Super Microphonious; Chinese Medicine Taught Me How To Learn

Chinese medicine is a zoom-out theory and it has taught me how to learn.

Because Chinese medicine doesn’t subscribe to just one line of thinking (keeping all theories and ideas for their appropriate place), over time this permeated into all parts of my being.

I am therefore able to slip seamlessly between spiritual faiths and traditions, and see the common threads.

I am able to visit a martial arts club and not get hung up on style or system.

Zoom out:

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Marc “Animal” MacYoung Speaks

As I’ve said from the beginning, your greatest gift is your awareness of what is actually out there.

…

I’ve tried to point out that the style you choose to get there doesn’t matter as long as you are aware of the bigger picture.

…

I hope that I have shown you a way to free yourself from the invisible chains that seem to bind so many of us.

…

If nothing else, I do hope you have learned that, in many cases, the way to get free from the chaos that crushes so many of us is to draw a line of territory and to defend it with all your might.  That way, when you are no longer tripped by the petty things that cut us off at the knees, you can go out in the world and love and laugh fully.

- excerpts from Cheap Shots, Ambushes, And Other Lessons

Discover Yourself; Krishnamurti

And it would be a mistake, surely, to think that one can know oneself significantly, completely, fully, through isolation, through exclusion, or by going to some psychologist, or to some priest; or that one can learn self-knowledge through a book.

Self-knowledge is obviously a process, not an end in itself; and to know oneself, one must be aware of oneself in action, which is relationship…in relationship to society, to your wife, your husband, your brother, to man; but to discover how you react, what your responses are, requires an extraordinary alertness of mind, a keenness of perception.

-What Are You Doing With Your Life?, pgs. 7-8

Collected: Tattoos on the Heart

The poet Rumi writes, “Find the real world, give it endlessly away, grow rich flinging gold to all who ask.  Live at the empty heart of paradox.  I’ll dance there with you – cheek to cheek.”

With That Moon Language by Hafez
Admit something;
Everyone you see, you say to them,
“Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud;
Otherwise,
Someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this,
This great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one
Who lives with a full moon in each eye
That is always saying
With that sweet moon
Language
What every other eye in this world
Is dying to
Hear.

A homie supplies an excuse to Norma Gillette, who has worked at Homeboy longer than anybody and consequently has heard it all: the homie says to her, “I have Anal Blindness.”  “Anal Blindness?” she says.  ”Yeah, I just can’t see my ass coming to work today.”

The poet Rumi writes, “Close both eyes to see with the other eye.”

Woody Allen says, “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Thich Naht Hahn writes that “our true home is the present moment, the miracle is not to walk on water.  The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment.”

Emily Dickenson writes, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, that sings the song without the words and never stops at all.”

“How many things have to happen to you,” Robert Frost writes, “before something occurs to you?”

“You are the sky,” as Pema Chodron would insist.  ”Everything else, it’s just weather.”

Mary Oliver writes, “There are things you can’t reach.  But you can reach out to them, and all day long.”

Read the book: 
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7090193-tattoos-on-the-heart

The Double-Bind Game by Alan Watts

The first rule of this game is that it is not a game.

Everyone must play.

You must love us.

You must go on living.

Be yourself, but play a consistent and acceptable role.

Control yourself and be natural.

Try to be sincere.

-Excerpt from The Book by Alan Watts, pg 73

The Addictive Type; Noah Levine

Prayer and meditation quickly became a more integral part of my life.  They were helping me make sense of everything.  I was beginning to find some sense of purpose in my life.

Being an addictive type, when I find something that makes me feel good I want to do it all the time, so I did, I turned my life toward recovery and spiritual practice.

I had tried everything else.  Drugs hadn’t worked, material accumulation hadn’t worked, violence certainly hadn’t worked, and the negative attention ego trip of graffiti, gangs, and lawlessness had just almost gotten me locked up again.

I knew this spiritual practice shit was the last hope for me.

- Dharma Punx by Noah Levine, Pg. 84

His Dark Side Speaks; Nonsense

90% of the stuff we were taught re health is bullshit myth. Saturated fat nonsense, calories in and out, hydrating during workouts, correct form in weight training, 10 reps, heavy weight slows you down, 8 glasses water, coffee dehydrates, workout after carb loading, don’t eat butter etc etc.

F*cking nonsense.

Structure in wc, correct shapes, yjkym being training stance, Biu tze deadliness, lsjc, don’t build muscle, elbow has to be centered, elbow force, don’t connect at wrist.

Nonsense.

Aim; Go

In the long run men hit only what they aim at.  Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.

-Walden, pg.24

How far are you willing to go? I’ll see you there.

—Jesse Glover (1935-2012)

Personal Style; Alan Watts

Big up Sati for the quote.

“It must be understood that to cultured men… there is nothing unnatural in developing a certain personal style, with even a touch of swagger, provided one does it with humour.” – Alan Watts (Zen Buddhist and spiritual entertainer)

What The World Needs Now

A species in which everyone was General Patton would not succeed, any more than would a race in which everyone was Vincent van Gogh.  I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, sex symbols, painters, scientists; it needs the warmhearted, the hardhearted, the coldhearted, and the weakhearted.

It needs those who can devote their lives to studying how many droplets of water are secreted by the salivary glands of dogs under which circumstances, and it needs those who can capture the passing impression of cherry blossoms in a fourteen-syllable poem or devote twenty-five pages to the dissection of a small boy’s feelings as he lies in bed in the dark waiting for his mother to kiss him goodnight…

Indeed the presence of outstanding strengths presupposes that energy needed in other areas has been channeled away from them.

-Allen Shaw

Your Talent is a Gift; Sweet Science

Intrigued by this concept, I spent some time pondering the meaning of the phrase.  The word “sweet” has many confectionery and feminine connotations, but in this context it means “winning and persuasive.”  The word “science” is defined as “knowledge and skill.”

Putting the two words together has a truly artful meaning: “a winning and persuasive knowledge or skill that is accumulated and established over time.”

-White Collar Boxing by John Oden, Pg. 18-19

Human Nature

“You gotta keep your punches short, you gotta keep them on target, you gotta keep them accurate and you gotta keep them tight.”  -Steve Morris

Bruce Lee and Yip (Ip) Man

“You can well say that I do not have any style, though I have to admit that I initiate from my wing chun instructor, Mr. Yip Man.  We had tea not too long ago, and although our ideas differ, I respect this instructor of mine.  Whatever happens, he is my wing chun instructor.

What it boils down to is my sincere and honest revelation of a man called Bruce Lee – that is, regarding martial art (which always comes first), his viewpoint on movie-making, and last, but not least, just who is Bruce Lee?  Where is he heading?  What [does] he hope to discover?

To do this a person has to stand on his own two feet and find out his cause of ignorance.  For the lazy and hopeless, they can forget it and do what they like best.”

-Bruce Lee (excerpt from Artist of Life, Pg. 228)

Certainty

Even if a Samurai’s head were to be suddenly cut off, he should still be able to perform one more action with certainty. If one becomes like a revengeful ghost and shows great determination, though his head is cut off, he should not die.

Steve Jobs (1955-2011) Quote

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

-2005 Stanford University Speech

Yes and No People (quote from Rory Miller)

Excerpt from here: 
http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2011/05/yes-and-no-people.html

“In training, do we give over our agency to someone with a title so we don’t have to think for ourselves?  Avoid training with strangers or new ideas to maintain our level of comfort?  Accept that our instructor’s superior years of training in some way requires us to act and think like dutiful children instead of men and women?

Or do we brawl and challenge and play?  Look for things so different that they will shift everything we thought we knew?  Try to find those edges of fear and exhaustion where the world changes?

In the end, is your training about being comfortable?  Or being incredible?”

Trust

“People are different, but the media, the world has made them afraid to create their own space around themselves, when they should just close their eyes and trust in themselves.” – Burial

Peace, CTK

Goals, Achievers and Vengeance

“People who have achieved their goals tend to believe in personal accountability and responsibility. They tend to be more compassionate, supportive, at peace with themselves and others, and optimistic. They also tend to be more forgiving, hardworking and industrious.

Those who have NOT achieved their goals often have a victim mentality. They can be quick to place blame on others and may be bitter, angry, negative, pessimistic, and vengeful. Usually, they are less industrious and more critical and cynical than achievers.” Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, Ph.D., and Mark Mazzarella (Reading People)

So, which one are you?