Painting Enso workshops, London

Some of last years attendees artwork © Adele Cloony

People in the South may be interested in the Enso painting workshops with Adele Cloony on 9th and 10th September. Click here for more details.

Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern

Not Two

Last week Mark mentioned in class the piece of writing below, by the Third Chinese Zen (Ch'an) Patriarch. He sent me this link and I quote it all here for your interest. I have added bold type to the passage Mark discussed, the section which had inspired John Kells about 'not-two'.

The Great Way* is not difficult for those who have no preferences.  When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.  Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for, or against, anything.  To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.  When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect, like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.  Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things.  Live neither in the entanglements of outer things, nor in inner feelings of emptiness.  Be serene in the oneness of things, and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.  When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity, your very effort fills you with activity.  As long as you remain in one extreme or the other, you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial.  To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.  The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth.  Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.  At the moment of inner enlightenment, there is going beyond appearance and emptiness.  The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance.  Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in the dualistic state; avoid such pursuits carefully.  If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.  Although all dualities come from the One, do not be attached even to this One.  When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way.

When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.  When thought-objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes, as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.  Things are objects because of the subject (mind); the mind (subject) is such because of things (objects).  Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.  In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable and each contains, in itself, the whole world.  If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine, you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

To live in the great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute; the faster they hurry, the slower they go.  And clinging (attachment) cannot be limited.  Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray.  Just let things be in their own way, and there will be neither coming nor going.  Obey the nature of things (your own nature) and you will walk freely and undisturbed.

When thought is in bondage, the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear, and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness.  What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separation?

If you wish to move in the one Way, do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.  Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with true enlightenment.  The wise man strives to no goals, but the foolish man fetters himself.  There is one Dharma, not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.  To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind is the greatest of all mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion; with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.  All dualities come from ignorant inference.  They are like dreams or flowers in air; foolish to try to grasp them.  Gain and loss, right and wrong; such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.

If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.  If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence.  To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements.  When all things are seen equally, the timeless Self-essence is reached.  No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state.

Consider movement stationary, and the stationary in motion; both movement and rest disappear.  When such dualities cease to exist, Oneness itself cannot exist.  To this ultimate finality no law or description applies.

For the unified mind in accord with the Way, all self-centered striving ceases.  Doubts and irresolutions vanish, and life in true faith is possible.  With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.  All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power.  Here thought, feeling, knowledge and imagination are of no value.  In this world of Suchness, there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality, just simply say when doubts arise, "Not two".  In this "not two", nothing is separate, nothing is excluded.  No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth.  And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space; in it, a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.  Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen.  So, too, with being and non-being.  Don't waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this.  One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction.  To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.  To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

Words!  The Way is beyond language, for in it, there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.

* NOTE:  The Chinese character translated as "Great Way" or "Way" is the character for "Tao."  --  Weinstein

Books for an introduction to Taosim

A Short Form student asked a great question last month as to whether I could recommend any books or other resources that I felt were a good introduction to Taoism. At first I thought, 'that's easy'. But the more I look through what I have, the harder it is. By definition, 'The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao'. My feeling after over twenty years on this path is that only by doing and non-doing do we 'know' Tao, and that the Taoist arts are the main practices in which to know Tao, (for instance T'ai Chi, certain forms of poetry, calligraphy, ikebana, butoh, some kinds of improvisational music, etc). Anyone with 10 years sincere practice yielding to real pushes in pushing hands will know more in their bones of Tao than someone who has spent 10 years studying books. That said, here's a few books I like, I will add more this week as some are hidden in the shed and must be re-found. Most Taoist writings I love are very old, or by Liu-I-Ming from 17C, translated into English from the original Chinese by Thomas Cleary and only 'make any sense' after you already know in your body what they mean! If you have books or online resources you would like to recommend, please leave a comment or get in touch. 

All the Thomas Cleary translations of Taoist Classics texts for Shambala Editions: especially the Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu and as a great general intro to Taoism, the introduction the 'The Taoist I Ching' is perfect. 

Lieh Tzu translated by Wong, Shambala Editions.

I seem to remember Al Chung-Liang Huang's book 'Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain' on Tao and T'ai Chi being very approachable and good. It was the first book on T'ai Chi I read, given to me by my second T'ai Chi teacher in 1988. It left an impression, though I have not had a copy for over 25 yrs.

Penguin edition of Chuang Tzu is very good.

'Daoism Explained' by Hans Georg Moeller is great, just in no way a beginner's book, but it is full of insights and avoids the usual inappropriate western theocentric definitions of 'Heaven' amongst other important concepts. It also shears the superimposition of early 20th century Euro-centric psychoanalytic terminology onto the famous Chuang Tzu butterfly tale, and the chapter about this is worth the entry price alone.  

The books of Ursula K LeGuin contain superb rethinkings of worlds with Tao as a living major component of her imagined civilisations, especially: 'Always Coming Home', 'The Word for World is Forest', and 'The Telling', most of all. Sadly, LeGuin's own version of the Tao Te Ching is best avoided. Her deep understanding of Tao is best found in her fiction.

For a real beginner's beginners guide then the famous 'Tao of Pooh' and 'Te of Piglet' by Benjamin Hoff are actually really lovely. Funny, surprisingly deep, and nicely concise, these are worth a read, and fun to pass on to others who are wondering what you have been up to for two decades...

Some lockdown ward-off thoughts

Hi there, I have been keeping myself to myself except when I teach the Short Form class on Wednesday mornings. And all GR and GRTC students are very welcome to come along to that via Zoom, details to the right. Between looking after loved ones, making sure there is a livelihood to support us, and taking care of health needs, I have been quiet. Nature, family, art and community have been sustaining, as has T'ai Chi. I hope these have all been sources of goodness for you all too. 

Today I have been thinking much about security, and how people crave respite from uncertainty because they are so atomised. People outsource their uncertainty and it is suffered by others via the usual mechanisms of capitalism and colonialism we know well. Gated communities, 'othering' and scapegoating of low status people in almost all societies, cheap, low-welfare, overseas manufacturing... wherever I look, the main flow is not really money or goods but uncertainty and risk. Or rather, the experience of suffering this uncertainty. As the uncertainty remains, though occulted, and accrues, gaining interest as does capital. They are in fact two sides of the same shell. 

So I am asking myself the question, or perhaps have been for a long time now, am I willing to experience my own uncertainty, risk, insecurity-of-situation, and not foist it onto others, not fortify myself against it with misuse of religion, politics, money, goods, status or other shiny accretions of certainty? To answer yes to this, seems right now to be another way of saying one is a Taoist. Or maybe just a human. 'Things change, get over it', as they say.

Yet, there is more. The Taoists of old seemed a solitary lot, or sometimes grouped together in monasteries, but mainly because Buddhism was on the rise, and it was the way to survive as a Way in China at that time. Some of these schools succumbed to the quest for longevity, with their sometimes rather dubious 'immortality' energy techniques…  to me just another form of resisting uncertainty. The best old writings I find are by those who maintained their practice, humour and wayfaring, whether on a mountain or at home with the family, whether serving at court or drinking wine and playing lute with a friend on a boat. Thinking one has everything sewn up in a theory of everything would be my particular hue on this spectrum of uncertainty-avoidance, but menopause has deepened my colour a little, and reminded me in no uncertain terms about shit happening, as Covid has for others. Perhaps tech-culture's mistaking the map for the territory is a similar attempt at, I think at root is identical with - 'not dying just yet thankyou very much'. It is a great yet not uncommon irony to find Taoists who espouse change really hating it when it happens to us. 

In T'ai Chi we have a posture called in English 'ward-off'. At first glance it is a round shape in the arms, the legs and indeed the whole body eventually. It is the shape which best seems to absorb, distribute and transfer energy, blows, pushes, weight, etc, in action, leaving the best result, no harm done. However, the Chinese word for this 'peng' (pronounced usually 'bung'), doesn't mean 'to ward something off' at all. This is an English word for what the colonial chaps who first saw and described it thought they were looking at. They saw someone keeping something at bay. Ha! that tells you everything about them (and Britain at that time) and nothing about the real qualities of peng, which are lively, soft yet firm, round, elastic, yielding, a meeting place, relaxed, responsive, subtle, and when formed masterfully - almost imperceptible as a 'shape' at all. A non-T'ai Chi person watching our Grandmaster stand in 'ward-off' would have seen an old man just standing there in no particular stance. Reminding me of a favourite Taoist Classics line: 'What is looked at and cannot be seen is called the subtle'. Of course it is entirely possible that early Chinese T'ai Chi artists meeting westerners showed them some wooden-looking shapes just to get them to go away thinking they had stolen secrets. Who could blame them?

When I first learned ward-off it became part of my immaculate defences, for keeping the world at bay. But as John Kells wrote to me, 'We call this a living death.' To keep everything out is to die a little inside every day. Something had to give, to yield. 

There is an upright, flexible, turning, anti-fragile, open expanded way to be, that is helpful in dealing with change, yet not deflecting, denying or seeking to control it. This, in movement, takes many forms, T'ai Chi, butoh, parkour, certain improvisational methods, aikido, indeed many forms of natural movement... It exists in music, theatre, sport, craft, art, gardening... In the realm of words, actions, indeed living a life, there is also a way to have peng and to be yielding. 

But what is not spoken of so much in the Taoist Classics, or the T'ai Chi Classics, is the aspect of community and solidarity. There is much in the Tao of interspecies care and reciprocity, There are many great stories of Taoist and creatures, trees, rocks, whole mountains, in deep conversation and dialogue. But in popular culture 'Tao' it is obscured by the 'lone wanderer' veneration of Lao Tzu. It almost fits too well with the 'Atlas Shrugged' crew in Silicon Valley. Well, only a fraction of writings have been translated into English, and I am only versed in a fraction of those. But 'the principles are few, yet the permutations are endless'.

If I seek to assume responsibility for all my own uncertainty and risk and not farm it off to others, I need to become fully aware of my circumstances, privilege and the mechanisms of 'the world'. I need to discover and practice the inward and outward 'postures' (ways of being in the world and in the heart) that best nurture life, preserve the diversity of its flourishing, and see how utterly interconnected everything and everyone is. In contrast to the hyper-individualists out there and their toxic fortifications of self, I suggest that humans have always known best how to mitigate risk, provide balm for uncertainty and provide the rockpools and side-tributaries of relative safety so that we are not always buffeted like salmon swimming to spawn, fighting the current at all costs to do one important task.

Community. Solidarity. In families, sure, but wider, starting where we live, and where we spend our time (including online). These are the rock pools and side streams, where we can catch our breath, feed, shoal, school, rest, sleep. They are not where we can live our whole lives, as life is in the great river, and in the sea, and this life, as Helen Keller so rightly said, is an adventure, or nothing at all.  The rock pool is a great analogy though, as at some point the tide will cover it again, and return all still living to the wider sea. 

I see our schools as a rock pool and am heartily looking forward to meeting the other crabs, minnows, slugs, mussels and fish again. I am personally feeling quite nudibranch today.

Love to all, Caro x

A peace as fierce as war

I feel that I understand some of the many reasons why we fight.

The visceral thrill of getting your way, somehow forging your will 'direct trough the bones of the living'.

Midlife and 21 years T'ai Chi make me ask myself; can I make a peace as fierce as war? Hand-make a peace as transformational and dynamic as a fight.

The energy in fighting is not 'wrong', you may as well say a tiger is 'wrong'.

Here's some lines that came to heart in me today, which is Remembrance Day, from John Kells, from the last paragraphs of his writing: 'The fighting eye of life is death'.

'For want of a better word, this powerful beginning of the natural process is called yielding - the start of enheartening: filling the deprived heart of the fearful one with connexion driving away self, sorrow & thoughts.

Finding a method here is useful because then with this method you can give others your insight into freedom from fear & into connexion.

So the essence of the warrior is to never forget the technique that brought him through death & the overweening useless fear of it, & into life.

One who has not made this journey will inevitably talk of suffering.

But the fighting eye of life is death, & one experience to the warrior is no more or less important than any other, & therefore will not be indulged.

Thus the rush of love has its own character, the rush of reaction in a self-defence situation has another, the rush of pain due to injury or disease is yet another.

But all are equal so there is no point in talking about suffering.

The warrior’s fighting eye blesses what it delights on because it neither detracts nor adds anything.

What is brought into your being through your senses is what is there.

The rest of nature understands this & harmony is bound to exist with it.

Mankind generally does not understand this so harmony is lessened.

Connecting through the heart, ever forwards, open, hooking, embracing, along the connecting natural process, is all you can do.

Transform.

Nothing can escape, so it is important that each warrior does his best to sharpen his fighting eye & reach as far & as deep as he can for all our sakes.'

John Kells - Blakeney - 29^th May 2004

Why we don't post on Youtube

Mark and I teach T'ai Chi to the people who attend our classes in rooms and outdoors, over periods of hours, weeks, and years, sometimes decades. I know this is old-school. We were both taught at a time when the only resources available as aides memoires were books, the occasional hand-out sheet and perhaps a photo or two. I have friends who are excellent, even famous, T'ai Chi masters or teachers, and they create video resources, DVDs, web channels, many hand out sheets, (but rarely books). The most popular way to show anything these days is of course YouTube. It is possible for anyone to upload any quality of T'ai Chi and for you to 'learn' from it. I have used videos online to remind me when to cork the charcoal burning tin to make artist's charcoal, or how to tie the knots for sword tassels. I have a friend who has refurbished her boat with techniques she learned online with videos, and it has saved her a fortune, this is a great use of an excellent resource.

Mark and I have actually filmed many videos, and there are resources available for any student who needs them. Some students who have emigrated have been able to carry on with their practice with this help. You can bring a USB to class, or I can send a link. The reason you won't find our videos online, and why we don't make a channel with all these resources are numerous. We ask all students not to put our videos or photos online, even though this means perhaps fewer students would hear of us, or we would 'lose out' on advertising revenues... We do not wish to 'enter the competition', a great phrase from the T'ai Chi Classics. Apart from the nice die-cast brooch and a embroidered patch for the annual workshops we have never had any merchandise to sell, though perhaps one day we may make a T-shirt, said Mark, yesterday. The amount of spurious comments about any T'ai Chi content online, indeed anything online, is vast. We would rather folks just did some practice rather than cultivated opinions. Videos of one's T'ai Chi Forms are great to remember what you have already learned, for many people. For me they don't really help at all, I do better with lists and notes, and going to class frequently. So we will not become 'influencers', and gain followers, sell products and be asked for endorsements. Hey ho. We have superb students, who turn up in real time and do actual T'ai Chi, who are a pleasure to teach, and who transform inwardly and outwardly.

The best advice for T'ai Chi, as it is for any truly deep physical instruction where touch is required, is this - find a local class that you like and go along. Compare a few if you can. Go to the one that seems best for you. If there are no local classes, organise one, or get books and videos to start with. T'ai Chi is a martial art, and if studying boxing, you need to get in the ring. Because T'ai Chi forms have become so popular as solo activities, and have benefits as such, there is the illusion that T'ai Chi can be learned from a screen. This may indeed have health benefits, so I will not disparage it. It is possible to learn to move differently without ever being touched by one's teacher. Gerda Geddes, the first Yang Style T'ai Chi teacher to teach in the UK was never once touched by her T'ai Chi master, due to the cultural taboos of her time and place. She had great T'ai Chi, and sent people to John Kells for partner work. However, the full art, which means partner work as well as solo practice, can only be learned with a good teacher over time though touch, pushes, yielding, posture corrections... and as I found out yesterday, a punch in the face (gentle, but I got the point). Some will disagree. Luckily, I am not on Twitter!

Soon, I may make a few Chi Kung clips for a doctor who wishes to make resources available for menopausal women on a new online portal. I am keen to help, as this issue is close to my heart, but I am still thinking it over. One's moving image, online for ever more... I was in bands, but mostly before the era of ubiquitous video of performances. Thank goodness in the one or two that exist I am actually in tune. For most folk I am sure it is no big deal, but tact and the desire for privacy are factors in my ambivalence. I will be interested to know what students think. So let me know your experiences.

Sir, it's long.

Or 'Are we there yet?' (Thanks Davina)

My siblings have both been secondary school teachers for many years. A few years ago one was telling me about students who when asked to read a chapter of a book for class, or do a complicated task and write it up, often complained, 'Sir, it's long.' Coming from a school kid that may be normal, indeed may even have been something a young William Shakespeare thought silently while at Grammar School, but did not voice, fearing the cane. But for an adult it's a default position that does not serve us well.

Last week my bushcraft instructor complained how the attention span of students over the last 5 or 6 years has deteriorated, so that tasks that would have been an ordinary part of a workshop are now seen by folks as too long, too hard. 'We're never going to use that in life, what's the point?' Speaking with other well-known and respected instructors, he found they had experienced the same thing. All were reappraising their courses and dropping some topics, making them accessible for the bite-size tastes of the current customer, making sure there were plenty of Instagrammable photo opportunities... Having paid many hundreds of pounds studying wilderness skills, maybe a couple of thousand over the years, every last bit of information and training I could get I would suck up, even if the end result was not success (yes, fire by bow-drill, I am talking about you...) This is not a rant about the better moral fibre of the older generations, you can get a webful of that elsewhere. I think folk of all ages are being badly served by our lack of trained concentration, powers of attention and physical stamina. My neighbour asked me why I was slowly carrying a 20 kilo container by hand last month, rather than using the trolley, and I told him it was so that I could still do it if I needed to. I wanted to retain the strength to do it as I got older. Boat life and gardening are much more fun and cheaper than the gym. Machines, services and devices that make things so easy for us, if routinely used by default, rob us of the ability to do difficult things, which is a form of self-disablement. It is not a reactionary view to suggest doing difficult or time-consuming things for their own ends, it is a view of people who wish to retain and nurture human skills, it is what I will call 'the craft view'. (I am aware of the neo-Luddites, by the way, having met some through Dark Mountain, but they take this further than I would.)

It is essential to fail. It is absolutely critical at a young age to get over failure and learn to carry on. This does not have to include humiliation, bullying and trauma, as several of my Aberdonian older students report from their school days with less than kind Calvinist teachers. In the context of T'ai Chi it is failing to get an application, technique, topic or entire area of study, for however long. It is laughing at oneself and having another go anyway. It is realising everyone is pretty busy worrying about their own T'ai Chi and didn't notice you went wrong. At school I was a perfectionist, I had to get something right, as being 'right' was 'good'. It was debilitating, and meant I gave up what I was not good at to avoid the 'shame' of getting something wrong, missing out on so much. Many people will have their own version of this, and their own psychological roots of fear of failure, disinclination to do difficult things or aversion to the unfamiliar. However all can be met with kindness and persistence to great effect, in the present moment of the practice, and with a teacher who is compassionate and encouraging. (One does not necessarily have to pick apart the tangled roots of the issue, but if inclined, of course, therapy, certain kinds of insightful introspection or counselling are good safe places to do this.)

Failing, having another go, doing difficult things, getting past frustration, boredom or confusion are the heart of learning. No great craft is achieved by avoiding any of this. I care about the craft of things, whether this is dance, song, writing, painting, handcrafts, engineering, martial arts, medicine... Really, all the important and excellent things humans ever do could be termed 'craft'. Working with commitment and steady intent, and taking the protestations of the mind with a pinch of salt, gives such deep benefit to the whole organism, makes us resilient and also anti-fragile. It means that we can be much more present for others, because we know we can rely upon ourselves. The side effect of all this slightly difficult sounding advice though, is beyond wonderful: a sense of humour! Reader, more recently than I care to remember, I did not have one. Luckily for all my students, and via some classic Taoist 'false cultivating the real', I now can laugh at myself and my predicament and stop taking everything so personally. I take the work very seriously, but my own sometime-foolishness is beyond doubt. 'Progress' may well be a myth, but change is real.

Right, off to get ready for day two of the workshop. Perhaps I will post photos later.

In appreciation of difficulty

I am writing this before the first session of The T'ai Chi Centre's 13th Annual autumn workshop. For 13 years I have been inviting Mark to Scotland to teach my students and we spend our time doing increasingly difficult, challenging, or sometimes even initially baffling things together. Each year at some point we will say or hear: 'I can't do this!', or, 'It's difficult!'. And we all smile because we have all been there. Then we remember to look back and recall when Talu seemed an impossible task, or when moving our bodies in figures-of-eight made our brains turn to porridge and our limbs seem like cooked spaghetti. Over the weekend I hope to write a little about the practice of difficult things and about how it enriches our lives, and makes us anti-fragile, keeps us in good health, mentally and physically, and enables us to look beyond the small self and our inner toddler's protestations.

I would also like to write about the haptic desert of contemporary life, the frictionless surfaces and voice activated and wave-on world in which we are sleep walking. I do not think the sense of touch is given anywhere near as much import as is necessary and have an inkling this is impoverishing our learning environments, our living spaces, even our metaphorical choices and language due to the physical ruts our bodies are being funnelled towards. ('Haptic' is a useful word and is to touch what 'visual' is to sight, or 'aural' is to sound).

Swipe left, swipe right, click here for more pics, only a three minute read. Tl;dr...

Unlikely on this blog. So, today I will mostly be putting down intrusive thoughts, for the 21st year, whilst attempting to stay connected, attentive, relaxed and in motion or stillness, as appropriate, with 15 or so other wonderful people who have also chosen to come to Fetternear Hall and do this strange, difficult paradoxical thing. I shall write more later.

Sword exercise to train awareness to the end of the sword.

Staff practice, adjusting the supporting hand with pressure from the partner.

Two sides of the mountain

The Chinese pictogram/word/term 'yin' originally had just one meaning: 'the side of the mountain in darkness'; and 'yang' meant: 'the side of the mountain in sunlight'. Inherent in this strong image is the implication that yin is always in the process of transforming into yang, and vice versa. 

Water

I hope your late summer is going well. Much quiet work, Heartwork practice, and reading going on here, and I am sorting many years of notebooks, and finding great quotes squirrelled away, here's a sharp juicy one from Jung:

'When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.'

*****

A young thumb-thick diamond-patterned adder and many wall lizards have been basking on the stones in the sunshine, between cloudy days. Then recently, turning over a huge slippery stone in the well, I found a beautiful foot-long eel, which had somehow made its way up from the shore. Last week it was returned to the sea by a local young man who also likes turning over stones to see what interesting and unexpected beings might reside there. There was no food and no future for the eel in the spring, it was breathing air rather than using its gills, and there was nowhere for it to swim freely. The sweet water comes directly out of the rock at this point, and is very good to drink, but only flows for about 10 feet before disappearing underground again and flowing the 100m down to the sea. A few years ago I started regularly cleaning the spring and had inadvertently taken over from an older woman who no longer felt fit enough to do it. Now the water is not covered by rubble, birds and other animals come and drink there. All creatures intuitively know the goodness of clean water, and humans have held springs and wells sacred in perhaps all but the very wettest places, since the very earliest times. I love the lines in the Tao Te Ching that 'The higher good is like water, it benefits all and does not contend'. Also that it dwells in the lowest places, where 'people do not like to be' and that 'where it pools becomes good ground'.

I'll be doing more well-cleaning this week, clearing stones, removing all the remaining tiny bits of rubbish, cutting back overhanging vegetation a bit, so the falling autumn leaves don't acidify the water and make it bitter. I will need help to remove the huge stone under which the eel was curled. If I want to safely move big rocks like that in future myself, I will need to work on my core stability concertedly, rather than the half-hearted way I currently do. When I hurt myself by trying to lift things that are either too heavy, or when I am distracted, I am no use to anyone and suffer a lot of pain. (Apologies to those at the Summer workshop, you will know my grimacing 'back-ache' face is no fun to look at while pushing hands!) I am great at practising what I love doing. It is essential for me to attend to the daily necessary and un-glamourous work which supports that. This is not news, on any level, however literally or metaphorically you take your stories. Ah well. 'The feast is forward', as John Kells said.

When the eel was returned to the sea, its brown-black body was dark and sinuous against the bluish water and white stones of the shore. It is great to think of the eel swimming in the sea now. I wonder where it is and where it is going next.

True strength

Not fighting, nor fleeing, stand your ground using softness.

Buddhist and Taoist Terminology Fantasy Football Laegue

The Buddhists beat us Taoists hands down in the Terminology Fantasy Football League. They have such great words for all useful ideas, states and feelings. I realise that Tao and Zen are just two fingers pointing at the same moon, but humour me here, I have a joke to tell.

Line up: Buddhist end, Flat-back four - Grasping, Aversion, Ignorance, Oblivion, with Enlightenment in goal. Down the Taoist end it's just Emptiness and Form, Yin and Yang, not really defending anything, with Nothingness in goal, and so we always lose. 

It's a good thing we invest in loss.

April Fool

How great to have Easter Sunday and April Fool's Day all in one. Hurrah.
Hope your foolishness has been as instructive as mine, this last year.

Life, always young and always dangerous

'Again, it has been a clear sunny day, with long shadows and sparkling leaves; the mountains were serene, solid and close; the sky was of an extraordinary blue, spotless and gentle. Shadows filled the earth, it was a morning for shadows, the little ones, the big ones, the long lean ones and the fat satisfied ones, the squat homely ones and the joyful, spritely ones. The roof-top of the farms and the chalets shone like polished marble, the new and old. There seemed to be a great rejoicing and shouting among the trees and meadows: they existed for each other and above them was heaven, not the man-made, with its tortures and hopes. And there was life, vast, splendid, throbbing and stretching in all directions. It was life, always young and always dangerous; life that never stayed, that wandered through the earth, indifferent, never leaving a mark, never asking or calling for anything. It was there in abundance, shadowless and deathless, it did not care where it came from or where it was going. Wherever it was there was life, beyond time and thought.  It was a marvellous thing, free, light and unfathomable. It was not to be closed in; where they closed it, in places of worship, in the marketplace, in the home, there was decay and corruption and their perpetual reform. It was there, simple, majestic and shattering and the beauty of it is beyond thought and feeling. It is so vast and incomparable that it fills the earth and heavens and the blade of grass that’s destroyed so soon. It is there with life and death.'

A dear friend just sent me this quote from Krishnamurti, which I wanted to share with you. Happy Easter, Eostre, Ostara. Grebes are diving here, sowing death amongst the minnows, but joy in me.

Are you Nature,
or are you industry?

Thanks to Chris Laver for the pictures of the robin and the River Dart.

The only thing remaining is the practice, and the practice is constant change. 

Thanks to Jonathan for this.

Sam Masich arts

We have just had a lovely few days seeing our dear friend T'ai Chi Master Sam Masich. We met a Taichi Caledonia many years ago, and have hung out since whenever our lives allow. In the new T'ai Chi studio we have almost completed, pride of place goes to a beautiful ink painting made with one brush stroke, from the founding myths of T'ai Chi. Sam gave it to me in 2009, but it will now get the wider viewing it deserves. Like Mark and myself, Sam makes music and art as well as teaching his internal arts. If you'd like to see more of his great drawings and paintings, many of which are available for sale, have a look here. Here is a picture of the painting in situ. Thanks to Sam for a great visit, and much insight. Friendship in Tao is a great joy. I have been rereading the 9th Century poems of Han Shan, and even then, drinking tea or wine on a boat, and laughing with friends on the Way was greatly valued, and worth a good poem.

I call to my friends, picking lotus,
Wonderfully afloat on the clear river,
And forget, in my delight, how late it grows,
Till gusts of evening wind whirl by.
Waves scoop up the mandarin ducks;
Ripples rock the broad-tailed mallard;
At this moment, sitting in my boat,
Thoughts pour out in endless streams.

(Trans Burton Watson)

Let it all go.

Intent and practice

Correct mind intent
plus physical repetition
equals practice.


Without correct mind intent one is 'going through the motions'.
Without physical repetition you have imaginary practice, only good for developing imaginary skills.
Mind and body correctly joined is a joy in itself.
The answer to 'why do it?' is 'the question is not relevant'.

Oh dear, must we get it right then? Ha, no! Just start. With singing, drawing, meditating, crafting, writing, T'ai Chi and gardening, in my experience, there is no 'correct state of mind' in which to begin. Starting is so much more important than anything else, despite what I have written above, which is about honing, rather than setting out. If you are finding it hard to set out try this:
Are you feeling annoyed? Do annoyed practice!
Are you feeling angry / inadequate / over-excited / dull / bored / confused / delete as appropriate?
Do that practice!
Pretty soon it won't be at all like it was when you started anyway. In fact, by the end you probably won't remember what flavour of affected state you were in anyway.

Move the pen or brush, make or mend that small thing, hum an old or new tune, write or type some random letters and words, do the form or warm ups, sit and watch the breath or feel the body. Something will change in us and therefore in the world. Nothing changes by sitting there dwelling on it. Even just walking around aimlessly is better than that. What is this thing that changes? What makes it change? What is this mysterious intent thing? These are good questions. I have been working on that last one 10 years, both awake and asleep, and I still don't have an answer in words, but I have a strong feeling, and a whole bunch more excellent questions with which to break my brain.