The Way Forward

     The way forward is the way of now. This moment is our guide. This moment holds the wisdom that we feel we need. We turn away in fear. We fear what this moment holds, when what it holds is always precious. This is natural to turn away. It is apart of the moment. Apart of the Beauty of the Now.
     We feel separate from this world, from this moment. From ourselves. We feel that we are not ourselves. That we do not express ourselves when we are wholeness. We are Unity, seamless Unity. We are the diamonds of our desire. Everything that we turn away from in disgust is apart of what makes us so complete. Perfect. We seek Gold, yet we are Gold. Our hands and words are divine Gold. We are already one now. This moment is already perfect as it is.
     We think with and without certain things and qualities we would attain a fulfillment that we already posses. We look outside of ourselves for fulfillment when she that is looking is perfectly enlightened. Perfectly fulfilled. We cannot find peace in striving. For striving will always lead to striving, and striving is always being unsettled, dissatisfied. Who we are now is always complete. Who we are now always has the answers, always knows the truth. We look outward in fear and delusion, when what we already possess is more than sufficient. This is why Jesus tells us not to worry. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or stay away in barns, and your heavenly father feeds them! Are you not more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life." Matthew 6:25-27. The Heavenly Father lives within us. He is us. He is who we are now. We are fulfilled now. We think we are without and we feel that we are without, when what we are and what we have is fulfillment. We are already One.
     We possess the Universe within us. When we can see who we are within, we will see that what lies within us is the same as that which lies outside of us. The Kingdom fills and surrounds us. We live in the Kingdom of Heaven now. We are prepared, we are whole, we are one with Christ. Our body is the body of Christ. Our life is the life of Christ. We are Holy. We are reborn in the body of Christ each and every moment. We are the life of Christ. We are Christ.
     We are one with the air, one with all that we can see with our eyes and experience within ourselves. The way forward is not out, but in. When we strive for inner wealth we do not go in, we continue to go out. We continue to run away from who we are. Who we are does not need to change or attain. Who we are now, as we are now, is fulfilledness. When we seek for anything else but this, we will go astray, we will be lost. We must let go of ourself and lose our striving to go within and find who we really are. This is truly to go within. We must let go of who we believe we are and become something else. We must let go of our sight to see. We must stop listening to the world that we know to hear. "He that hath Ears to hear, let him hear." Matthew 11:15. They who have forgotten the outer world and can hear the world within will know this. They will yearn for the voice of The Christ. It will be like rain falling upon a droughted land.
     The way of fulfillment is not through outer or inner attainment. The way is realization of what is. Insight into the nature of the Self. Insight that cuts away delusion and egotism. That eliminates striving. Part of this journey is through the pursuit of personal gain, but personal gain alone, no matter where it is is not the answer. The answer is undividedness. The answer lies within.
     The way is only through outer and inner striving because striving because striving leads to insight. Striving leads to the end of striving. The death of striving is the birth of insight. Only through being incomplete can we find our completion. Only through striving for what is not our being can we stop striving and realize what is our being. This is attainment.
     By searching outwards and striving we will lose faith in the world, we will turn inwards and seek God. Seek truth. When we lose faith in all worlds, outer and inner, we will come to ourself. Come to our senses and float back down to Earth: to our roots. We will discover who we are and we we always have been as a human being. Weak and frail. Mortal. Ignorant. Alive. We will discover that everything is temporary: fleeting. Leaves in the wind being blown away. We will discover that life is formless and formlessness is life. We are empty and without self. Life is pointless. Life is empty of form. This is the way. The way of emptiness. Their is no fulfillment. No attainment. No self. Nothing at all.
     We are Light and empty shadows, reaching into the dark for something beautiful to hold onto. Something beautiful to believe in. We find what is in the emptiness of life. We find who we are in the nothingness that is ourself. Life is born from the void. Life is born from emptiness. This is emptiness. This is the void. This is emptiness. What an incredible mystery. What a deeply moving phenomena. What is, is what isn't. Who I am is nothing at all. This is what I am. A soaring shadow on the wind. The pale moon in the night's sky. What a dream. What a riveting dream.
     The way is that I am. The way forward is to continue to go deeper within. To continue to blossom as I am. To expand as I do, as I have done, forever. I am. Not to attain, but to be. I will attain through my being. Not to attain, but to be. Their is no question of what the way is. Their is no doubt in the mind. My mind. Anyone's mind. There is this. As it is. What can we cling to? what is other than ourself? There is no path. There is simply being. There is no way. There is simply the way that we are. There is simply who we are. What a wonderful thing. Being. Being. Being. Everywhere I am. I am. Their is no way. This is the way. This is where the sidewalk ends. The way is now.
     What is the way forward? Is their a way forward? I think there is. I think it is wonderful. I think it is right in front of us. We are surrounded by doors of the mind. All of them leading forward. Some forward, some backward. All doors going where they already are. Many ways all leading to the same place, going through the same place. All through here, to here. Nothing to attain. Nothing and no one to be. Just this. Forgetting the way.
     What's strange is that though these doors lead to the same place, they always go somewhere new. It's like the heart is always the same, bu the content, the form, changes. We are always in new terrain, but we remain unchanged. Maybe our heart too is temporary. I don't know. It feels like the same thing is reoccurring each moment. The same sense of Self. The same sense of being. I feel like this being, or sense of being, pervades the whole universe. it is the whole universe. This doesn't mean that it won't change or end. Why can't the nature of the universe fundamentally change?
     There's a part of me that wants to do things. A part of me that is striving. I suffer when I grasp on to things in fear. When I won't let them be. Our suffering is our psychological collection of this kind of grasping. We grasp onto what we believe will keep us out of painful feelings, feelings incurred by grasping out of fear. We think we need to avoid these feelings because they are the death of ourself: our comforts and our ambition. We think this is wise. This is simply avoidance, fear of what is. It increases negativity, it does the opposite of what we imagine. We are adding to the heap, adding to our grief. Such is life. It appears that the Buddha's words are true. Life is suffering. Humans are ignorant beings, creatures. We are afraid of death. We are egoic. This is natural. We do not need to avoid these things. We simply think we do because we are often deluded and afraid. Such is life. We are afraid of not being great, beautiful, appreciated socially. This is all that that these are, nothing more. It feels good when we grow into deeper health and deeper balance. We feel joy sometimes when we get what we want. This does not mean that we need to hold onto these things. This does not mean that suffering is bad. Suffering is. We naturally learn from it. It shows us more about our selfs and life, just like anything else we experience does. It is inseparable from anything positive we enjoy. Not that we need to suffer or should seek suffering. As we naturally become wiser we learn to avoid much of the suffering that plagues us earlier in life. This is not something we need to seek, not that we can help ourselves.
 Life is suffering.
 Life is suffering.
 Life is suffering.
     Much of our life is spent anxiously attempting to hold onto what we are attached to and keeping at bay what we afraid of or dislike. When we do this out of fear and anxiety we are blinded to wisdom. Our intelligence is lost in fear and anxiety. We were attempting to stay on track by holding onto something we perceived was good, but in our fear of loss or change we chose a greater darkness and actually gave up what was good. We chose to give up ourselves, our sense of right and wrong to maintain control of what we were attached to. This is when we have fallen into the fear of loss. The fear of change, the fear of suffering. The fear of dukkha.
     I don't think we can avoid this fear. i don't think we can avoid falling into the darkness of our fears. At least not immediately or entirely. I don't think avoiding this fear needs to be a matter of concern. It simply is a part of life. I don't think we need to do anything or need to be concerned about anything. Not that we need to be free of concern. We just are often concerned. This is life. This is being a human. We are often very anxious. So anxious to the point of being anxious about letting go of our anxiety. We are afraid that we won't be able to take care of ourselves without being constantly anxious. This is one thing we are fearfully attached to that causes us great grief and suffering. We are lost in a cycle of anxiety. This cycle becomes deeply ingrained in us to the point that we forget that we are worrying. We think it is normal, typical, healthy behavior. It's much easier to adopt this attitude when this kind of worrying is a key component of the mass psychology of society. When nearly all advertisement is geared towards perpetuating hysteric anxiety. This disgusts me. It's so incredibly dangerous and debilitating of the human spirit, of culture and of freedom.
     When we are this anxious, we often lose sight of wisdom and common sense. We lose sight of what really needs our attention, what we really care about. In this way we lose sight of the truth. This is a precarious place to be. I'm not saying not to be anxious. I'm pointing out the pitfalls of being too anxious and the wisdom in dealing with this kind of anxiety before it becomes much much worse individually and throughout general society.
     A large part of the madness of the world is driven by this cycle of anxiety as it has become unhinged. It turns into mania and mental illness. It makes us obsessive about achieving external wealth at the cost of our health and wellbeing. We become disingenuous and develop artificial personalities. At this point we often don't know where to begin to take care of ourselves. Who we are gets folded under layers and layers of artifice and delusion. We fall into a quiet, terrible and suffocating darkness within our minds. We lose the ability to express ourselves and our energies build up in our bodies and our minds. We grow increasingly tense and uncomfortable, even to the point of disease. We become increasingly and frighteningly mentally ill. The energy lashes out in anger, violence and manifests in chronic substance abuse.
     The answer is simple, but seemingly impossible for many of us to reach. This anxiety is intensified by environmental factors: culture, economic opportunity, food access, living conditions(including exposure to all kinds of pollutants), and information accessibility(including education). Many of us are locked to some extent in a wall of anxious fire in our minds. We can't let go of it for fear of the consequences. This fear is often deeply tied to genuine needs. Tied to our survival. We can't take the chance to slow down because we may miss a vital opportunity for sustenance. We can't take a closer look at our beliefs/perspectives because they are what may keep us from falling into shark infested waters. If we look closer at them we take our eyes off the road and may crash. Even though wisdom lies deeper within us, we can't reach for it. If we do, we might perish. This is how we feel anyways. For some it's more of a reality, for others it is more imaginary.
     The solution is to learn to discern between real and imaginary need. This becomes more complicated and more difficult the more we become lost in a cycle of anxiety and madness. It also may become more complicated and difficult as our world becomes increasingly complicated. More complexity requires more skill and intelligence. If  the complexity evolves faster than adequate education to deal with this change, then people are left behind "progress". The solution for the masses is for the culture to change. There needs to be enough inertia behind the social habit of wise discernment to overthrow the senseless development of new technologies and new systems. I do not say senseless development meaning that all technologies and societal change is senseless, rather I refer to the aspects of their growth that are created by senseless culture; and in being senseless are not grounded in real need and therefore have little value to us in general. They add non-essential work to our social systems which overburdens them; taking away attention from vital components; and they confuse us with their facade of importance which corrupts truly grounded social culture further undermining appropriate attention of our societies vital needs.
     This makes me think of corrupt government and the materialist consumer culture. The latter heavily influenced by systemic corruption of tradition, character and conscience. Corruption driven by egotism, greed and mania. This culture is perpetuated by naivety, massive corporations, rapid environmental change, it's general adaption by society, and basic need to satisfy material security. Both were driven by corrupt management of power and money. The availability of wealth corrupting one's senses from modesty and community to excessiveness and egotism. The mainstream acceptance of this corrupt conscience makes it all  the easier for it to spread and the more difficult to recognize as a threat. The corruption becomes so widespread that it undermines our societies basic life support systems. You can see this in the U.S. where the Federal Government has totally botched their response to the coronavirus pandemic. They won't even send appropriate aid to hospitals in  which people are dying in large numbers. There's so much corruption of conscience that they can't accept scientific fact or don't care to do so. This is who we elected. This could only happen if society at large was severely corrupted by senseless culture.
     It can be terrifying to witness the madness of our times. It makes us very anxious often. This can make us anxious and impulsive in our actions, even if we intend to do good. We can easily get caught up in the hysteria, even when well intentioned, and lose sight of sense. This is why it is important to learn to recognize the difference between rushing anxious and composed grounded wisdom. We may not have the luxury to be comfortably grounded in wisdom, but we can still learn how to reach for it. We can takes steps towards it, when each step is better for the world.
     Being wise makes you feel good. Being senseless may give you greater pleasure, but it does not truly feel good. Wisdom and folly are often mixed together in complicated ways, so the choice is not always easy or wholly one or the other. We often have to choose between the better of two devils. Through consciously using our conscience and by taking responsibility for our lives we can reach more and more wisdom through what may be a series of difficult choices and experiences. We can climb out of the darkness, but we have to face the music. We have to face our sins and our karma. The weight of our conscience can be enough to turn aside from the path of redemption. But the alternative, the guilt, shame, potential insanity, and even death doesn't seem worth it. The truth is, that many people don't see, to a great extent, the ramifications of their actions. They would have to be wise to. We go along with corrupt culture because it appears to be wise and rewarding to do so. It will take many of us to step up and speak up so that others can see the dangers that we all face. So that enough of us can take action and end these threats before they wrought the full extent of their potential havoc. It is our duty, for those of us that hath ears, to listen to our consciences, and the crying consciences of others, and resist the evil of our times. Resist it, fight it, and defeat it. We can if enough of us stand up. We can hope if we sacrifice our lives for the greater good. We must turn away from the blindness of our selfishness to the glory of our unity. We must have great courage and great strength to fight off the suffocating weight of our complacency we are entombed in. We must reclaim our power and reclaim our minds. Only then can reclaim our hearts and the hearts of others. We can restore ourselves, our communities, our lands, and our world. In the spirit of togetherness, compassion, love, and wisdom do we have this power. Not only to rise up, but to be free of guilt and our concerns. To not only liberate each other and our planet, but to liberate ourselves from the prison of delusion.

Is their anything going on?

Am I anyone here? Am I here at all? Is anything going on right now? Who am I? What am I?
Do I exist? Does anything exist? What's the point of all of this? Do I have a purpose? Am I supposed to be doing anything? What are these, "feelings" inside this body. Inside this head. What is going on here? I really don't know if I exist right now. Is anyone asking these questions? What is going on? There doesn't seem to be anyone here right now. I don't know how this is possible. I think that I am, but I am not so sure now. Not sure about anything, or anyone. We assume that this person in the mind associated with these, "feelings", is a real person. Is this true? Are we really people? Or is their simply the imagination of people. And people don't exist in any true form, not at least how we imagine ourselves to be. There it is again, this feeling of being someone. Why am I so convinced it is I? That an I even exists? Holy crap. What if I don't actually exist. What if this entire realm of human beings is a complete farce: nothing imagining something thinking it is something, when it is really nothing. How can this be? How can we think we are something, when we are nothing? Who or what is doing the thinking? Is anything thinking? Dude, do I even exist? I might not even exist at all, wow.
"We" are so full of ourselves that "I" think it is very difficult to know if "we" are in fact "someones".
     Who am I? I think I maybe just tired. But I am not wholly convinced that I am somebody, I wonder if we are in fact both someone and nothing at all. Like seriously nothing at all. Do I even see anything right now. Does someone have to be for things to exist? This feeling of I feels transparent. Like it is not what it appears to be. Like it is not what "I" thought it was. It doesn't seem real. This maybe terrifying, but how can I be terrified if I don't exist? What's the point of anything if I don't exist? I don't think there is a point if I don't exist. If I don't exist, then nothing exists. If I have no being, then there is no being. I don't think I exist. Perhaps I don't exist right now. There's just stuff happening around "me". Stuff happening body, mind, objects, sounds, all objects. Is there awareness? What is awareness?Does awareness have to be tied to someone? What if there is no self, there are just forms. One of these forms is awareness. No humans, not real individuals, just compositions of objects with awareness. We think we are, but what if we are not. What if this entire notion of myself, is a complete joke, a farce. Not played on anyone, but a joke because of how ludicrous it is that so many people believe that they are themselves when they are not. It's really not even funny. There would have to be someone here for it to be funny. Maybe i am, at least part of the time. I don't know. I feel so lost in the dream of being someone, that I can't tell if I am someone or not. There's so much flip-flap surrounding it. So much clouding perception here. So much identification with form as "my form". I don't think I've ever stopped and really been able to look at myself. Man I might not even exist. What the heck is the point then? Is all of this a joke? Is all of this made up nonsense? If so then nothing matters, there are no rules and everything is a complete sham. I feel like I have been routinely lolled into the persuasion that I am somebody by the dreams around me and the dreams in this head. Who or what is trying to understand this? Is anybody here trying to understand this? I must exist. But, perhaps I don't.
     Dude, I don't think I exist. I don't think I am anything at all. What is then? What is left without me? Is anything left? I sort of don't care whether or not I exist. If it is, it is how it is, whether or not I am aware of how it is. I don't really want to spend any more time thinking about it. But maybe I will anyway, I am a sucker for thinking.

The Point #8

     I think we feel lost to the degree that we are off center. And it seems like the degree to which we are off center is the degree to which we are confused about getting back to center. When we are off, we feel like we need to do something to take care of ourselves. To ensure or provide security. I think this feeling is always an anxious one. And I think the direction it wants to take us is not the way to get where we actually want to be. I think anxiety can be helpful, but it may always be blind. I think we can use it to be reminded of important features of our lives, but we can easily become lost in it and lose our connection to sense and wisdom. It takes listening to it wholeheartedly to properly integrate it's concern. Not that you have to listen to it this way to get any good out of it. I just found myself led astray by it often and feel like I can be dealing with it better. 

     I think my anxious mind tells myself that I need to worry to be ok. I don't think this is true. I think I need to address my worries to be ok, but not fret on them endlessly. This is a kind of neurosis I think. A negative positive feed-back loop. Definitely delusional. I think if I can listen to my worries when I am centered, I will automatically adjust my life to address their concerns. I think in this increasingly technological fast paced world, we forget this and fall into the cycle that I have fallen into where worries dominate your experience. 

     This is just worries generating worries, trouble generating trouble. It's not actually solving any problems, its just postponing and perpetuating them. It's a constant fear of grounding oneself, being still. Because if your still, then your not taking care of your worries when the only way to take care of your worries is to worry and act from a place of worry. To me, this is one of the hell's that I (and we) live in. It's exhausting and always detracting from enjoying the present moment, from being anyway or anything at all. If we can't be still, we cannot be. It's most difficult feature is that we know we need to get off the worry train, but we can't do it without worrying. We are stuck in worrying about how we are worrying. Worrying about how we need to stop worrying so much. This is a nightmare. I think a growing nightmare of our increasingly, or decreasingly, sophisticated society. The hardest part is to stop. We don't know how to stop. For a lot of us, it's getting harder and harder to stop. Less people know how to relax. Or at least relax deeply. I think for a lot of us, we live in chronic stress and anxiety. It just lessens when we flop on the couch and watch tv at the end of the day.

     Even if it's mild, I think we are forgetting how to truly enjoy ourselves, we are forgetting how to forget ourselves. This definitely worries me. It is scary to see a lot of the world lose light. To vaguely see the Light as something that existed in the past and has faded towards the present. I worry for children and I worry for adults. I don't think the Light needs to be what it was in the past, but I hope it can become something stronger in the present. I just want it to take a more tangible form. That people can see and hold on to. That we can guide and steady ourselves and each other by. Things always change, the past will never be again. But we can find joy and integrity in new ways right now. We can be communities, families, and friends wholesomely, even though differently, right now. 

     The Light calls us to grow and change. I feel like many of us are missing out on this. At least we lack the presence to enjoy the change happening to us, to feel fully alive in it. Their is a lot of grayness in our lives. Aching forgotten voids, dreams left in our childhoods. Things won't be the same, but they can be something. And something is better than nothing. When we can't express ourselves we long to, our heart aches. Even if it is for something strange and unsettling to our current consciousness. It's better to be anything than to be a ghost. 

     The point is, that we are something right now. Whatever it is, we are it. We are right now. Discovering what this is, how this is, is the point of our lives. The point exists right now. It doesn't exist in the futures that we worry about. It lives right here. Right now. Inside of you. It is you as you are right now. It is who you are that you won't let yourself see. What this is, is worth being. It is worth being because it is who you are and all that you are. And who you are is worth being no matter what you are. You are worth something. You are worth being. You are beautiful and wonderful however you are, simply because you are that way. You being that way makes it special because you are special. You are special no matter how you are. You are worth something no matter how you are. 

     Being who you are is the key to finding peace in your life. It's not in achieving anything, unless what you achieve is being yourself, by seeing that you already are what your looking for. Nothing you can do will stop you from worrying. Nothing you can do will end the torment in your heart. You can't fill that void by changing. You have to learn to love who you are right now. Love is the answer. 

Love and forgiveness, and acceptance. When you do this, you will see that you are beautiful and wonderful and you always have been. You have always been an incredible human being. Every single one of us is an incredible human being. If you can look truly into any one's eyes you will see this and you will be overwhelmed by the treasure surrounding you. The good, the bad, and the ugly all an indescribably beautiful symphony. The bad makes it as good as it is. It makes it good. 

     The point is that I love you exactly as you are, no matter how much you hurt me. We cannot escape the love that we share. I know you love me even if you hate me. We will not find peace in seeking to change who we are, seeking to change eachother, change the world. We will find peace by loving eachother, loving ourselves, and loving the world. Loving unconditionally all that we are and all that is. This is the radical truth that is liberation. Not only for ourselves, but for our entire species, our entire world. This is the way of Christ, the way of the awakened soul. The way is not out, it is in. We must pass through the world to get to the kingdom of heaven. We must embrace who we are to be free of ourselves. This is the point. This is the present. This is the here and now. Amen

Meditation in Martial Arts #2

     When I was practicing martial arts yesterday I had some cool insights and I felt like sharing them, and sharing my martial arts experience/thoughts in general. 


     I am a strongly intuitive practitioner. I let the subtle energies teach me how to move. I let them flow within my body and guide me towards more intelligent and harmonious positions. This is spontaneous and each move maybe a unique once in a once occurrence. You can master specific techniques and you can master your own unique movement and style. A style unique to you because your the only one with your exact physical proportions, physical make up, and psychological make up. I think about this often. How excelling in martial arts could mean excelling in individualizing the martial arts. Power and speed and ability vary in each person. To maximize effectiveness I think one may need to develop precise awareness of their own bodies and be able to adapt techniques, or create styles, that suit their specific multi-dimensional make up. I think this kind of individualizing is what draws me to traditional Asian martial arts. I think it is sort of build into it's general spirit. I think this kind of individualizing is a level of practice and intelligence that is a key component of t.a.m.
     I'm not just talking about combing moves from different martial arts into one's mixed martial arts repertoire, although this is the first step, I'm talking about a whole new level of movement. One that is the cultivation of mind, body, spirit, environment harmony. This is what we see in Kung Fu movies that we like so much. Much of this kung fu may just be structured techniques though. What we like about Kung Fu fighting is how these fighters appear to be fighting on a heavenly level. It appears superhuman. In a way it is. Their fighting borderlines on, or definitely is, coming from a level of Oneness and is definitely inspired by subtle heavenly energies. These energies are what I want to talk about, and what I find so exciting when I practice the martial arts.
     I am a meditative person, and when I can bring this meditation to intense visceral movement I feel very alive and very happy. You can sit and meditate and you can fight and meditate. Yes!! What an awesome combination. This combination is such a wonderful release of mental and physical energies in what really becomes a creative dance. I think the release of intense testosterone driven male aggressiveness is a huge part of this release. I can bring this aggressiveness to take the hand of stillness, self-expression, dance, and joy. All the while deepening and awakening my mind and body, and taking care of my general constitution.
     This wholeness of practice is indicative of these subtle heavenly energies. They guide us to the knowledge of what we need to be well and balanced. They are also incredibly beautiful and teach us how to express ourselves fully. This is partially why they are called martial arts. The arts are the creative expressions of human beings, martial arts are not excluded from this personal expression. This kind of expression, driven by these heavenly subtle energies, is typical of t.a.m. It is a refinement that is not matched in the spirit of contemporary mixed martial arts. This creative expression is not limited to the sphere of personal fulfillment. It enhances physical and martial prowess if properly integrated into one's combative abilities. It brings the man to heaven. It opens up the doors that these Kung Fu artists have gone through in all the films. Except where much of this tv kung fu is scripted and not a depiction of actual ability, you and I can go there, however impossible it may seem.
     This is why I am so excited to cultivate my martial abilities under the direction of these subtle currents. I am learning from the awakened cosmos itself, rather than confining myself to the limited conventions of set technical practice. Don't get me wrong, learning a specific art is not a waste of time. They are actually the foundations for the level of practice I'm describing. They often contain the deeply spiritual and woke dimensions of life and martial ability. You just can grown through them if you want to get to something I think may be better. It all depends on your life trajectory.
     When I practiced yesterday I was doing what look to me like kung fu movements. Circular, flowy, often square shouldered and striking from the center line. To me, the spirit was kung fu. I work on letting the subtle energies guide the harmony and integrity of my movements. In martial ability, the harmony and integration of you body is key to power and ability. Its learning to put your full body weight behind a blow. These subtle energies take this body integration to a whole new level. What may be rough mechanical integration seen in western boxing becomes a whole new animal. They make the integration much more precise and therefore much more powerful. They even tap into more energy centers of the body, more power. And they expand the set of the practitioner's defined techniques to the level of infinite technical ability.
     I have felt a strong blockage in my chi that has prevented me from delving as deep as I have wanted into these subtle energy fields/currents. My tai chi movements have felt dull, my body dry. The subtle chi is/was in me waiting to be cultivated, but blocked up in my energy centers and difficult to entertain. I felt and still feel pushed out by my own energy. I lack the stability and strength in mind, the wholeness and integrity. But I have been working on it with relative success and a definite deepening of understanding for the last several years, and I think I am starting to work out the kinks/get into a rhythm again. One that I hope to maintain.
     I have been intensely cultivating intuitive martial arts. Like I said before, letting the subtle energies teach me how to move. I haven't forced these blockages to flow because it hasn't felt right. In many different ways, the chi is telling me to wait, for whatever different reasons. It's not a specific thought or specific reasons, just a general intuition, like a compass pointing the way to go. I think I have waited because I have been building the necessary awareness and energies needed to wholesomely cultivate the trapped energies within me. I often think how I have lacked the integrity and spirit to release and tame them in a healthy way. This waiting has been long and difficult, but I think it is paying off and I am finally ready to begin to master the subtle energies of my body.
     I have had several reassuring experiences with the martial arts over the last several years. One of them was now two days ago. When I began practicing what to me is most like kung fu, I experienced a greater bond between my mind and my body as well as a degree of body unity that I have not experienced before. I felt that my left hand was tied to my left foot and my right hand was tied to my right foot. I didn't imagine that it was this way, this is just how the energy and my mind were unfolding. It was more than pretending. The intelligent currents of energy between my hands and feet were more united, more one, than I have ever experienced. This felt like my whole body was more of one unit than separate arms, legs, head, and torso. I could sense/see the intelligences of my various body parts working in a unity that went beyond mere mechanical system interdependence. They actually were moving towards one seamless intelligence. This seamless unity of an individual is what is so attractive in films with traditional Asian martial arts practitioners. It is the sense of groundedness in self and world that I have sought for so long. Not only seeking it, but seeking the adventure of learning how to cultivate it. I have been kept away from cultivated this nature for many years and it is so exciting to be making some progress and to be reassured that it is real and can be attained in my life.
     I felt like my hands were the puppet masters of my feet. I turned and stepped in circular and half-circular sweeping motions as my feet followed my hands. I flung out my hand and shot my leg across the ground and bent my other knee. I was pulled out and down by the spontaneous flowing intelligence of my hand. Each hand could govern movement. They led and sent ripples of inspiring intelligence to the rest of my body. I realized that any kind of movement of the hands could be turned into any other kind of movement in the rest of the body. A pulling in of the hand could shoot the leg out or up. What was necessary for this divine movement, was that the body was allowed to flow, that intelligence was allowed to be spontaneously creative. With this, anything could create anything else. The outer movement created the inner impetus for the next outer movement of the body. The degree of mechanical leveraging of force using the interconnected body parts and energy flows was heightened. Subtle and seemingly small movements could and can create larger ones because the harmony of the body system was properly leveraged, to a degree that appears unusual and not possible. I didn't do anything crazy, I just became aware of a deeper integrity and intelligence of the body and experienced it's direction in my martial arts practice. I know more clearly that I can do crazy stuff.
     I was practicing punching with squared shoulders and focusing on sending my power from my center line rather than from the side of the punching arm. This felt good. I felt like I could stay more still and potentially get a lot of power from having my spine straight and my insides lined up. It felt like I wasn't crossing any lines of energy that create resistance when they cross. Like my body had room to flow. I think this was because I wasn't in any awkward/uncomfortable position. I was standing upright with my feet close together point more or less pointing forward. I felt like I could see within myself clearer. It also felt good to be looking directly at a target without having my neck bent. A target directly perpendicular to my squared shoulders.
     When I talk about reaching a greater degree of mechanical leverage, it's not merely due to a greater degree of physiological harmony. It is also the awakening and harnessing of the mind. The body and the mind are not exclusive. When you get better physiological response in exercise, this is not just do to body development, it's also due to a deepening and expanding of mental awareness of the body and beyond. Mind and body develop happen simultaneously and they cannot be separated from eachother. The development of the mind is a change and development in the physiology in every way, just as any change in the physiology is a change in consciousness . They are one, not two. But, thinking about them and talking about them as two distinct things is helpful in understanding them and communicating their nature. The fulcrum of mental awareness is not limited to mental awareness of the complexities of the human body. In the kind of training I am doing, the kind of training in T.A.M. the mind is opened to heavenly dimensions of experience. Heavenly dimensions and heavenly fulcrums. Heaven is big, thus these fulcrums can be big too when manifested in the expression of muscular energy. This is the epitome of martial arts being super dope. Of people loving kung fu films. Heavenly fulcrums, unity consciousness on the battlefield. Super power, super dope.
     When I intuitively practice martial arts, I see this divine subtle energies flowing around and within me. It's not super clear, more vague, but I definitely do see and experience them. When I practice I am learning how to align everything that I am with them. They appear to be perfect lines and perfect efficiency of movement. I think what I am doing is gradually learning how to line up my body as perfectly as they are. My body is not simply a physiology. It is a heavenly body full of heavenly energies. My ignorance makes these energies to a degree chaotic, disharmonious. Intuitive practice is awakening to the perfect harmony of the universe and perfect possible organization of my own being (body, mind, soul, spirit, what have you).
     When I was striking square shouldered from my own aligned center line, I could see that line running through me. The clarity with which I saw it and struck from it was equal to the power I could muster. It was like learning to punch perfectly with divine geometry guiding me. I don't think perfect strikes are limited to this win-chun body orientation, I just think this is one way that works for me now. I am excited to continue to practice this and expand upon it.
     Thanks for reading, Peace!

What is wisdom?

     Wisdom is knowing how to act. Knowing how to act well Knowing how to support and sustain life. This is wisdom. Seeing through delusion. Seeing through the many layers of life and knowing how these layers work. Not just by themselves, but how they work interdependently with one another. This is wisdom. Ability to see and work well with the complex, multi-dimensional interdependent nature of life. To see through common misperceptions, to see the folly in common strategies and to arrive at the destination in the most efficient and wholesome way given the circumstances. It has to do with the way we orient ourselves in life.
Generally, I think wisdom means wisdom in contrast to foolishness The fool is oblivious to the nature of the world they live in. They will run absent mindedly into obstacles most avoid in, "common sense". The wise man will not only avoid the obstacle, but he will avoid the obstacle while doing something else, while achieving something else. One who is wise possess, within their own circle of activity, excellent self-control, excellent self-awareness, excellent environmental awareness, and excellent understanding of all these dimensions. He who is wise, is wise only compared to his peers.
     The degree that someone is wise is relative to their fundamental level of operation. Relative to their arena of life. One may be wise as a child and a fool as an adult, just as one may be a foolish child who becomes a wise adult. It's even more stratified than this. Our wisdom is really determined by our ability, or lack of ability, to skillfully navigate within the scope of our visions. This is how wisdom is determined subjectively and socially. What we may individually perceive or believe is wise may differ from what is socially considered wise. Yet in both of these perspectives wisdom is defined by the skill in which one navigates the world as it is perceived. Both of these are examples of relative wisdom. Wisdom relative to depth and breadth of perception. This wisdom fluctuates with the expansion of one's worldview. With the expansion of consciousness and awareness. The wise child becomes a foolish adult when they grow up into a wider world with a wider new set of responsibilities and they perform very poorly. Here, they are considered foolish by their peers, by general society. This consideration may not match up with the foolish adults own worldview: their own consideration of their own intelligence.
     As both the individual perspective and common social perspective of wisdom are relative to depth and breadth of awareness, or consciousness, they are incorrect to the degree to which they are not deep or specific enough. They are incorrect to the degree to which they are not objective fact. Thus the wisdom they suppose is, in a way, not objective wisdom, but believed and temporary wisdom. They are not absolutely true perceptions of wisdom. What wisdom truly is, is the feeling of wisdom that remains intact even as our consciousness continues to expand and the content of what we believe changes. Everyone has different opinions/views of what is wise, but every one has the same basic feeling and experience of wisdom. It's like an inner arrow pointing to, what we perceive is, the best action we can take. When we feel wisdom, we get a signal, or physiological response,, from within our bodies that what was said, suggested, read, or thought was wise. Our bodies are like, "excrete dopamine, high probability of survival". We probably feel a little calmer, centered and confident in some way. (It's important to not that we rarely, if not never, feel one feeling at at time, or respond to stimulus wholly one way. We are always, or nearly always, split in our feelings and our response to ideas. Our body is thus complicated in its chemical/emotional response. We may feel slightly calm by a new idea, but also worried by it. These feelings have chemical responses that effect different parts of our bodies simultaneously. A new thought could at first lighten the tenseness of our fore-brain as it fives us the, "Aha", feeling of clarity, then gives us anxiety, in our gut which leads to stress in our back and shoulders, because of how this clarity has revealed a serious blind spot in our attention that is going to put us in a tight and uncomfortable position with someone, or many people, that we are close with or deal extensively with on a regular basis. The process of our total psychology is many times more complicated that what  I mentioned in this example. We experience a  vast matrix of feelings consciously, subconsciously,  and unconsciously that all together create an incredibly complex cocktail of chemical/physiological response. Chemicals/physiology generate feelings and feelings generate chemical/physiological response. All this is happening simultaneously and is a ambi-directional positive feedback loop. You can't separate feelings from bodily chemicals from cellular, tissue, organ, organ system, and overall motor response. It's all one bowl of soup.) Wisdom described on it's own is a specific feeling that was a specific physiological response. I would call this overall experience the heart of wisdom, or just plain and simple wisdom. Even if what we do following our thoughts that occur with this feeling of wisdom leads us into trouble, the feeling of wisdom in our chests is still wise. It is still wisdom and tuning into this feeling is apart of the process in which we become wiser.
     Throughout our life, and over lifetimes, this feeling grows until it consumes us entirely. It consumes all other feelings. It opens, sharpens, and unites all perspectives within itself, as itself. It is the God seed that becomes God through the natural unfolding of life. Wisdom, enlightenment, is the eventuality of all people.  In a way it is the single reality of all people right now, one that we only experience as an isolated splinter in our chest and consciousness until we wake up from the dream of duality.
     We may think we need to tune into this apparent separate feeling of wisdom within our chest and minds(conscience) and avoid what we believe is not wise to become enlightened or simply a better person. As much as this may be a true path to enlightenment, enlightenment is also an organic effortless process. A process that unfolds the same way blossoms unfold in the Spring. It is the natural evolution of a human being to blossom through life(lives) into wisdom. Wisdom that in its barest sense is enlightenment. I say this, because enlightenment is not limited to the sphere of the intentional individual. It is more appropriately described as a larger sphere that encompasses individuality. Individuality is not separate from it, it is one and seamless with it. They are the same, but to say that enlightenment is limited to the personal sphere is not true. The process of intentionally seeking enlightenment through tuning into our conscience is apart of the natural unfolding of human consciousness. We call it seeking enlightenment, or bettering ourselves, a process that "we" undergo, but it is also a process that life undergoes, a process that does not entirely belong to us as a "separate" individual. Everything evolves interdependently regardless of how the ego perceives it. Life just happens. It is happening. Enlightenment is just happening. Here and now. Exactly as you and I are right now.
     I call this feeling of wisdom, this warm ember within our hearts and minds, enlightenment because when you perceive it without any filters in the mind it is not different than unbounded awareness. As we tune into wisdom, our hearts, feelings, and conscience, the forms it takes change. It evolves, blossoms, deepens in complexity, and broadens in character. When we wake up we realize that this ember was not what we thought it was. It was never our compass to god, our separate heart and soul. It was always God. Only in our subjective visions and subjective experience was it anything else. It is our heart and soul, but our heart and soul are the full embodiment of God. Wisdom is God.
     What does this mean for us? What function does wisdom have in our own lives as it speaks to us from within? Wisdom calls us to awaken. To open our hearts to a greater world. To expand our minds. to go further. To reach out and take the hand of another. It is not limited to what we may commonly perceive of as good, it is limited to the realm of growth. When we wholesomely embody it, it does lead to Goodness, but life is messy and this often isn't the case. This is actually rarely if never at all the case. A part of our growth is egoic. It is mean, violent and engenders suffering. We grow into and through a mean selfishness that does not lie outside of wisdom. The heart of wisdom is compassion, but it's flesh is full of thorns. The face of the Earth is torn, rough, rude and real. Wisdom is wise orientation, that for living beings who compete for resources means violence, death and selfishness. In clarity it means what is Whole. As an organism it means survival. to someone who is awake, it still means survival. It still means food, it still means me.
     If there are different dimensions of life, then we can be wise or foolish in any of them. And what makes us wise in one may not make us wise in another. The degree to which one is wise is the degree to which one can manage these dimensions simultaneously, handling each one with unique and appropriate care.
     So much of what makes us wise is how wise we appear or are to ourselves. For we can only do what we can imagine we can do. We can only be wise with what we have, which is what we perceive we have. The key to wisdom is perception then. If we cannot perceive the various dimensions of life, then in no way can we deal with them intelligently. Part of perceiving them is perceiving their subtle qualities and how they differ from other dimensions. To be wise is to deal with each dimensions of life appropriately. Each dimensions has unique qualities that require unique attention. If we want to be wise we need to (in some way) understand how each part of a process works so that we can appropriately manage each part. In managing each part simultaneously, we take care of the whole process. Ya! In this way we can be wise at any given task. Here wisdom is interchangeable with skill. A wise, or skilled carpenter knows how to use his tools to work with materials. He knows how to combine/alter the materials in a way to create something appreciated by other enough to sustain a living. I think it is more appropriate in the example of a carpenter to say that a wise carpenter is not just skilled, but very skilled. Wisdom suggests excellent attention and ability. It also generally applies more to an individual in a overall sense than in describing their specific abilities. The process I above described is generally considered to be life as a whole when discussing wisdom.
     To be wise in it's most common understanding is to be wise in the way in which one handles life as a whole. Life with all it's dimensions is the process which we must be able to pick apart and understand piece by piece if we are to be considered wise. We separate the whole of life into thoughts, beliefs and judgments. We do this because it helps us organize and prioritize our experiences. It's how we process what we experience into conscious awareness (also understanding).We don't do this perfectly though. We always leave information out that we deem non-essential. We can only process so much at one time and it's important that we choose carefully because what we process is what we use to survive and get what we want. We possess incomplete data or incomplete perspective all of the time. We only assume that we fully know how something works, we are are often wrong. We feel that we see the complete picture, but I think most people, if not all people, are very often deluded in their judgments to some degree. We compartmentalize life into incomplete perspectives. This is what thoughts essentially are, incomplete reflections of sense , or incomplete data. They are the pixels on the screen of our mental interpretation of the world. They are not the world, no matter how high our resolution is. We say, "Who's in control?", and have a feeling and a lot of incomplete data. We put the two together and then say, "Of course, God is in control. He's a man too. A man in the sky." This is partially true, but totally incomplete. It's a synthesis of imagination and real sense data. Direct sense of the universe overlayed with this mental synthesis. It's really a mental projection or mental hologram that we perhaps always are immersed in. Hinduism calls it maya, the veil of illusion. Buddhism, samsara. Same deals. Mental holographic synthesis of sensory input and imagination. The Matrix. Lol. This is what we wake up from. Not that it entirely goes away when we wake up.
     We live in the matrix of our thoughts. Each though a compartmentalization of the world in a incomplete and inaccurate way. Each thought incomplete data. We see the world through the matrix of this interwoven data. This data, this matrix, is literally a 3-D real time holographic projection in our minds. We think this projection is the world. it is not. Not that it is wholly false or entirely dangerous. Most of us possess enough sense, enough instinct, to take reasonably good care of ourselves as we walk around looking at the world through photoshop filters. We see the world as our mind believes/thinks it is. We see, "enemy", in another race or religion whether or not that person, or those people, pose us any threat. We see them and our mind sees lethal intent and obvious danger, when there may be none at all. This is a hallucination. Really. it's a complete and total fantasy. It's assuming the incomplete data of an impossibly compartmentalized world is the world. This is insanity, mass accepted insanity. Most of us don't even know that we are insane. This is just the typical consciousness of humanity. We believe things. We live in our beliefs, our assumptions, perhaps necessary assumptions. We live in maya. We live in the matrix. We live in a conceptual mental perception. Zen is to see the world as it is. God is a sign pointing towards direct sensory awareness. This is why Obi-Wan tells Luke to let go of his conscious self, to reach out with his feelings. Totally Zen. Our feelings are the gateways to truth: to direct awareness. The Jedi are based off of (or heavily influenced by) the samurai who were heavily influenced by Zen. George Lucas, director of the original Star Wars, originally wanted Toshiro Mifune, a Japanese man from Akira Kurasawa's "Seven Samurai", to play Obi-Wan. Star wars was even majorly inspired by Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress", also starring Mifune who played a samurai general in the film. Couldn't get much better than this..The force is obviously chi or ki. Sooo legit.
      What makes one wise is their ability to sift through all of this personal and social incomplete mind data, and get to the real gems: the truth, direct sensory awareness. A wise person has a good understanding of, and a good hold on, the non-sense in their mind. They are rooted in the rough complexity of the Earth and the Sky. They incinerate hoopla (non-sense) if it gets too close. They have cut through the matrix hologram with the sword of their intellect. They have gathered their senses that once sprawled in reckless abandon, tamed them, and released them onto green pastures. Perhaps they have opened up their mind and their heart to something other than this and have found that this is all that they are.
     A wise person intuits the unity of all forms and seeks to integrate their thoughts into one working model. They sense the limited nature of their thinking. They know their data is incomplete and they have turned inward to the source, which is the Wholeness and non-dividedness of life, for the fulfillment of their conscious self. To fulfill the conscious self, thoughts must become the world. Their data and conscious interpretation of life, must become wholly conscious of life. Wholly, and undivided from, it. What an amazing realization and endeavor. They wish to completely enlighten their mind to a fully conscious realization of the Universe. They wish to process 100% of the data from their senses into conscious awareness. I think this is the most basic intention and desire of all human beings. Of all life really, Everything seeks fulfillment of itself. Everything intuits it's Wholeness. Everything has a wise heart, a divine ember.
     We must live life to approach wisdom and enlightenment. We must develop our incomplete thoughts through continual processing of the input from our senses. We must first separate life into compartmentalized conceptions and then deepen these conceptions until they become direct sensory awareness in their own dissolution. We cannot skip maya, or the Matrix. Samsara, or insanity. We must create it and we must grow through it and shed it like a butterfly sheds it's cocoon. Only through this process can we escape it. We must go in to go out. Wisdom is the knowledge of this subtle and confusing process of transformation that is life. It is knowledge of it and groundedness in it. It is awareness of where a self lies on the path towards greater wisdom and deepening enlightenment. A path that may never end. It is acceptance of this position and abandonment of what cannot be. It is knowing who oneself is and in the words of Alan Watts, "becoming what you are." Becoming what you already are. And once becoming yourself, being yourself.