Going Online

With the onset of the covid 19 virus epidemic, a worldwide phenomena, the ensuing social isolation required to stem its’ spread has temporarily stopped my classes. Many classes at the college have resumed as on line events, and I am considering this option in order to fill the current need for T’ai Chi as a positive influence in the world.

The Rasta carpenters have a saying, “Measure twice and cut once.”, or, as the joke goes, “I’ve cut this board three times, and it’s still too short!”.

With this in mind, I am beginning to look at what teaching a physical activity such as T'ai Chi might be like as an on line and interactive class, with 21st century technology. 

My co-instructor at the college is now teaching English on line. I have used the same on line technology for doctor visits and for Face time. With the current requirements for social isolation, some good options come to mind that make use of traditional teaching methods.

I’m looking forward to beginning interactive sessions one on one, before advancing to the classroom situation, and have plans for three types of sessions or session parts for the new classes. 

First, we begin with, for new students, an introduction to the form, including a brief overview and demonstration. 

Second, we offer a traditional following of the form, which would be good for students at various levels and very useful practice for new and current students.

Third, we offer teaching sessions in which  individual  students’ solo performance of the form, as far as they can do on their own, will be critiqued individually, presenting useful tips that are usually helpful to all of the students.

So far, I have not set a time line for this, but I have already begun the hardware and software design and accumulation, and hope to proceed rapidly once a usable teaching vehicle has been implemented.

 It is my hope that this effort may prove invaluable long after the virus spread precautions are history, and may find its’ way to a large audience.

Post Traumatic Growth

The Cubans have a saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” 

This might be applicable with the current pandemic. Hopefully we may yet take what ever lessons life sends us, no matter how difficult they may be, and come out the other side with good energy to face the future.

Best wishes to All,

Daniel

Life in 2020

Sometimes God, or the Universe, might whisper in our ear, a subtle message if we need it.

 It might be to do the right thing, or to slow down and take better care of ourselves. 

If we miss this message, it might present in a little stronger form, a tap on the shoulder, as it were.

 “Slow Down”, or “Do what’s Right”, or perhaps just “Pay Attention!”. 

If we still don’t pick up on this, if we are lucky, we might get another, perhaps stronger little slap in the face, such as a flu or a virus, perhaps. 

If we still don’t get the message, … Who knows? But we probably won’t like it. 

I hope that we don’t need to be hit by a truck before we heed the warning.

Let’s all try to take better care of ourselves, what ever that means to each of us, because if we don’t, no one else can.

This might also mean taking better care of each other, our families, our country, our planet, what ever we might consider ourselves a part of.

Again, if we don’t, no one else can do this for us.

How to Start

Get enough rest and some exercise, and things will get better.

Don’t wait!

Take better care of yourselves, Now!!

You can’t help others if you don’t stay, or get, well!

The Larger View

Be careful what you wish for…

When I was younger it came to me from my experience in the Sweat Lodge, that, as Barrett used to say, God always answers prayer, but sometimes the answer is ‘No’.

I had found that jogging (slow, steady running) seemed to really clear my head when nothing else worked. During my runs I found myself praying. This evolved into a sequence that began with wishes for long life, good health, peace, joy, wisdom, and a few other things along those lines. 

I asked these things for, beginning with my family, (who I named individually), my teachers past and present and their families, friends, and so on out to the people that I passed on my run, their families and friends, the people and beings of my community, on outward to my part of town, my town, city, county, part of Florida, the whole state, the South Eastern United States, the whole country, continent, hemisphere, on out to the whole planet, solar system, part of our galaxy, the whole galaxy, the local galactic cluster of galaxies, on out to infinity. 

From the smallest sub atomic particles out to the largest aggregates, from the fastest to the slowest, through a litany of all that I could conceive, I would pray that all would help each other and interact for the benefit of all.

This took about 40 minutes, and was my regular practice for a long time. 

The Theosophists say “As Above, So Below”, and as I prayed for the external world, I was also asking for these things for all the parts inside myself. 

Sometimes God works in mysterious ways. As I look back, I see results that truly answered my prayers, but not in the way I expected.

During a medical checkup my physician found some elevated liver enzymes, and further study found a medical issue, (Hepatitis C), requiring, in those days, a combination of chemotherapy and a virus killer. The disease had been caught early, between stage one and two, (microscopic, reversible damage, assuming the treatment worked), and the treatment was successful.

I had no symptoms of the illness, but the six months of treatment nearly killed me. I lost 50 pounds, the recovery was slow, and my stomach was never the same. Since then I have been forced to eat a much healthier diet, which has probably added 20 years to my life.

God had answered my prayers.

The Sufi’s say “Don’t count your money, your losses and gains, until the end of the market day.” 

Perhaps we sometimes get exactly what we need, on grander stages as well. We might be able to apply this larger view in such arenas as world health, global or national politics, and so on, even if it doesn’t seem pertinent at the time.

Namaste,

Daniel

Acting Out

Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like bananas.

                   -A thought on the ambiguity of language…

When we accept a looser definition of language, we may see activities such as music and T’ai Chi as the expression of feelings, hopes and aspirations that are often not easily put into words. 

This “Acting out” is seen in children, who often have not yet developed the ability to frame their feelings into words. 

In play therapy, a safe space is created in which such feelings may be expressed. 

Through this process the need to act out with family, in school, or other, perhaps less appropriate situations, is alleviated. 

Later in life, we may find our own, more subtle ways to deal with these needs for self expression. 

This helps us to look at our own “stuff” and sometimes to make friends with it.

Opportunities for these “Meditative moments” may often occur when practicing T’ai Chi or, for instance, humming a tune. 

This “letting things that usually go un-noticed out” where we can see them, might sometimes be immensely therapeutic, and lead to a healing of the spirit and soul.

Namaste
Daniel

Good Enough

“The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.”

                                                           Old Sufi saying

The Dalai Lama once told us that we should always be satisfied with our material growth, and never be satisfied with our spiritual growth, always striving for more. (Visit to Dharamsala, April 2001).

 Applying this to our T’ai Chi practice, We might consider that we can accept our limitations and imperfections, yet still continue striving always to do better. 

This will generalize and positively influence the strengthening of our character, thus facilitating the growth of our spiritual side.

When we neglect what we can do, and focus on our imperfections, we waste precious energy that might be used more productively to foster positive growth. 

Even small efforts have a cumulative effect, strengthening our effort habits and muscles, and thus building that which we call character. 

It is within this process that spiritual growth occurs.

Be of good cheer! 

This might not always be obvious, but no effort is wasted, and the additive process, little by little, will always move us forward.

We are like the talking dog. 

The fact that we can talk far outweighs any imperfections evident in the dog’s speech and grammar.

“There’s nothing like making people laugh.”

                                                                 Eddie Murphy (TV interview, CBS December, 2019)

Wishing All a Great New Year,

Daniel

The Matter/Energy Interface

Chemical reactions, such as those which take place between the synapses, where individual nerve or brain cells interface, being physical processes, must take some time to achieve completion. 

Thus thought, as a physical chemical event, takes time. 

Waves traveling through a medium, on the other hand, may be seen to move much more quickly. This is perhaps the most salient difference between the mechanistic and the holistic description of the operation of any system. 

The same interaction may be viewed as a material process or as energetic interaction. Each view may suggest different but equally useful insight into the nature of any process. 

When studying a system such as a set of T’ai Chi interactions through each of these lenses, one may sometimes find that the intersection of these two views may hold the key to a very practical understanding that is not evident from one individual view or lens. 

This may be described more simply as viewing the matter or the energy transactions.

A balanced equation requires only equivalence, and in T’ai Chi this is achieved by looking at both the parts and the motion as equivalent analogies. 

Movement, or energy, and position of the body parts in balance, are thus energetic and material parts working together in balance. 

As such, the dance of immediate awareness, sometimes described as mindfulness, is continually defined by this interaction in the present moment.

If these thoughts seem somewhat obtuse, please think of them as just some ramblings of a late night over active mind. 

If, however, they draw the attention to possible states of awareness engendered by some of the meditative aspects of the practice of the form, then well and good! 

I offer them with no intention other than to possibly awaken a creative spirit within our practice.

Alice and the White Queen

As the story goes, (As I remember it, perhaps not quite accurate in some details… from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Alice comes upon the White Queen and the Queen is going “Ouch!” “Ouch!”.

 Alice asks the White Queen, who is sewing, “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” 

And the Queen says “No, but I’m going to stick myself with a pin in five minutes, and Boy, is it going to hurt!”. 

This may seem rather silly, but how often do we worry so much about that which hasn’t happened that we miss much that is special about the present moment!

Blessings to All,

Daniel

Moving Forward Again

The physical movements of the T’ai Chi form may end at the toes and fingertips, but the consciousness engendered by the intention of the movements may at the same time extend far beyond this, into the farthest reaches of which our conceptions are capable. 

This may sometimes be facilitated by practicing outdoors, where immense visual distances may remind us of the infinite size of that which we may consider ourselves a part of.

By our practice, as we interact with this immense space, how could we not have, at least some miniscule effect upon it also. It is within this framework that the possibility of spirituality, and spiritual growth, may occur. 

It may be postulated that we can become, in our consciousness, as large as all that we can conceive. 

When we take responsibility for being a part, perhaps an active part, of something greater than our physical selves, this very step may perhaps allow for change and growth of the larger entity. 

Herein may lie the basis of the spiritual aspects of our practice.

Conservation of Mass, Energy, and Spirit

Science shows us that in all our actions, mass is conserved, and energy is also conserved.

 In all chemical, physical, and spacial interactions, we end up with the same mass, and the same energy, that we started with.

From these basic Newtonian precepts, extended by Einstein’s law of the conservation of mass and energy (E=MC squared), we may logically postulate that no effort is wasted.

Reincarnation

 It has been said that the most basic tenet of Buddhism is that all aggregates are impermanent.

From this, we can see the possibility that if, through effort, we evolve, when we (that is, our personality), are gone, what we have done is not wasted. 

The building blocks that we leave behind for the next aggregates to coalesce are more evolved. How could this not be?!

This may be described as a form of re-incarnation, not in the layman’s conception of our personality re-coalescing (An I suspect extremely rare occurrence), but just that the ideation (Consciousness), as a form of energy, is conserved.

Again, as we begin to see ourselves as a part of something greater than ourselves, and begin to operate using this assumption, sometimes, when the intention is pure, energies available to the larger organism may become available for our use. 

The mechanism of the Garudas traditionally guard against misuse, requiring a transcendent  consciousness to operate within the sphere of the larger entity.

Namaste