Changing Places

Gustav Klimt, Fulfillment

“There is the kiss of welcome and of parting, the long, lingering, loving, present one; the stolen, or the mutual one; the kiss of love, of joy, and of sorrow; the seal of promise and receipt of fulfillment.” –Thomas C. Haliburton

“Plant the seed of desire in your mind and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment.” — Robert Collier

Accomplish your visions.
Persevere in your ambitions.
Only then can you negate
Visions and ambitions.

Some say that one should not have ambitions; they equate these with greed and lust. However, some ambitions are the result of curiosity and inner desire. They are individual interests, like wanting to know about a certain subject or wanting to achieve goals. As long as they do no harm to others, they should be exercised rather than suppressed.

Many young people are held back by their peers and their elders. Sometimes there are valid reasons, but usually the motivations of the others are colored by fear, ignorance, jealousy, or inadequacy. No one should hold you back from achieving your life’s goals.

Whatever you want to do, do it to the fullest. There are just a few provisions. First, you must realize that nothing is forever. You may achieve your goals only to find out that they are no longer important to you. This is all right. That means you have come to the end of your interest and are now free to go on to something else. Secondly, your ambitions should not determine your life. You are a human being first, and your goals are merely adjuncts to your basic quest as a person. Finally, you should realize that the fulfillment of your goals should include the eradication of all fears. Once you have accomplished these things, you will truly have nothing standing between you and spiritual realization.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.
– Sir John Lubbock

“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.” — Mark Twain

“As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found–in himself.”
– Erich Fromm

I’m someone who always enjoys learning new things, and acquiring new knowledge. My ambitions are usually focused on learning some new skill or learning about something. One of the difficult parts of the Tao for me is realizing that I need to get out of my mind sometimes to be with the Tao. So I tend to give in a lot to my ambition for knowledge.

My visions are often centered on creating a new piece of art, or adding something new to my life. I’ve been wanting for some time now to get myself focused again on my art, but I make way too many excuses, and the art gets put off again and again, as does actually bringing new things into my life. I want to learn more Chinese brush painting and return to working with watercolor. I want to continue to grow and move along new pathways.

Ambitions and visions are important clues for us to understanding ourselves. I don’t know that we ever really get beyond them. Even the idea of not having them is sort of an ambition of its own. But can we feel fulfilled without accomplishing all our ambitions? Of course. I still feel fulfilled much of the time, even though I haven’t accomplished all the things I’ve set out to do in the day. It’s important to learn to get satisfaction from life itself, and not only from our achievements.

I think the real fulfillment for me is in knowing that wherever my path may take me, I can find satisfaction and contentment and enjoy whatever the day might bring for me.

“Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid,” by Jan Vermeer

She withdrew into herself,
First writing just for one,
Then touching thousands.
She incarnated ghosts, hurt, and joy
Into paper-and-ink stories of wonder.

One author said, “I can get rid of anything by writing about it,” meaning that the process of externalization could liberate him from the pain in his soul. That realization produced a delicious dichotomy; to free himself: or to hold on to both joys and tortures by remaining silent about them.

Writers write because they must: They need to express something from deep within themselves. They hear voices that others do not. They listen urgently, and they must communicate what they hear.

People feel Tao in the same way that writers feel something unique. In the process of listening for mysterious voices and expressing the wonder that comes is a magic akin to the perfection of Tao.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all. — Lord Byron

“I started with all the handicaps, incapabilities and helplessness. I didn’t talk when I was twenty. I taught myself by the act of writing.” –Anais Nin

“Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one;
it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become that path himself.” — Henry Miller

I don’t think there is anything that mysterious about Tao, or about writing. They are very natural things to me. What I see is more that most people are separated from writing about the things they really feel deeply or even sometimes from knowing they feel those things at all. We live in a very shallow sort of society where we are rather actively discouraged from thinking about anything too deeply or expressing our inner thoughts and emotions, and most people come to internalize this and guard their own thoughts from any depth of feeling. Yet we admire writers who are able to make us feel, and end up caring more at times about fictional characters than those in our own lives. Why? Because we see the depth of feeling displayed in those characters, while those in our own lives are trained not to show their own depths.

I’ve lost three friends for the great sin of caring about them too deeply and expressing what I felt. I would have been far better off to pour my feelings into my journals and never have told them what I felt for them. I think a lot of writers write because they can’t express these things in their own lives, so they create fictional characters where they can share their thoughts and feelings.

Tao is about a deep connection with the process of life itself. Once you experience that, you find it everywhere, in everything. It isn’t possible to be separated from it, although some days the feeling is certainly deeper than other days. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to write well enough to be able to express that feeling.

(apologies for all the reposts lately — I’m involved in other projects and not thinking a lot about the blog lately)

Be still to know the absolute.
Be active to know the outer.
The two spring from the same source,
All of life is one whole.

In stillness, one seeks the absolute Tao. There is neither beauty nor ugliness in it. Because it has no opposites, it is called absolute. By contrast, nothing of this world is absolute, because all things that we experience are relative.

Seeking the absolute may be among the greatest goals, but you cannot remain on your meditation cushion forever. You must go out and explore life as well. This is the investigation of the outer Tao — that aspect of Tao that flows through all existence. You must not fail to explore anything that interests you. Any skill you want to master should be learned. Any subject that arouses curiosity should be examined. Every insecurity should be overcome. Every question should be answered. If you do not do this, then you cannot freely flow with the outer Tao : Every one of your uncertainties will be an obstacle.

Initially, it will seem as if there is no connection between your time meditating and the outer things in your life. After all, the masters themselves constantly stress the difference between the spiritual and the social. But eventually, you will reach a point where the quiescence of contemplation and the activeness of living are integrated. Then there is no anxiety about whether one is living a spiritual life or not. You realize that it is all part of the same seamless whole.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

If the boulders are moved,
Even a river will change its flow.

Except for occasional flooding, the mightiest river keeps to its bed. It flows where it finds openings between cliffs and rocks. If the river is dammed, if the cliff walls are moved, if the boulders are shifted, it will flow a different course. It could even be made to flow backwards if the earth moved far enough.

So it is with the flow of our lives. Once the fixed objects of our lives shift, our circumstances change. If we move to another city, life will change. If we marry one person over another, life will be different. If we situate our business in a good neighborhood, life will be prosperous. If we choose a house in a good setting, life will be healthy. If we arrange our furniture properly, life will be comfortable. If we eat correctly, life will be prolonged. In short, followers of Tao realize that the flow of life can be affected and to some degree consciously manipulated simply by altering its parameters.

Life is the flow of energy. It is the air that we breathe, the force that moves the weather, the force of all minds combined. It keeps the rivers flowing, our hearts beating, and the sky blue. This flow of energy moves constantly according to the fixed points that exist at any given moment. Therefore, by manipulating the cardinal points of our lives, we can change the flow. The freedom to choose and to change belongs to us.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao. — Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

Sailing

A sailboat moves with the wind,
But May still be steered.
You may flow with Tao,
Yet still make choices.

– Richard Seymour

32. Shapes

Flow has no true shape,
And therefore none can control it.
If a ruler could control flow
All things would follow
In harmony with his desire,
And sweet rain would fall,
Effortlessly slaking every thirst.

Flow is shaped by use,
But then the shape is lost.
Do not hold fast to shapes
But let sensation course into the world
As a river runs down to the sea.

– GNL Tao Te Ching

All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement. — Ovid

Back when I was studying engineering, the most dreaded course was fluid dynamics. The mathematics involved in studying fluids is complicated, and in some cases, turbulence in fluids simply becomes chaos, totally unpredictable.

We can determine some of the flow of our lives, but there will always be elements of it that are unpredictable, which, of course, is part of the fun. The true art of Tao is not in trying to control the flow, but in learning enough about how the flow of our life works that we can manage things when they descend into chaotic flow. Not that you can control events outside of yourself, but that you can control how you react and respond to those events. This is the real art of Tao.

Pure light is all colors.
Therefore, it has no hue.
Only when singleness is scattered
Does color appear.

When we see pure sunlight streaming down on us, it is a pure radiance so bright that we can discern neither details nor hues from its source. But when light strikes the gossamer wings of a dragonfly, or when it shines through misty rain, or even when it shines on the surface of our skin, it is polarized into millions of tiny rainbows. The world explodes with color because all the myriad surfaces and textures fracture the light into innumerable, overlapping dimensions.

The same is true of Tao. In its pure state, it embodies everything. Thus, it shows nothing. Just as pure light has all colors yet shows no color, so too is all existence initially latent and without differentiation in Tao. Only when Tao enters our world does it explode into myriad things. We say that everything owes its existence to Tao. But really, these things are only refractions of the great Tao.

Colored light, when mixed together, becomes pure, bright light again. That is why those who follow Tao constantly speak of returning. They unify all areas of their lives and unify all distinctions into a whole. There cannot be diversity within unity. When our consciousness rejoins the true Tao, there is only brightness, and all color disappears.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Look at the dust particles floating in the sunlight, like little bits of glitter. See the gnats shine as they zig zag in the light. Look at the light shine off the leaves of the plants. Look at it glisten on the coat of the cat in the window. Watch light reflect off glass, refract off everything. Tao is the same, reflecting and refracting everywhere.

I often think how fortunate we all are, to have such a wide variety of things to see and do in the world. Yet people are so unhappy, feeling stuck in their jobs or their lives. Even I feel stuck sometimes, until I look up and realize how much great stuff there is going on all around me. Quit thinking things will be better if you were doing something else, and learn to appreciate where you are and what is around you. Even a prisoner can go inside and explore what is within themselves – what is within us reflects what is around us and refracts the Tao as much as anything.

There is so much in life to enjoy. And yet it is really all part of the same thing, the Tao. It all seems so different, but it is all made from the same stuff, electrons, protons, neutrons. And so with people as well – all of us seeming so different, but really all so much the same. Why can’t we just learn to enjoy the differences, celebrate our wonderful diversity of interests and ideas instead of believing we are right and they are wrong, or we are better and they are worse, or we are good and they are evil. We are one, yet many, together, yet always alone. And we fear being alone as much as we fear being together. Perhaps we need to get over the fear and accept that once we overcome the fear of diversity, we can overcome the fear of unity as well.

We all come from and return to the same source. Even the gnat. Isn’t it time we use the magnificent brains we’ve been given to at least enjoy life as much as the gnat? Live in the light. Zig zag around and see what you find. Whee, you can fly. Yeah! Like that.

Just got back to San Diego. House is trashed and the spa was open and full of leaves. The twenty-something couldn’t understand why we were so annoyed with him, of course, and wanted things cleaned up “right now”. Hmm. Thought we had raised him better than that…

Oh well, we are home. Cleanup tomorrow.

funny-pictures-cat-has-writers-block

I’m off to Phoenix for a week to sort out family affairs. My disabled sister broke her leg and I need to make sure things are ok for her when she gets out of the rehab facility and back home. And my disabled nephew just moved into a new facility, so need to check on him too. Then of course might as well visit the boy in Tucson and my husband’s family…

Hopefully when I get back I’ll be inspired to post more often, once things are back in order….

The whole is in the seed.

A whole plant is contained in the seed.
An entire person is contained in an egg.
Every living thing in the world comes from seed.
And every living thing in the world dies and falls to the earth.
Bodies rot, only to feed the earth and release the seed.
That is true rebirth.

Tao is infinite.
It is a seed of unlimited circumference,
With its center any point in its boundless eternity.
Tao is a tiny seed,
Containing unlimited universes in its dimensionless center.

The seed is the whole of what we want to know.
The seed is the center.
The seed is the source.
And the source is the whole of Tao.

Deng Ming Dao, Everyday Tao

________

There’s not really any word to describe having children other than miraculous. If you think about them being your seeds, yet becoming so fully their own person, it is an amazing thing. Out of all the thousands of eggs, the millions of sperm, two little bits collided and joined and became this wonderful person.

That’s how I see my kids, how I wish other people would see theirs. If we looked at it the right way, they would all be too precious and wonderful to waste in wars or allow to live in poverty. We would care for them all as best we possibly could.

If Tao is the seed for everything, then all that comes from Tao is miraculous as well. How does something emerge from what seems to be nothing, and live and grow and reproduce itself? Life is an amazing thing, and all its creations are miraculous. We can study life scientifically and find out how some things work, but that fundamental life force eludes us, and that is Tao.

We get lost in our own little piece of the world, in the things that seem important to us from day to day. Yet in the long run, most of them are trivial. Does it matter if a report is done on time or not, really? Of course not. What matters is that moment spent watching a child, the moment spent admiring a flower, the moment spent gazing into the eyes of someone you love and seeing yourself reflected in their gaze. Those are the things of real value, the things that lead us to wonder and awe and understanding of Tao.

Look for the seed, and discover the entire beauty of what is around you, encompassing you, within you, is you yourself and everyone around you. Namaste.

YAY!!!!

“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”

via Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus – Bloomberg.com.

“Naked I came into the world, but brush strokes cover me, language raises me, music rhythms me. Art is my rod and staff, my resting place and shield, and not mine only, for art leaves nobody out. Even those from whom art has been stolen away by tyranny, by poverty, begin to make it again. If the arts did not exist, at every moment, someone would begin to create them, in song, out of dust and mud, and although the artifacts might be destroyed, the energy that creates them is not destroyed.”
- Jeanette Winterson

via Whiskey River

“Artifacts are the physical manifestation of dreams, ideas, and great deeds … some point to successes, some point to great mistakes.” — Bruce Wells

“Perhaps we will learn how small differences in the code of life enabled us — but not chimpanzees — to cook soufflés, create symphonies, translate our own voyages into maps, build ever more complicated artifacts, and write plays that reflect the social intricacies of our lives,” — Marc Hauser

“The muddy waters roiled by Katrina have no doubt flooded some legendary musical locales and wiped out irreplaceable artifacts of New Orleans music. Among the hardest hit areas were the poverty-stricken African-American neighborhoods, where the New Orleans musical traditions are all but woven into the tattered but colorful fabric of everyday life. But the music of Crescent City as well as the people who create it — and the spirit, soul, originality, independence and distinctive locality of that art and the musicians who create it — cannot be washed away, no matter what the category hurricane or depth of flood. It’s going to take some time, but it will come back … We’ve got to put it back because it’s so involved with the local economy and the United States.” — Art Neville

I think for most of us our art is stolen away by what we perceive as our lack of time, the importance of our daily lives or the habits of our routines. Our culture doesn’t place a high priority on making time for art. And yet, many of us persist, with a bit of music, a snatch of song, even just a thought of what we might paint or draw or photograph if we got a moment. Taking the time to create those artifacts in the real world might be beyond us, but perhaps we can start to sneak it back in again, a tiny bit at a time. I love that our new gadgets and phones and toys are beginning to contain cameras, so we can record those fleeting moments that grab our attention. Perhaps next will be those ultra portable touch pads to sketch on, or ways to record our songs on the fly, or create spontaneous poetry slams as we perform and record our poetry wherever we like. Will our culture begin to value more creative work from all of us, let us weave it into the fabric of our daily lives, or just keep honoring the few who can successfully make art their lives’ work?

So, I turn 51 tomorrow. Hubby turns 50 on Wednesday. Last year for our birthdays, we got a new President. Best birthday present ever!

In the last year my mood has gone from hopeful to somewhat frustrated, as at times it seems nothing changed with the healthcare legislation crawling along. But everything did, really. It struck me watching Mad Men last night, where the episode focused on the Kennedy assassination (a great show if you don’t watch it, and their best episode ever last night.) The episode really brought out how everything changed in that moment, how people changed their minds about how safe the world was, about their own life goals, about what was important to them. Children learned their parents could not keep their world safe, watching the drama unfold on television. Like 9/11, like those few minutes last year hearing Obama had won, the world changed forever. I was working the polls last year, and they went from incredibly busy to completely empty almost in a few moments, as many who had eagerly sought to vote decided it was over when Pennsylvania was called. Which sadly probably really hurt the gay marriage issue in California. But those who still came, just to vote for Obama anyway, they warmed my heart, bringing their children in to watch them vote, to be part of that moment and that change.

The changes in our own lives seem to come in moments as well — weddings, birth, anniversaries, birthdays. And death, accidents, injuries, and illness on the other side. But they really take time and sometimes are a very long time in the making. I set goals for myself this last year: losing weight, getting in shape, the usual. I haven’t lost weight, but am in better shape and take better care of myself in many ways. Still, it seems that no big goals were reached for me personally. We celebrate the big changes, the big moments, not realizing how we are working towards our goals along the way. We fail to celebrate the little, small steps we make forward, and sometimes, we forget to focus on those moments in between, the space between the big events.

I think about where I will be next year at this time, wonder what changes will take place in that year. But really, I wonder what I need to do, moment to moment, to live my life as fully as possible and to be myself as completely as possible. Those moments are the ones that will lead me to wherever it is I end up next year. I sit right now in a golden sunbeam, looking at a sticker on my board next to the computer that says “Yes, We Did — Together We Made History.” I don’t know what my equivalent will be for next year. There are other things posted on my board — the photo of the beach in Kauai where I released my parents’ ashes, the photo of a hotel in Ireland where we spent a memorable vacation, cards and notes from friends, reminders to be compassionate, to be who I am, to believe in the possibilities, to be aware of my direction in life, to act from the heart. Two golden retrievers lay by my feet. Stacks of books are at hand, my computer, my camera, and a birthday card asking, “Is this the birthday when you start asking yourself life’s big questions?”

Yes, yes, it is.

Tao is the road up your spine.
Tao is the road of your life.
Tao is the road of the cosmos.

People are often confused about Tao because there are references to it on so many different levels. After all, it permeates all existence. Indeed it might be said that Tao is existence itself. It might seem odd that we can talk about Tao on a level so mundane as physical exercise and on a level as exalted as holiness itself. Those who follow Tao do not think of divinity as something “up there.” They think of it as everywhere.

Tao can be tangible when it wants and intangible when it wants to. One tangible aspect of Tao is the road in the very center of our spines. That is the path of Tao in us. It is the spirit road connecting the various power centers of our bodies.

On a philosophical level, Tao is the road through life. It is the change from one stage to another, the dealing with circumstances, the expression of your inner character against the background of nature and society. On a metaphysical level, it is the evolution and movement of the cosmos itself.

Now take these three levels — the movement of energy up the spine, the philosophical understanding of one’s own path in life, and the very progression of the universe — and meld them all into one combined concept. Then you will have a glimpse of the genius of Tao.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where you backbone ought to be.” — Clementine Paddleford

“The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To understand others you should get behind their eyes and walk down their spines” — Rod McKuen

“Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there’s nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.” — Terry Pratchett

Thirty spokes share the wheel’s hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
– Tao Te Ching, 11

Usually if I’m thinking about my spine, it’s because I need a visit to the chiropractor. Hmm, not a bad idea, actually. My neck is hurting, and I’ve been missing my pilates and yoga classes lately, and even my strength training sessions. So perhaps I’ll get to the chiro today.

But the thought that struck me as I was putting this together is that while our spines are firm and help hold us up, they are also hollow, and it is the space inside that makes them truly useful, since that space is filled with our spinal cord that connects our nerves to our brains. This is where Tao flows, in the space between.

Our lives are defined not so much by the events that occur, what happens to us, but by how we choose to think about those events. It is what happens within us, between the events of our lives, that determines the kind of life we will have. Unplanned events occur, people around us pass on, things don’t go as we may hope — but still, we carry on. And we call this having backbone, having the strength to persevere. And yes, the strength is important, but the other great thing about our spine is that it is flexible, and allows us to change direction. It is when we become too inflexible that we have problems moving.

The world around us has to be flexible and open as well. Trees and plants are designed to sway in the wind yet must be strong enough to bear their weight, and have hollow space to let the sap move freely. If we build buildings that cannot sway with an earthquake or stand the force of a hurricane, they will fall. If we neglect our bodies and fail to stay flexible, we will eventually become injured or ill. If we fail to allow there to be space within ourselves, we can’t make room for spirituality.

Sure, Tao is “up there”. And down there, and outside, and inside, and everywhere. It’s interesting that if you ask someone in an Eastern religion to point to heaven, they will point within themselves. Try asking a Westerner to point to heaven, and it’s “up there”.

No wonder we’re confused all the time.