There are many ways to feed the spirit.

I’m reading one now called “The Unencumbered Spirit,” by Hung Ying-ming, a late Ming dynasty philosopher/sage.  He writes about how to live a simple life; how to drop all the stuff, both material and spiritual, that keeps us tied up in anxiety and worry. Hung wrote at a time when the Chinese were facing a myriad of problems not dissimilar from our own.  His advice is as relevant today as it was in 15th and 16th century China.  To be at peace, no matter how much turmoil is going on around you, you’ve got to deal with your mind, as every good martial artist will tell you.  I found Hung’s little book so refreshing, I thought I’d post a quotation from it now and then. I hope you find some soul food here, and may your spirit be “unencumbered.”

“If the spirit is in full bloom,

Though you inhabit a room wearing only rough clothes,

You will obtain the harmonious energy of the universe.

If what you taste is satisfactory,

Though you drink only goosefoot soup,

You will know the true piquancy of human simplicity.”

(from the translation by William Scott Wilson, published by Kodansha International)

Martin Buber: The Way of Man, According to the Teacings of Hasidism, p. 16

… prices will be posted later, contact person is below…

Saturday Sept. 25, 10-4 & Saturday Dec. 11, 10-4
(5 CEUs for acupuncturists)

Five Branches University, San Jose Campus
3031 Tisch Way,
San Jose, CA 95128

For registration/information contact:
Mimi Latno, 408-260-0208 ext. 216
sjextension@fivebranches.edu.

Both Sides of the Camera

Click picture

We are proud and happy to announce that the DVD version of Blossoms in the Spring has arrived and is now available. We could go on and on about it here but if you click the picture you’ll go to the page with all the details including its special introductory price. We’d love to hear your comments on the DVD and if you feel, as we do, that it is the perfect companion to our book.

Ted Mancuso shows the entire form at real speed.

the art, practice and beauty of the Blossoms in the Spring Qigong form. Narrye Caldwell and Ted Mancuso, co-authors of the original book, add more depth and meaning by breaking the form down into very palatable bites and adding tips and insights into getting the most out of the practice. You can order book or DVD separately or together and receive a discount.

Acpuncturist Narrye Caldwell explains the relation between Qigong and Chinese medicine.

Absolutely right, and they are after you, too. Everyone soul must be accounted for. The eternal expansionism of EVERY phase of society which we hypocritically call “progress” is after each and everyone of us. The so called “freedom” which is offered to us carries a high price. Why we can’t even have  the freedom to disagree that this is freedom. But that’s not all we can’t disagree on…

You probably think we have a lot of options. In the mundane world we listen to the squabbling of the Demcrats and Republicans and we think they are offering options. But the subjects of the debates, the assumed platforms, the very details of the debate are all perfectly agreed upon by these “rivals”. As we listen we begin to see all the decisions in their framework, this pre-fabricated little house where our souls have to stoop to enter and, eventually, contort to inhabit.

Frontiers,as soon as they are recognized, become part of the plan for colonization. In the last twenty years, exactly as I and others predicted, “intellectual property” has become a battle ground a hundred times for significant tan before. While some poor online retailer is proud and happy to have created her own “brand” of something she is logically forced into a relationship of support with all the corporations who own the real “brands”. It start simple, like a good little girl she types TM next to every mention of the word “kleenex”, and she captializes it because kleenex is a specific brand not an idiom for a paper nose tissue. Now brands become real just as property turned from a concept to a “real thing”. And, mark my words, the time will come when wars will be fought over intellectual property with real soldiers dying for imaginary borders (they already do that) and implied transgressions.

The point is that now what is inside our heads is property and property always has an owner. What we feel has always been a target of this kind of acquisition. The Church did this for centuries. Think of all the misery, of the burning loins and stifled sorrows, of the trembling kneeling by the bed and humiliation in the confessional, multiplied for centuries, a dark and vastly misty land inside each person’s soul which, through constant force of argument, the Church essentially franchised until it could sell remedies for sins and considerations for murders.

Think of the assaults on your very being, that undefineable inside you carry around with you. For imagination we are slowly substituting special effects. For political debate we are encouraging sound bites. For knowledge of our bodes all too many of us are taking dozens of pills a day. For alternative health we are bullied into operations and chemicals. For employment we are taught to start our retirement planning in our twenties. For information we are closing our books and learning to skim and surf the same 1000 000  hits non of which goes deeper than thin skin. For our inner life we are lulled by women’s magazines and broadcast psychologists telling us what we should feel, how we should react: despite methods we all know don’t work.

The final frontier of the Star Trek series is really the frontier insider our hearts. The movement for it will seem fair and orderly, highly compensated. Give me this inch and I’ll make you happy. Give me another and I’ll make you thin. Here’s some money. Look we can make you live for five times a normal life, but we have to take away the uniqueness of your insides.

You stand there doing an exericse which could be Qigong, meditation, contemplation or prayer. Every second you stand you have you feet firmly planted in a world as alien as Narnia, a million light centuries from the world of the day to day. This is what grates on them. When you return they will ask “what was it like? Is it real or an illustion? Is it just a chemical reaction?” They don’t care. They want you to renege on what you have seen and felt. Like the character in 1984, Winston Smith, you must deny love and everything else. This system cannot stand with loose ends. Like corporate think only the leaders can be arbitrary, everyone else must learn the lessons. There is nothing in there that is not public, they advere. The world is consistently public and understandable by everyone else. Consensus

Solutions are, actually, the problem. We have been sold the idea that there is always a solution. TV dramas are mostly based on the premise of the “mistaken idea” where some character has a mistaken belief that, within the space of 30 or 60 minutes is removed leaving the former sufferer cured. But some experiences are beyond solution. Some people are depressed due to chemical imbalance and some are depressed because they have looked into the black heart of creation. This second type can be sedated but never truly “cured” because it is like trying to “cure” courage. People who have seen such things and still function at all are in some ways heroes. They should be honored, not cured. They bring the truth back to the village. They represent a mind that is truly clear because it has the truth without being brought to a socially acceptable norm. “Curing” everything is just another word for sterilization.

We must be very careful that we don’t confuse “clear” with “sterile”. In most meditations and quiescent regimens it is expected that there will be a labyrinth of confusion and fragmented imagery. This is the house not only of mirrors but of broken mirrors. There are a number of pseudo-disciplines which use the idea of the “clear” state as though it were a matter of winning a race or closing a deal. I’m sure there are many nice people dressed in stylish wool flowing garments who think that Yoga is about how close you can get to God if your spa is in the high country of Costa Rica. We also have a host of techno-laborers who think that as long as they dedicate their lives to acquiring more knowledge for humanity that their personal lives are fulfilled and meaningful. We have people who give so much to charity that the hollow spot in their hearts cannot be equated to the hollows of their pockets.

We see this everywhere in our games, movies, sports and even religious experiences. We are everywhere projecting this confident, slightly amused exterior with the ear plugs piping the brain numbing inner music which puts us squarely in the center of our own fantasy movie. But we also see the crack in the face mask and the sad midnights of cruising the internet so you can make an idle or even mean spirited jibe at someone else out there, also looking for a clear moment.

Stand still, breathe deeply, and wait for you medicine. It will come and it will be prescription.

Photographs by Debbie Shayne © 2010