Monday 14 December 2009
Yielding
The Chinese word shooing means to yield, to relax, to lose to give up. It is said that when Cheng Man Ching trained with the famous Yang Chen-Fu he would be reminded daily to be shooing to be really really shooing."If you are a little bit not shooing you are in the state of a looser and in T'ai Chi you will be defeated."To me this means that as I practice I need to yield to each moment, to completely relax my body in each step and between each step. By becoming conscious of each disturbing thought, feeling or tension and letting them go as they arise, we yield to our practice. We become present in the moment not repressing or avoiding but yielding to and accepting what is here and now. In learning to do this we learn to live consciously rather than on automatic. Then instead of reacting in habitual manner to events in our lives we become more free to respond in new and fresh ways.
Thursday 10 December 2009
Tai Chi with St. Mary's students
Is this what you mean by Yielding?
Brush left knee and push.
What exactly am I doing?
Looking good.
Many thanks to Emer Hallihan for these photos.
Tuesday 8 December 2009
RIPRAP
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The words like an endless
four- dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam,each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
Gary Snyder
Knots In The Grain
"The Japanese term for song bushi or fushi means a whorl in the grain. This is what we call a knot,like a knot in wood. It is a very interesting sense of song - like the grain flows along and then there's a turbulence that whorls, and that's what they call a song." This quote is from an article by Gary Snyder about how his poetry emerges.
I have loved this image ever since I read the article many years ago and have found this idea of a turbulence in the energy very useful in understanding energy movement in Tai Chi and in life (what's the difference).I have often noticed that the postures that have given me most difficulty either in learning or teaching seem to produce a knot in me or the person I'm working with or in both of us. When we manage to unravel this knot something big has cleared or shifted. Then this posture has become very deeply embedded and understood in the body. Sometimes I even feel a healing of old wounds that my body has been holding. The time and love that goes into the unravelling unlocks the energy block causing the knot leaving me lighter and more free.
It seems to me that all the events in our lives also have energy. When we release the events energy as it happens we are free to move on. Sometimes however we don't or can't release the energy and a knot forms. Then we tell the story again and again or repeat the experience again and again until the knot is unravelled and more of our true energy and nature are available to us.For me this is the real work of our lives, to onravel all the knots from this life and the past so the veils are lifted and we are free to "BE".
I have loved this image ever since I read the article many years ago and have found this idea of a turbulence in the energy very useful in understanding energy movement in Tai Chi and in life (what's the difference).I have often noticed that the postures that have given me most difficulty either in learning or teaching seem to produce a knot in me or the person I'm working with or in both of us. When we manage to unravel this knot something big has cleared or shifted. Then this posture has become very deeply embedded and understood in the body. Sometimes I even feel a healing of old wounds that my body has been holding. The time and love that goes into the unravelling unlocks the energy block causing the knot leaving me lighter and more free.
It seems to me that all the events in our lives also have energy. When we release the events energy as it happens we are free to move on. Sometimes however we don't or can't release the energy and a knot forms. Then we tell the story again and again or repeat the experience again and again until the knot is unravelled and more of our true energy and nature are available to us.For me this is the real work of our lives, to onravel all the knots from this life and the past so the veils are lifted and we are free to "BE".
Sunday 6 December 2009
Cultivating an eagle mind
Human qualities often come in clusters. Altruism, inner peace, strength, freedom, and genuine happiness thrive together like the parts of a nourishing fruit. Likewise, selfishness, animosity, and fear grow together. So, while helping others may not always be “pleasant,” it leads the mind to a sense of inner peace, courage, and harmony with the interdependence of all things and beings.
Afflictive mental states, on the other hand, begin with self-centeredness, with an increase in the gap between self and others. These states are related to excessive self-importance and self-cherishing associated with fear or resentment towards others, and grasping for outer things as part of a hopeless pursuit of selfish happiness. A selfish pursuit of happiness is a lose-lose situation: you make yourself miserable and make others miserable as well.
Inner conflicts are often linked with excessive rumination on the past and anticipation of the future. You are not truly paying attention to the present moment, but are engrossed in your thoughts, going on and on in a vicious circle, feeding your ego and self-centeredness.
This is the opposite of bare attention. To turn your attention inside means to look at pure awareness itself and dwell without distraction, yet effortlessly, in the present moment.
If you cultivate these mental skills, after a while you won’t need to apply contrived efforts anymore. You can deal with mental perturbations like the eagles I see from the window of my hermitage in the Himalayas deal with crows. The crows often attack them, diving at the eagles from above. But, instead of doing all kinds of acrobatics, the eagle simply retracts one wing at the last moment, lets the diving crow pass, and then extends its wing again. The whole thing requires minimal effort and causes little disturbance.
Being experienced in dealing with the sudden arising of emotions in the mind works in a similar way.
By Matthieu Ricard
From; This is your brain on bliss
Afflictive mental states, on the other hand, begin with self-centeredness, with an increase in the gap between self and others. These states are related to excessive self-importance and self-cherishing associated with fear or resentment towards others, and grasping for outer things as part of a hopeless pursuit of selfish happiness. A selfish pursuit of happiness is a lose-lose situation: you make yourself miserable and make others miserable as well.
Inner conflicts are often linked with excessive rumination on the past and anticipation of the future. You are not truly paying attention to the present moment, but are engrossed in your thoughts, going on and on in a vicious circle, feeding your ego and self-centeredness.
This is the opposite of bare attention. To turn your attention inside means to look at pure awareness itself and dwell without distraction, yet effortlessly, in the present moment.
If you cultivate these mental skills, after a while you won’t need to apply contrived efforts anymore. You can deal with mental perturbations like the eagles I see from the window of my hermitage in the Himalayas deal with crows. The crows often attack them, diving at the eagles from above. But, instead of doing all kinds of acrobatics, the eagle simply retracts one wing at the last moment, lets the diving crow pass, and then extends its wing again. The whole thing requires minimal effort and causes little disturbance.
Being experienced in dealing with the sudden arising of emotions in the mind works in a similar way.
By Matthieu Ricard
From; This is your brain on bliss
Friday 4 December 2009
Loving Yourself
When I was a child I was taught "Love your neighbour as yourself".My interpretation of this was that loving your neighbour was the important part and that to love oneself was selfish.
Since working with Lester Levinson's release technique this has changed. While at a releasing workshop last summer we were given what appeared to be a simple exercise.
"Look in the mirror and keep releasing (letting go) disapproval of yourself until you have only love feelings for yourself."
Sounds simple, but there was a huge resistance in me to doing this exercise.Being the persistant type I kept at it wondering all the while what the block could be.
Then a memory came back. As a child I loved to play in front of the mirror dressing up and pretending all sorts. When my mother cought me she would scold me and warn me that if I didn't stop "Barnaby" (the devil) would appear to me in the mirror and take me to hell. ( Maybe this is how I got my aversion to seeing myself in the mirror and to loving myself.) In any case once this memory came back a huge weight lifted. I could genuinely begin to love myself and my image in the mirror. This change in my way of relating with myself has transformed how I see and relate to many others in my life. Loving feelings and apreciation come much more frequently. John (my husband) tells me it is like living with the person he got a brief glimpse of when times were really good.
Since working with Lester Levinson's release technique this has changed. While at a releasing workshop last summer we were given what appeared to be a simple exercise.
"Look in the mirror and keep releasing (letting go) disapproval of yourself until you have only love feelings for yourself."
Sounds simple, but there was a huge resistance in me to doing this exercise.Being the persistant type I kept at it wondering all the while what the block could be.
Then a memory came back. As a child I loved to play in front of the mirror dressing up and pretending all sorts. When my mother cought me she would scold me and warn me that if I didn't stop "Barnaby" (the devil) would appear to me in the mirror and take me to hell. ( Maybe this is how I got my aversion to seeing myself in the mirror and to loving myself.) In any case once this memory came back a huge weight lifted. I could genuinely begin to love myself and my image in the mirror. This change in my way of relating with myself has transformed how I see and relate to many others in my life. Loving feelings and apreciation come much more frequently. John (my husband) tells me it is like living with the person he got a brief glimpse of when times were really good.
Wednesday 2 December 2009
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