I’ve started a new, focused blog project. You can check out the site here. I’ve also added a link to the site in my blog roll. The name is a twist on a T’ai Chi move; “Embrace Tiger, Return To Mountain.” I’ve had the intention for a while now to tell the story of my personal “battle of the bulge”, and the repair of my relationship with the kitchen.
Looks like I finally started. 
Take a gander and tell me what you think.
Cheers!
Cross post from my Embrace Tiger, Return to Kitchen website.
On the mat I had a small epiphany concerning why I love Aikido. In a nutshell – I don’t get it. After 13 years of training I can honestly say I don’t get it. I understand some of the principles, a good number of angles, the basics of technique and falling. I am confident that “wearing” my Yondan (4th degree black belt) is justified. But, still I don’t get it. Every class I see something that puzzles me, something new, something to learn. This is not a case of “return to beginner’s mind.” Rather, it’s a case of “never left beginner’s mind!” I am always learning in, and about, Aikido.
You can read the rest here.
Cheers!
Robert Anton Wilson is one of my favorite authors, social commentators, and American mystics. His writing always manages to entertain, inform, and illuminate my gray matter. In the first chapter of Prometheus Rising
Using that essay as a jump off point I would like to talk about a practice I have been engaged in over the last year, namely: Living a disproved life.
Wilson shows that we go through our lives amidst a sort of self-reinforcing feedback loop. We hold certain thoughts/opinions and then filter out those phenomenon which stand at odds with our convictions while focusing on those experiences which reinforce our beliefs.
The result is a vicious circle of self-perpetuating mental fortifications which cut us off from a clean view of any reality-possibility which lies outside of that parameter. This makes it very easy to grow ever more stuck in our mental ruts, and ever more difficult to interact with (or perceive) that which is outside of those ruts.
My father has this lovely habit of asking people for clarifications. When he doesn’t understand what someone meant, he has no bones of cutting in with, “Hold on. I think you meant X, when you said Y. Or, did you mean Z?” Once the person has clarified their point he’ll thank them with an, “Okay, good. Got it. Thanks.” and then he’ll eagerly prompt the person to continue.
To me this is a habitual questioning of the Prover. For the last couple of years I have tried to build the habit of putting the Prover aside consciously from time to time (when it occurs to me to do so) and to keep the volume on the internal Prover-voice as low as possible. Like with any habit it has been slow going, but the changes have been remarkable for me, and I think a little noticeable to others. In any event it has reduced my self generating stress by letting me spend less energy in trying to find ways that I am right.
(DISCLAIMER: It has been a sloooooooow process. )
One of the main distinctions of the spiritual practice I follow (atma vichara) is that anything said (either internally or externally) in regards to you is something said about you. If you say to yourself that you are stubborn, that is not a pointer to you but a commentary about you. These things are characteristics, not inherent to you. Your stubbornness is not what you are, it’s a way in which you show up in the world, a habit, a characteristic behavior.
Looking at Wilson’s point we can see that we self apply the Thinker-Prover mechanism. We come to believe that we are the things said about us (either by other, or ourselves.) None of that’s true, it’s just commentary.
So, I think that living a disproved life is an effective way of letting more of what we truly are shine through, and I aim to prove it.
Cheers!
On Enlightenment: an interview with Shinzen Young. Check it out. It’s very extensive, and an interesting read in the realm of “enlightenment theory” talk.
Here’s an excerpt I find personally terribly exciting:
I always think of myself as a coach. A coach can show you how to do things and give you tips. You know, you should hold the ball a little different. You’re raising your knees a little bit too high as you’re running, etc. A coach knows a gazillion minute specifics that taken together create a quality performance. So I know numerous little trim-tab things that a person needs to adjust so they can become a powerful psycho-spiritual athlete so to speak. In addition to that I need to be able to interpret things. If a person comes to me and says, “What does this mean, why is this happening?” I need to give them a clear and cogent answer.
A coach listens carefully. A mistake some teachers make is that when someone shares a really significant experience they’ll say “Oh well, that’s okay, but go back to the breath”, because they don’t recognize the significance. All they know how to do is say, “Get back to the technique, get back to the technique”. There are times when you don’t say, “Get back to your technique”. There are times when you say “The wisdom function is arising within you, go with it!” If you can’t recognize when Nature/Grace is opening a window of opportunity for your student, you may end up making an error of omission.
A coach also cheers you on, encourages you. There are really two sides to encouragement. One is superficial. The other is deep. The superficial is the actual encouragement that the student hears. The deep subtle side is a deep conviction that I have, the conviction that everyone is capable of classical enlightenment. Either in the sudden dramatic form or in a more gradual form.
To sum it up, my role as a teacher is to provide the student with two basic services. Inspiration and instruction. The inspiration comes from my deep conviction that anyone is capable of success on the meditative path as long as they have four things.
1) They understand the concepts and terminology needed for the practice.
2) They have at least one solid meditation technique that they know how to do.
3) They’re willing to apply that technique to the nitty gritty issues in daily life.
4) They establish a rhythm of a daily practice combined with periodic intensive retreats.
The goal of instruction is to help the student establish those four elements. Beyond that Nature/Grace/time will do the bulk of the work for us. Those four elements catalyze a natural process, a process that’s just waiting to happen — enlightenment.
I can’t guarantee that it will necessarily be a sudden epiphany. But I do say that if a person establishes and maintains those four elements in their life there’s a very high probability that they won’t be disappointed with the results.
Love to hear what you think in the comments. Cheers!
You know the old story about how your whole life flashes before your eyes just before you die? Well, that had happened to me three times in my life before the morning of September, 2nd 2009. Once was when I was drowning at the age of seven. Once was when I did drown and was clinically dead for 3 (or so) minutes at 13. Another was while falling from the top of a 250 pole while on a sky coaster ride that I thought had broken. (The catch at the bottom was something of a relief.)
The morning of September 2nd 2009 was the fourth, except there was no imminent death threat (or event.) I was just doing my normal meditation thing. I was in about 10 minutes when all of a sudden *Bam!* my entire life flashed before my eyes, just like it had those other three times. It caught up to the moment I was in and there was a “drop”, like I’ve had before when really clicking into the practice of atma vichara, which is my primary spiritual practice (sometimes called “self inquiry”). Then, nothing. The rest of the meditation, about 15 minutes or so, was in utter silence without thought. I’ve had periods of no-thought before during meditation, but they usually last a maximum of a minute and a half, and usually no longer than 45 seconds before a thought wanders by and grabs my attention, after which I (at some point) catch myself and go back to the vichara. Not this time though. 15 solid minutes of no-thing. Not even the idea that it was pleasant, or long, or anything really.
Then my timer went off, so I got up. In retrospect I am very glad my timer didn’t hoark, like it sometimes does. Probably would have been there until Daisy got up.
Dedicated to looking at the self.
