All I Really Need to Know I Learned On The Way To Kindergarten

Do you remember Robert Fulghum’s wonderful book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?” A list of lots of simple and universal lessons for getting along in life that we were all taught way back in Kindergarten.

Well, I would like to modify the advice a bit for spiritual training.

I remember my first days in school. We could walk to school in those days, even as young as Kindergarten, even in the inner city of Springfield, Massachusetts.

On my way to school, there are two streets to cross. The first one, by my home, is supervised by my Italian grandmother, Nonie, and I am free to walk the rest of the way to the Tapley street school, shadowed by Nonie - though I didn’t know that until later - like a guardian angel in black widow’s dress flitting secretively from tree to tree to make sure I was safe - until I reach the cross-walk just before the school. There is a guard there to help us safely across, and there is also something written on the street in BIG, BOLD, yellow fluorescent block letters. I won’t be able to read what this says until sometime later in the year, and I won’t understand the universal, spiritual profundity of the message until well into my adulthood.

STOP! LOOK! LISTEN!

That’s it. That’s all you need to know in order to get safely across the street as well as safely across the gulf of separation from illusion to the divine union of Reality.

STOP!

Become still, let go of the endless whirl of thoughts and become present to the here and now. Ease off rushing or wanting to be anywhere other than where you are. Be, here, now.

LOOK!

Notice what you notice. Pay attention to what is really happening in the here and now; not to what you want to happen or to what you think is happening, but to what is actually going on. Don’t interpret what is going on through the usual filters of judgment; just look at it as what it IS. Ignore the separation of tree, gars, car, person, sky, and just see it all as an intricate play of light, shadow, and… energy

LISTEN!

Pay attention to what you are hearing. Sounds without interpretation - just listen - allow vibration in through the ears and try to experience it directly as vibration rather than passing it through the usual filters of interpretation (bird singing, bus engine, person shouting, wind rustling leaves, etc). Treat all sound the way you treat a foreign language - no interpretation of the sounds into meaning, just let the sounds in.

The result?

FEELING

Connection, a dissolving of the thin sausage-casing barrier between “I” and “Other.” A melting; an allowing; a letting in and a letting out; a merging; an expansion of my definition of “I” from limited to my body to unlimited, encompassing everything I can see, hear, and FEEL.

Giddy joy, delight, freedom, play, friskiness, and union.

I cannot think of anything I would rather have more. And it is simple. No Gurus, no complicated exercises, no special clothing or equipment required. Darn! What am I going to spend my money on then? Ahhhhhhh - come to Italy to deepen the experience of Stop, Look, Listen.

Ciao,

T'ai Chi is really all about floating

At least for me that is the ultimate T'ai Chi experience. I've explored many different aspects of T'ai Chi over my 38 year practice; done standing meditation (like it a lot - great discipline); done the Macro and Micro Cosmic orbits - consciously circulating energy; done loads of Chi Kung exercises for healing and balancing Chi, etc; done push hands; done two-person fighting forms; done the "12 Animal" forms; done LOTS --- AND --- what it all comes down to for me is the delicious, sensual, effortless, expansive, freeing, joyful, melting, ecstatic goose-bump-producing experience of floating while I do the form. Nothing else provides the high, the well-being, the sheer thrill I seek from this marvelous art

NO other exercise even comes close to that experience. I have experienced moments of weightlessness (Roller-coaster and other 'amusement' park rides). T'ai Chi is better. No stomach jarring queasiness, just the light, weightless sensation of floating along - totally connected to the earth and at the same time floating above it - like a kite (One of my favorite T'ai Chi metaphors).

It really feels like flying, with all the freedom and joyful abandon I associate with flight.

NO other exercise is even designed with that primary purpose in mind - effortless motion. The odd, and seemingly contradictory thing about this is that the floating sensation happens most effectively when I am able to become very heavy, when I let everything drop into the earth, when I totally give into gravity; when I learn how to extend energy through that heaviness without disturbing it.

Doesn't that sound esoteric and oh-so mystical - something my teacher, T.T. Liang, might have said to me 30 years ago, leaving me without a clue but mightily impressed with the image. How to extend energy without undue engagement of muscles. It is as simple (but faaaar more profound and subtle in its application) as learning how to engage in regular tasks with less force. How hard do you grip the steering wheel of your car, or hold a pencil, or a toothbrush? Most people do these things with a lot more force than they actually need? Can you do these things with less force?

That's the basic and simple principle that, when you get waaaay more sophisticated about it, leads to floating . The next step after brushing your teeth with less force is to do it with more energy (and even less force). Now you are getting closer to the principle of T'ai Chi: less force + more energy = delicious melting. It also equals healing (without having to consciously direct the Chi - Chi is self-intelligent, it doesn't need you to guide it); it also equals spiritual connection.

Got to keep these things short - cuz I HATE to slog through long blogs too.

Peace and friskiness and thrills to you,
David

Practice just 1 minute a day

I am serious here!

Just a minute a day makes a huge difference.

The difference is made not by the minute you practice but by the commitment you make to do it. Toooo many people stop learning a new skill, whether it be T'ai Chi or piano, because of the inertia caused by the expectation that they need to practice 20, 30, 60 or more minutes a day in order to get 'good' at it. Inertia is overcome by the low requirement of a minute a day.

Anyone can find a minute in which to work on a new skill. And I promise you WILL progress with just a minute a day as long as you make the commitment to do that minute. You will get much better at T'ai Chi than someone who doesn't practice 20, 30, or 60 minutes a day.

The beautiful thing about making a commitment to do something - as my good friend, yoga teacher Andreas Vetsch expresses it - is that all indecision is removed. You commit to practice and that's an end to it - no questions, no exceptions, no extenuating circumstances, no hesitation, no procrastination --- you don't even have to think about it anymore, you don't even consider not-doing your daily practice -- you just DO IT whether you are tired, sick, bored, or engaged in something else you'd rather be doing.

You make time for it simply because you have MADE THE COMMITMENT. So simple, so beautiful, such a time and procrastination saver.

Of course you are not restricted to One Minute; you can, - and eventually you will find yourself doing so because this is such a rewarding and 'feel-good' an art - go longer than a minute. AND your commitment is fulfilled by that one minute - you have done it - you have some consistency in your life around a practice that will make you healthier, more relaxed, more flexible, and more connected to life. try it. It really works!

As always, I love your reflections back and will answer all inquiries - until they become so numerous that I don't want to answer them all - but for the moment, my abilities are not taxed beyond endurance.

happy practicing!
DZ

Passion is the Key to Freedom

If I want to be free all I have to do is love everything that arises. One of my favorite Zen sayings is, “True freedom is not getting what you like, it’s liking what you get.”

Soooooo, even not liking what I get is freedom as long as I passionately ‘Not Like’ what I get. Even being depressed over not being able to live my values is freeing if I can passionately embrace the feeling of depression.

Any judgment of what I am feeling is a choke-hold on the fuel line that makes my motor run. It can all be gas for the tank, juice the battery, if I allow myself to passionately embrace what I am feeling. Bored? Be passionately bored. Worried? Be passionately worried. Hate my job? Passionately hate my job. Stay with it anyway? Passionately stay with it while hating it. Take the power and the control for all my decisions. Don’t blame myself for anything or make myself feel less for any decision or lack of decision I make. If I feel it all passionately, ANY of it can be the key to my Joy and Freedom.

At the same time, don’t make anyone else the cause of my feeling. Thank them all for providing the charge for my battery. Want them out of my life? Passionately want them out of my life.

Hate, disagree with, bored with, angry at – what you are reading? Wonderful! Great energy there for Freedom if you passionately allow yourself that experience. Want to punch somebody in the nose? Great feeling (Don’t have to act on it). Act on it? Great! Get punched back? OW!!!! Wish I hadn’t acted on my impulse? Wonderful feeling – passionately wish I hadn’t acted on my impulse – etc etc etc.

The interesting thing is NOTHING has to change in the way I live my life in order for me to be free. Don’t have to become a Buddhist or a Republican 0r a vegetarian, or learn to meditate, or become brave, or honest, or ‘better,’ or Aaaanything. Just have to allow myself to be passionate about everything that arises, not choke it off, not be embarrassed about it (unless I allow myself to be passionately embarrassed about it), not ….. well, not ….. ummmm, ok, not NOT ANYTHING!!!

Hence the meaning of another of my favorite Zen sayings: “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment – chop wood and carry water.”

The Love Seat from my Ivan Ilych Post

Yes - It really exists!!!

Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych"

I have just finished reading Tolstoy’s brilliant short story, “The Death of Ivan Ilych” and it occurs to me how ridiculous much of my life is, how unimportant most of it is; not in a depressing way, in a liberating way; not unimportant or ridiculous in what I do but rather in how I do it. It occurs to me, afresh, that it doesn’t really matter what I do; the only thing that matters is how I do it – do I do it with love (or other versions of ‘Love’ : Presence, play, Joy, attention)?

There are so many ways of NOT doing what I do with love that I am not really going to waste time trying to list them. I am either loving or doing something else that is not-love (worry, getting it out of the way, has to be done to earn the paycheck, nobody else will do it, expected of me, hate, ad infinitum).

On any occasion where I look death in the face, just as with Ivan Ilych, I think mental pain will be more severe than physical pain if I look back and realize that I have not loved enough. It is not just the big love either – mate, children, parents, friends; it is also in the tiny little moments of everyday life, the myriad ‘nows’ in which life happens where I can choose the ‘how’ of love over ‘hows’ that are not love.

Life is sooooo beautiful, magnificent and perfect; The great equalizer: How we do life matters and What life we do doesn’t matter. The “HaHaHa AHA!” of the suddenly enlightened student who has just been whacked on the head by the Zen master: Ditch digger, doctor, CEO, peon, investment banker, artist, Drill Baby Drill, environmental activist, rich, poor, Muslim, Jew, Christian….. HaHaHa! It’s all an illusion because it is all just made up from the fabric of “Now.’

No belief or activity or line of work is any better, more necessary, or more real than any other.

I have this truly ugly love seat that I bought on a whim from a consignment shop. The woven fabric of the love seat depicts a rustic country scene of farmhouses, roosters, apple trees, dogs frolicking, ducks swimming, and sheep grazing; all done in bright greens, whites, reds, browns, blues and gold. There is SO MUCH going on in that fabric.

One day I kneel on the cushions, get really close to the back of the love seat and I can follow an individual strand of the fabric as it runs its way from left to right all the way across the back. That strand passes through every one of those scenes, becoming each of the bright, contrasting colors. Right now even as I type I have set the laptop on the seat and I follow it through roof tiles, a white bunny, a red tulip, the green leaf of a tree, the bark of the same tree, a red apple, a white dog, a black dog, blue water, a white sheep, and then it repeats the pattern --- and it is the SAME THREAD. Of course every 16th of an inch the horizontal thread disappears behind another thread running vertically up the back of the seat - the warp and woof of existence. The picture is the illusion made by the dying and weaving of the fabric, the fabric is real.

Same with Life.

What we have in common is so much greater than what divides us; ummmm actually ☺ - we only have in common (the fabric) - what divides us is an illusion (the pictures). Really? OMG, the same thread passes through me AND Sarah Palin? And Osama Bin Laden? AND George Bush? And that mud puddle? And that blue sky? OMFG!

So what does Fabric have to do with Ivan Ilych?

To me, a life well lived consists of awareness of the fabric of life (Backstage) instead of being caught up in the pretty or ugly pictures created by that fabric. Awareness of the fabric gives me the freedom to enjoy the pictures, the beautiful as well as the ugly, and results in more moments of friskiness, beauty, passion, wild joy, love, Presence and Union.

Construction

This is our new studio in creation (Oops - Bottom to Top of course).

Been a loooong time arising:)

Sometimes I feel that I really should have been a builder or carpenter, I love working with my hands and I so love seeing something created by those hands - something physical and touchable created - arising out of the conjunction of raw materials, tools, physical labor and a dream. It seems to me to be creation in a nutshell. You have a thought/desire and gradually you bring it into manifestation. All you need are the proper tools, the material AND the know-how (or learn it while doing) to bring it about.