To Synchronize or Not

A series of related events unfolded sequentially and rapidly soon after my last entry.  I would normally refer to such a phenomenon as synchronicity.   A few years ago I might even be prompted to rush out and buy a lottery ticket whenever that happens.  I think I did that 5 times over the last decade.

It would be too costly for me to continue that practice today.  It seems like these synchronous events are occurring every week now.   So the questions on my mind lately are these:  Why are "synchronicities" occurring more often now than before?  Is something about to happen to the world?  Or has the world changed so much in the last few years?

If you have read any of this blog's previous entries, you probably have already guessed the answers to the above questions.  The world has not changed that much in the last few years.  It is me that has changed...and thereby causing the world around me to change.  Specifically my perspective and perception had changed; therefore, my reality changed.

The latest series of synchronicities started with a critical remark made by my mother and ended with me seeing Akira Kurosawa's Roshomon (1950) for the first time.  In between those two events there were many others (all of which had something to do with  perspectives and perceptions).  One of these noted events is my stumbling across a passage from Lonny Jarrett that states, "Every action has one of two consequences: it either perpetuates or dispels ignorance."  It is another way of saying that you may be in this world but you don't have to be of this world.  I can either choose to see things as they are (dispelling ignorance).   Or I can choose to see things through the distorted lens created by my own ego (perpetuating ignorance).

My guess as to why I'm noticing more synchronicities lately is because I have relaxed greatly the defining boundaries of my reality.  I wasn't a rigid person per se, but I think my "reality" was rigid.  It was based rigidly on "scientific facts" and "deductive reasoning".  If it couldn't be measured or quantified, then it doesn't exist.  That is to say, my reality was consistent with that of most people living in a modern, Westernized society.

When the accepted normal expectations of my reality is no longer acceptable, the limits of that reality start to break down.  And when boundaries, walls, and borders break down, it is much easier to see connections and relations between events, between people, between truths and mid-truths, etc.  The end result is that life becomes an endless stream of synchronicities.

Mind and Body? Or is it Spirit and Body?

It occurred to me recently that the concept of mind and body commonly referenced in the mainstream literature was not consistent with the principle of yin and yang.  Human beings, first and foremost, are spiritual beings.  As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has said:  We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Yin and yang are polar opposites but they are always bound to one another, transforming into one another, and generating one another.  What is not obvious is that in any yin-yang relationship there is always third force that holds the two opposing forces in check.  Taken together, they represent the sublime relationship of the Holy Trinity.  Some of the more well-known examples are Father-Son-Holy Spirit, Conscious-Subconscious-Super conscious, and Mind-Body-Spirit.

The Mind-Body concept at first appears seemingly to be opposite.  We have all heard of popular debates between brain-versus-brawn, jocks-versus-geeks, and looks versus personalities.  Perhaps the reason why the spirit goes unnoticed is because the body and the mind are just too obvious to ignore.  The body is concrete.  We get confirmation of its existence on all sensory levels.  The mind is also hard to ignore with its constant talking inside our heads.  It's easy to see why the spirit got passed over when it is so naturally unassuming.

It dawned on me one morning why the mind could NEVER be the "yang" in the yin-yang relationship that exists within all of us.  It happened one morning when I was enjoying an exhilarating walk looking at trees and clouds while breathing in the fresh air.  As usual my mind was drifting from one subject to another...always thinking...like a constant humming of an AC in the background.  However on that day, there wasn't much for me worry about.  So for the first time in my life, I suddenly noticed how heavenly it was to have a "true quiet moment".   My mind actually had nothing to say.  It was eerily quiet.  Someone had finally turned off the AC and its familiar constant humming was suddenly no longer there.  It was only at this moment that I realize that the culprit that has been suppressing my spirit was actually my own mind all along.

I understand now that the mind could never be the spiritual part of ourselves.  The mind's job is to create our individual realities.  Each of us lives within a certain reality, and it is the job of the mind to maintain that reality.  Certain realities are common knowledge, such as physical laws.  Things fall to the ground because of gravity.  The sun rises in the east and sets in the west because the earth rotates from east to west.

Other realities are more individually specific.  For example an Asian male immigrant who had to abandon his native country when he was only nine would have a different perspective (and reality) than a black female who was raised in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement.  Whatever the circumstances maybe, the mind takes those circumstances and create a certain reality for each of us.  Realities are nothing more than personal beliefs.  The more we believe in something (whether it be true or not) the more real it seems to us.

I picture the mind as a self-contained maze that holds inside its walls both the yin and yang elements.  How freely yin flows into yang and vice versa depends on how complicated the maze is.  The less twists and turns we have built into our mazes, the easier the flow of our yin and yang energies.  Of course, the yin and yang energies here refer to the energy of the body and the spirit.  I have personally felt much more alive when my mind is quiet.  There is no longer a barricade to impede the flow of yin and yang.  The body respond quicker to the energy fed by the spirit.  The spirit is also much more intuitive from all the sensory information it receives from the body.  Pain and stiffness also seem to be things of the past.  Qi and blood stagnation disappears when the mind stops ruminating.

We can "liberate" ourselves by simplifying our minds.  The less cluttered the mind the easier is the energy flow.  The easier the flow, the more we are in touch with our spiritual selves...or rather our actual TRUE selves.  We can kick start this spiritual liberation by first taking our most rigid beliefs and make them flexible.  Once they are flexible, they can be altered...and eventually even be eradicated.

In truth, true living is simply BE.  There isn't much thought needed to live in a spiritual manner.  I look to my cat for this inspiration.  Every motion he makes is deliberate without much hesitation.  He is tense when there is an unusual noise, but he is also able to relax completely when the threat is no longer there.  He can go from deep sleep state into a state of full alert in a flash.  And conversely he can go back to sleep within seconds after the threat is gone.Without the act of thinking, there is no hesitation going from one impulse to the next.  There is only unimpeded flow.

Most of the stress we experience in our daily lives are caused by our own doing.  The realities that we have constructed for ourselves are so convoluted, so twisted, so full of what-ifs, so full of "his faults" and "her faults", that the mind never has a chance to rest.  It constantly has to process all the complications and facts we feed it because that is its job...to take our circumstances and our beliefs and put them all together into a cohesive reality.  And when the mind is constantly talking, no one notices the spirit stuck waiting in the corner. 

A Friend's Mother

This is my first attempt at watercolor.  The paper shrunk side-to-side more than top-to-bottom...making the subject appears thinner than the original drawing.

A Single Breath...A Single Day

The monk Sakyamuni once asked his disciples, "What is the duration of a person's life?"  Guesses of 60, 70, and 80 years were offered and all were rejected.  The answer was that life is but a breath.  If the atom is viewed as a unit building block of all matter, then perhaps a breath is a unit of life.

A single breath comprises of an inhalation and an exhalation...in and out...full and empty...yang and yin.  It is complete in of itself.  If you can truly live within the duration of a single breath, then past and future has no meaning whatsoever. Tea Masters can spend their whole lives performing thousands of tea ceremonies while striving to perfect that one flawless execution.  Each of us can do the same by striving for that perfect breath...that perfect lifetime...over and over again.

Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about a simple guideline for good health.  What I came up with initially were 4 criteria:  adequate rest, adequate exercise, a healthy diet, and minimizing harmful stress.  It was, for the lack of a better word, only "adequate".  It lacks beauty and elegance...and worse of all, the number of criteria is 4.

So the problem was transferred to the back burner of the subconscious until the answer revealed itself to me yesterday.  It was during my meditation on a Single Breath that made me realized that a Single Day is the unit of health.

A day opens with the rising of the sun which signifies the ending of yin and the beginning of yang.  The day ends with the setting of the sun signifying the ending of yang and the beginning of yin.  Yang and yin are not only complementary to each other, but they nourish one another.  Without yang there is no yin and similarly the reverse is true.

During the day, the body needs to be in motion.  Actually a healthy body WANTS to be in motion.  This is how nature intends it.  At night the healthy body wants to be at rest.  If Qi and Blood flows effortlessly, then the body in motion during the day will nourish and generate "healthy yin" for later that night.  Conversely, when the body is able to completely rest at night yin can nourish "healthy yang" for the next morning.

Our busy lifestyles and jam-packed schedules have corrupted the healthy cycle described above.  The late night activities and inadequate sleep produce "scattered yang" instead of "healthy yang".  Instead of having steady and vigorous energy that allows us to focus and complete daily tasks effortlessly, our days are filled with hopelessness, worries, and self-doubt while punctuated sporadically with episodes of panic and mania.

In turn, when we are unable have free flowing yang during the day, our yin turns turbid and pathological.  Healthy yin is like water, clear and life giving.  Turbid yin creates stagnation and heaviness.  Without healthy yin, our minds are restless and our bodies feel sluggish and drained.  We can't get rest the restful sleep that we need to nourish our yang...and the vicious cycle is perpetuated.

Returning to the discussion of a Single Day, we now have the yin and yang components of our day.  The third component is the choices that we make.  Like the yin-yang symbol with a white half and a black half bound within a circle, this "Single Day" unit of health is a relationship of 3...much more sublime than the first criteria set of 4.

The choices we make can keep us on a healthy track or take us down the vicious circle.  These choices affect the creation of yin and yang throughout the day.  These are choices relating to our diet, our emotions, and our reactions to events around us.  These choices determine how much stress we put upon ourselves.  The more stress we add to our day, the more off-track we are from getting our daily dose of "healthy yin" and "healthy yang".  The choice...is entirely up to each of us.

The 3 Onion Layers (part 1)

When treating patients it's helpful to group the origin of their pain from 3 sources: body, mind and spirit.  Pain  originating from the body tends to be the most acute and pain from the spirit most chronic.  Injuries to the body may take days to months to heal.  Injuries to the mind may take weeks to years to heal.  And injuries to the spirit may take months to decades to heal.

Body injuries sustained from minor physical trauma (accidental cuts or falls) heal the fastest when there are no associated emotional trauma.  Physical injuries sustained with an emotional trauma not only take longer to heal but may recur if the patient continues to have the same recurring mental distress.  At the deepest level, illnesses originated from spiritual disharmony not only take the longest to heal but also are the hardest to diagnose.

In Chinese medicine, the concept of body, mind and spirit can be roughly translated in to wei, ying, and yuan Qi.  For the sake of simple visualization, wei Qi may be thought as a large sphere enveloping the whole body; ying Qi a smaller sphere inside wei Qi, and yuan Qi, the smallest of all 3 spheres, reside at the center.

Repairing wei qi, or defensive qi, is relatively easy for any competent practitioner.  The body natural tendency is to heal itself.  This self-healing tendency is consistent with the nature of wei Qi, which regulates all automatic functions of the body.  Wei Qi functions at the most basic level of life.  Its restoration is almost assured if there is an adequate amount of air, water, food, and sleep.  The 4 meridians that primarily regulate these basic life functions are Lung, Large Intestine, Stomach, and Spleen.  Heart meridian may be also included in this group because of its relationships with sleep.

Treating wei Qi doesn't require more than applying a few "broad strokes" on the "treatment canvas".  If the problems are primarily yang in nature, use points on the yang side of the body (e.g. Taiyang points) and scalp acupuncture.  If the problems are primarily yin in nature, use points on the yin side of the body and abdominal acupuncture.  If the problems are predominantly Shaoyang (alternating between yin and yang), use Shaoyang points and auricular acupuncture...

Yin Yang and the Tao

The subject of Yin, Yang, and the Tao can fill a whole library.  It is a vast subject deserving much more discussion than a length of a blog entry.  However, I do wish to share a personal perspective on the subject.

Lately I have been experimenting with creating my own Qi Gong exercises, that not only promote physical health but at the same time carry a symbolic gesture of the nature of the universe.  In effect I was hoping to emulate the macrocosm of the Universe in my own body microcosm.

What I stumbled upon was an exercise of "contraction and expansion" or probably better described as an exercise of "Yin and Yang".  Synchronizing this exercise with my own breathing was instinctively easy...the ease of which also led me to another synchronicity.

Let's begin to examine this model with the question of why we are here.  What is the purpose for any one of us to be on this planet?  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience."  It is a reminder that we are more than just our body.  Our "roots" are much more divine than we think.

As spirits we are limitless.  As spirits, we can be anything, be anywhere, or create anything by merely think it.  It is an omnipresent and an omnipotent state of being.  It is a state of ultimate freedom.  However, as spirits we would not be able to "feel" this ultimate freedom, because in the spiritual realm we would never experience confinement.  We would never able to experience this feeling of "ultimate freedom" because the state of "non-freedom" doesn't exist in that realm.

It is through the human experience that we can achieve what we could not as spirits.  By voluntarily putting ourselves within the limitation of a physical body, we are able to know what freedom really means. Only by existing in a state of "limit-full" that we are finally in awe of something "limitless".   As humans we would look to the heaven yearning to be near God or to be with God.  As humans we are deeply immersed within our yin nature and we yearn to be again with our yang nature.

As spirits, we have a similar yearning to be with our yin nature.  As spirits, we are pure yang with no anchor.  We have power but no substance.  We have energy but no mass.  As spirits, we yearn for the yin aspect of the human experiences...the joy and the love as well as the pain and sorrow.  It is the yin nature of our human experiences that gives meaning to the energy and power of our yang nature.  This yearning is the drive that propels the cycle.  It is the the Way.  It is the Tao.

Our yin, mortal, human existence is equally as important as our yang, spiritual, immortal state.  As we move from one state to the other and back again, we are also growing spiritually.  The experiences that we gather during our many lifetimes help us to expand spiritually along with the expansion of the Universe.  Our physical bodies may grow, wither and die, but the experiences that we gain while inside those bodies are never lost.  As the Universe breathes in, so do we.  When it is time for the Universe to breath out, so will we.

It is an endless cycle of change, of growth, and eventually of rebirth...not unlike the expansion and contraction cycle of the Universe itself.

The One gave birth to Two
Two gave birth to Three
and Three gave birth to the Myriad of all things...

...so said the Tao Te Ching

A tribute to Thia McKann

I had hoped to capture the essence of Thia Mckann, who suddenly left  this world on Christmas day 2012.  Among many things, Thia was a Tea Master, a colorful personality, and a mystic.  She and her husband Chris started The Path of Tea, a tea shop in Houston.

The kanji cha-do roughly translates to "the way of tea" or "the path of tea".  The calligraphy is written on parchment paper designed as a serving mat for tea.  The Japanese script on the second line reads "Ki no O- cha sensei", which translate to "spirit of great Tea Master".

Thia's face is a collage of origami paper.  Thia's kimono and the crane-background paper are thick specialty paper from the Paper Source.  Thia's hair is made from various kinds of paper, which includes origami, construction, dyed cotton paper, and the same paper used for her kimono and the background.