deficit? Because Americans want to buy
things they can't afford. Why do they buy things they can't afford? To
pretend to be richer than they are. Why do they want to be appear richer
than they are? Because it gives them higher social status. Why do they want
higher about social status? So they will have better access to the opposite
sex.

We are back in the United States after an absence of several months.
Suddenly, the roads are crowded with Hummers. Why would anyone want to drive
around in a big, awkward, ugly, expensive car when a small, cheap one would
get him where he was going just as well?

Because they want to "maximize their inclusive fitness" say scientists. They
want as many of their genes floating around the gene pool as possible. The
Hummer is like long, bright tail feathers on a bird. Or a big rack of
antlers on a deer. From a utilitarian point of view, they are worthless.
Worse than worthless, as a matter of fact. They increase the risk that
rivals and predators will notice the animal. They take energy to carry
around. And they slow the animal down, making it hard for him to maneuver in
a fight or to get away.

The huge cars are only useful, near as anyone who thinks about such matters
can figure, as conspicuous consumption; they wink to the opposite sex that
the animal is game for a little hanky-panky. If he can carry around all that
extra baggage and still survive, he must be tough. So, too, if a person can
live in a McMansion and drive a Hummer without going bankrupt, he must be a
good prospect for a date.

But it's all relative. If everybody on the block buys a Hummer and puts in a
swimming pool, the man who has those things already loses his edge. He has
to spend even more - bringing himself even closer to bankruptcy - in order
to show off. What can he do? Write poetry and put a feminist bumper sticker
on his old Hummer?

"Forget sensitivity," said a woman over dinner last night. "The man must
show that he's capable... that he's strong... that he knows what he's
doing."

"Yeah," said a divorced friend who has been studying dating strategies, "you
have to be 'the man with the plan.' You signal to the woman that you've got
it figured out... that your time is valuable... and that, if she wants to
hook up with you, she can to so, but
only on your terms. What you don't want to do is to take her out on a date
and spend a lot of money on her. You have to show that you have a lot of
money, but you don't want to give her the impression that she'll be in
charge of how it is spent. That would start the relationship off on the
wrong foot."

Women aren't stupid, of course. They know you can move into a McMansion with
no money down and no money anywhere else. They know you can lease a Hummer
and buy an Armani suit with credit cards. They try to find out if the man
really has money or not. It is the
beginning of the battle between the sexes. The man tries to deceive the
woman about his fitness for procreation. The woman tries to detect the
deception, while deceiving him - with make-up and various artifices - about
her own attractiveness. The poor man has to show more and more evidence that
he's really the one with the large rack and the bright feathers. He has to
take on more and more expensive burdens. Second and third houses... European
vacations... a home theatre... cosmetic surgery. The schmuck needs to spend,
spend, spend - or he's going to be spending his nights alone.

You might say that a "smart" woman would see her way through the foolishness
of it all and prefer a man with no desire to show off - maybe a good, solid
schoolteacher who cares about the environment and drives an old Pinto. But
if she mates with such a man, she dooms her offspring, say the scientists,
for the man is likely to father sons much like himself - men who are only
attractive to smart women. How many of them are there? Her own genes will
find fewer opportunities for reproductive success, in other words... And
what's so smart about that?

In order to spread her genes as widely as possible, a woman needs offspring,
particularly males, who are "high ranking," - that is, those who can carry
around gaudy expenses without going broke. Her best strategy is to make with
a high ranking male. Her good fortune would be to have many sons with him -
high ranking boys who would find many mates of their own. And for that she
must make herself as desirable to him as possible. This, too, begins with
deception and often ends in disappointment. She must spend much of her
time and money as though she were a candidate for public office - that is,
deceiving people about what she is. The scientists call it "impression
management." She must appear high ranking - by wearing expensive clothes
instead of cheap ones... by driving an expensive car, rather than a cheap
one... by living at an expensive address... eating in expensive
restaurants... going on expensive vacations and sporting expensive jewelry.
She must also appear as physically attractive as possible. Remember, it's
all about sex.

Meanwhile, driven by these ancient impulses to sexual reproduction... and
chauffeured by the Fed... Americans arrive at the cusp of bankruptcy.

We evolved to lie to ourselves because it makes us better at lying to
others. Read Wright's THE MORAL ANIMAL.

People like Gandhi or Gates will use any excuse that works to gain social
power (the actual content of their phlisophy is irrelevant). Why? Because
gaining social power tended to increase fitness in the past.

Here are some other folks who got it right:

"In the first place, I put forth a general inclination of all mankind a
perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in
death." -- Thomas Hobbes

"The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie." -- Joseph Schumpeter,
1942

"Wherever men hold unequal power in society, they will strive to maintain
it. They will use whatever means are convenient to that end and will seek to
justify them by the most plausible arguments they are able to devise." --
Reinhold Neibuhr

"In fact, telling primates (human or otherwise) that their reasoning
architectures evolved in large part to solve problems of dominance is a
little like telling fish that their gills evolved in large part to solve the
problem of oxygen intake from water." -- Denise Dellarosa Cummins

Jay

Bhagavan:

Silence is of four kinds: silence of speech, silence of the eye, silence of the ear, and silence of the mind. Only the last is pure silence, and it is the most important.

~ While God sustains the burden of the world, the spurious ego assumes its burden, grimacing like an image on a tower seeming to support it. If the traveller in a carriage which can carry any weight does not lay his luggage down but carries it painfully on his head, whose is the fault? - Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham, verse 17:

~Whatever happens, let it happen; whatever does not happen, Let it not happen.” A mind with this attitude will be well established in the Self.

from: 'Padamalai' by Muruganar, Edited by David Godman.

Recent finding conducted by author have concluded all humans suffer from Bi-polar Disorder. Range is extensive and subject to daily conditions such as weather, degreee of success in the achievement of any desired obect, condition, person, place or thing, bio-rhythms, ad nauseum.

Location: land of wind and ghosts.

"I do not see how one can surrender to suffering."

Forget about surrender for a moment. When your pain is deep, all talk of surrender will probably seem futile and meaningless anyway. When your pain is deep, you will likely have a strong urge to escape from it rather than surrender to it. You don't want to feel what you feel. What could be more normal? But there is no escape, no way out. When there is no way out, there is still always a way through.

So don't turn away from pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it -- don't think about it! Express it if necessary, but don't create a script in your mind around it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event or situation that seems to have caused it. Don't let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert.

At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don't act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present -- present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.

- Eckhart Tolle

It would make for one hell of a story to leave for the history books. And why are we even here if not to write history and entertain our descendents.

-Viper

The Art of Nothing

Thomas J. Elpel

Westerners who first met the Shoshonean bands of Indians in the Great Basin Desert typically described them as being "wretched and lazy". Many observers remarked that they lived in a total wasteland and yet seemed to do nothing to improve their situation. They built no houses or villages; they had few tools or possessions, almost no art, and they stored little food. It seemed that all they did was sit around and do nothing.The Shoshone were true hunter-gatherers. They spent their lives walking from one food source to another. The reason they did not build houses was because houses were useless to them in their nomadic lifestyle. Everything they owned they carried on their backs from place to place. They did not manufacture a lot of tools or possessions or art, because it would have been a burden to carry.We often expect that such primitive cultures as the Shoshone must have worked all the time just to stay alive, but in actuality these were generally very leisured peoples.

Anthropological studies in different parts of the world have indicated that nomadic hunter-gatherer type societies typically worked only two or three hours per day for their subsistence. Like the deer and other creatures of the wild, hunter-gatherer peoples have nothing more to do than to wander and eat.The Shoshone had a lot of time on their hands only because they produced almost no material culture. They were not being lazy; they were just being economical. Sitting around doing nothing for hours on end helped them to conserve precious calories of energy, so they would not have to harvest so many calories each day to feed themselves.

Today many of us westerners find ourselves fascinated with these simple cultures, and a few of us really dive into it to reproduce or recreate the primitive lifestyle. In our typical western zeal we get right into it and produce, produce, produce. We work ambitiously to learn each primitive craft, and we produce all kinds of primitive clothing, tools, containers, and art, and just plain stuff. True hunter-gatherer cultures carried all their possessions on their backs, but us modern primitives soon find that we need a pickup truck just to move camp! In our effort to recreate the primitive lifestyle we find that we have ironically missed our mark completely-- that we have made many primitive things, but that we have not begun to grasp the true nature of a primitive culture. To truly grasp that essence requires that we let go, and begin to understand the art of doing nothing.

Understanding the art of nothing is a somewhat challenging concept for us westerners. When we go on a "primitive" camping trip, we take our western preconceptions with us. We find a level spot in a meadow to build our shelters, and if a site is not level then we make it so. Then we gather materials and start from scratch, building the walls and roof of a shelter. We do what we are accustomed to; we build a frame house on a surveyed plot in the meadow. Then we gather materials and shingle our shelter, regardless of whether or not there is a cloud in the sky, or whether or not it has rained at all in a month.

Part of the reason we act this way stems from our cultural upbringing. Another part of it is simply because it is easier for those of us who are instructors to teach something rather than to teach nothing. It is much easier to teach how to make something than to teach how not to need to make anything. The do-something approach to primitive skills is to make everything you need, while the do-nothing method is to find everything.For example, the do-nothing method of shelter is to find shelter, rather than to build it. Two hours spent searching for a partial shelter that can be improved upon can easily save you two hours of hard-working construction time, and you will usually get a better shelter this way. More so, the do-nothing method of shelter is to look first at the incoming weather, and to build only what is needed. If it is not going to rain then you may be able to do-nothing to rain-proof your shelter. Then perhaps you will only need to put your efforts into a shelter that will keep you warm, instead of both warm and dry.

There are many things, both small and large, that a person can do, or not do, to better the art of doing nothing. This can be as simple as cupping one's hands to drink from the stream, instead of making and carrying a cup, to breaking sticks to find a sharpened point, rather than using a knife to methodically carve out a digging stick. Hand carved wooden spoons and forks are do-something utensils that you have to manufacture, carry, and worst, that you have to clean. But chopsticks (twigs) are do-nothing utensils that do not need to be manufactured or carried, and you can toss them in the fire when you are done.Henry David Thoreau wrote of having a rock for a paperweight at his cabin by Walden pond. He threw it out when he discovered he had to dust it. This is the very essence of a do-nothing attitude. The do-nothing approach to primitive skills is something that you do. Doing nothing is a way of saving time and energy, so that you can finish your daily work more effectively. One thing that I have found through the years of experimental research into primitive skills, is that there is rarely enough hours in a day to complete all of a day's tasks. It is difficult to go out and build a shelter, make a working bowdrill set, set traps, dig roots, make bowls and spoons, and cook dinner. Hunter-gatherer societies succeeded in working only two to three hours per day, yet in our efforts to reproduce their lifestyle we end up working all day.

Doing nothing is an approach to research; it is a way of thinking and doing. For instance, I do a lot of timed studies of various primitive skills: i.e.: how long does it take to construct a particular shelter? How much of a particular food resource can I harvest per hour? Can I increase the harvest using different gathering techniques? One thing I have noted is that it is only marginally economical to manufacture common primitive deadfall traps. It is time intensive; it adds weight to carry, and the traps often have short life-spans. The do-nothing alternative is to use whatever is at hand, to pick up sticks and assemble them into a trap, without even using a knife. Preliminary tests of this "no-method" have produced results equal to conventional, carved and manufactured traps, but with a much smaller investment of time.Primitive hunter-gatherer type cultures were very good at doing nothing. Exactly how well they did this is difficult to determine, however, because doing nothing leaves nothing behind for the archaeological record. Every time we find an artifact we have documentation of something they did; yet the most important part of their skills may have been what they did not, and there is no way to discover what that was by studying what they did.

Nevertheless, what you will discover for yourself, as you learn the art of doing nothing is that you are much more at home in the wilderness. No longer will you be so dependent on a lot of tools and gadgets; no longer will you need to shape the elements of nature to fit our western definitions. You will find you need less and less, until one day you find you need nothing at all. Then you will have the time on your hands so that you can choose to do nothing, or even to go do something.

(Thomas J. Elpel is the director of Hollowtop Outdoor Primitive School in Pony Montana)