This is perhaps the most useful tip to relax and enjoy the ride. Trying to be right all the time is not only stressful, success in doing so will teach you nothing. Nothing. And you will block every opportunity to grow. Calm waters ne'er a skilled sailor make.
I haven't heard this expression but, of course, I love it. I don't know all the twists and turns of your life (I'd love to hear some stories), but I have had so many choppy waters. There are times when all one wants is a soft sea. But, to your point, skill, gratitude, confidence, humility - these commence within the storms. A humble bow to you, sir.
“Sankhya describes thoughts as packets of potential energy, which grow more and more solid when favorable conditions are present and obstacles are removed. They become desires, then habits, then ways of living with physical consequences. Those consequences may look no more like thoughts than an oak tree looks like an acorn, but the Bhagavad Gita says they are just as intimately related. Just as a seed can grow into only one kind of tree, thoughts can produce effects only of the same nature. Kindness to others, to take just one example, favors a nervous system that is kind to itself.”
I love this and know intimately how these thought-based energies make traces in our hearts, minds, bodies, in the spaces around us, in our words, ultimately in our lives. I've been practicing for 17 years and yet I still needed this reminder, which I internalized this morning as encouragement. We need spiritual friendships for exactly this! It can be arduous, you know, traversing this incarnation, trying to make that kind of honorable effort when it counters so many opposing forces: Biology, evolution, society, technology, etc. This morning, I just returned to the one thing I can do: clean my own mind in zazen. Thank you for practicing with me.
We are part of the cosmic being and whether or not we connect one-on-one, we are not just part of the whole, we ARE the whole.
Russell Ackoff said, "...the essential properties of any system, the properties that define this system, are properties of a whole which none of its parts have. Now, that’s not obvious. But it is on reflection. Take an automobile—a mechanical system you’re all familiar with. What’s its essential property? It can take you from one (Text sourced from https://www.organism.earth/library/document/mechanistic-to-systemic-thinking) place to another, right? What part of an automobile can carry you from one place to another? A wheel? A seat? The axle? Of course, nothing. Not even the motor. The motor can’t even carry itself from one place to another. The automobile can, though. You walked into this room earlier, I looked at you and decided you were human beings—perhaps in error, but nevertheless I did—because I saw you do characteristically human things. Like, you’re writing. You can write. Your hand can’t write. Cut it off and put it on a table and watch what it does. Nothing! Your eye doesn’t see, you see. Your brain doesn’t think, you think. Those are instruments which you use in the process, but they are properties of you as a whole. And therefore, when I take a system apart it loses its essential properties. If I bring an automobile into this room and disassemble it, although I have every single part in this room I don’t have an automobile. Because the automobile is not the sum of its parts, it is the product of their interactions. Therefore, when I take a system apart, the whole loses its essential properties and, furthermore, so do its parts."
I've gotten really present to this concept recently. The perception flip you talk about is such a kindness you can give yourself. You are sure to mess stuff up, and even your greatest achievements fall short of what was actually possible at any given moment. But you're here to try, learn and grow :) Thank you for the great background listening for my afternoon, Sun.
Mark, as usual your insight is spot on. Self-compassion is the primary elixir for recovering from all the bloopers, missteps, poison arrows, heartaches. It is so simple and yet so hard. I think of us as plants, or trees, things that are growing to the best of their abilities, doing the best we can at the time until we can do better. I would never scream at a tree: Fuck you, tree! You're a LOSER. Why aren't your leaves brighter? Why is your trunk so gnarled? No. I would admire the tree's history, respect it for what it has weathered. I would water it and whisper kindly to it with the wish that it fares well. It is the same with us. Thank you for listening!
This is perhaps the most useful tip to relax and enjoy the ride. Trying to be right all the time is not only stressful, success in doing so will teach you nothing. Nothing. And you will block every opportunity to grow. Calm waters ne'er a skilled sailor make.
I haven't heard this expression but, of course, I love it. I don't know all the twists and turns of your life (I'd love to hear some stories), but I have had so many choppy waters. There are times when all one wants is a soft sea. But, to your point, skill, gratitude, confidence, humility - these commence within the storms. A humble bow to you, sir.
You are too kind, Sunni.
“Sankhya describes thoughts as packets of potential energy, which grow more and more solid when favorable conditions are present and obstacles are removed. They become desires, then habits, then ways of living with physical consequences. Those consequences may look no more like thoughts than an oak tree looks like an acorn, but the Bhagavad Gita says they are just as intimately related. Just as a seed can grow into only one kind of tree, thoughts can produce effects only of the same nature. Kindness to others, to take just one example, favors a nervous system that is kind to itself.”
I love this and know intimately how these thought-based energies make traces in our hearts, minds, bodies, in the spaces around us, in our words, ultimately in our lives. I've been practicing for 17 years and yet I still needed this reminder, which I internalized this morning as encouragement. We need spiritual friendships for exactly this! It can be arduous, you know, traversing this incarnation, trying to make that kind of honorable effort when it counters so many opposing forces: Biology, evolution, society, technology, etc. This morning, I just returned to the one thing I can do: clean my own mind in zazen. Thank you for practicing with me.
We are part of the cosmic being and whether or not we connect one-on-one, we are not just part of the whole, we ARE the whole.
Russell Ackoff said, "...the essential properties of any system, the properties that define this system, are properties of a whole which none of its parts have. Now, that’s not obvious. But it is on reflection. Take an automobile—a mechanical system you’re all familiar with. What’s its essential property? It can take you from one (Text sourced from https://www.organism.earth/library/document/mechanistic-to-systemic-thinking) place to another, right? What part of an automobile can carry you from one place to another? A wheel? A seat? The axle? Of course, nothing. Not even the motor. The motor can’t even carry itself from one place to another. The automobile can, though. You walked into this room earlier, I looked at you and decided you were human beings—perhaps in error, but nevertheless I did—because I saw you do characteristically human things. Like, you’re writing. You can write. Your hand can’t write. Cut it off and put it on a table and watch what it does. Nothing! Your eye doesn’t see, you see. Your brain doesn’t think, you think. Those are instruments which you use in the process, but they are properties of you as a whole. And therefore, when I take a system apart it loses its essential properties. If I bring an automobile into this room and disassemble it, although I have every single part in this room I don’t have an automobile. Because the automobile is not the sum of its parts, it is the product of their interactions. Therefore, when I take a system apart, the whole loses its essential properties and, furthermore, so do its parts."
I love this!
I've gotten really present to this concept recently. The perception flip you talk about is such a kindness you can give yourself. You are sure to mess stuff up, and even your greatest achievements fall short of what was actually possible at any given moment. But you're here to try, learn and grow :) Thank you for the great background listening for my afternoon, Sun.
Mark, as usual your insight is spot on. Self-compassion is the primary elixir for recovering from all the bloopers, missteps, poison arrows, heartaches. It is so simple and yet so hard. I think of us as plants, or trees, things that are growing to the best of their abilities, doing the best we can at the time until we can do better. I would never scream at a tree: Fuck you, tree! You're a LOSER. Why aren't your leaves brighter? Why is your trunk so gnarled? No. I would admire the tree's history, respect it for what it has weathered. I would water it and whisper kindly to it with the wish that it fares well. It is the same with us. Thank you for listening!
I just spit tea at my monitor! THAT made me laugh, Sun.
At your service. 😂
Nice1.. I enjoyed the read. Big up Sunni!
Thank you 🙏🏼 for reading. 🙌🏼♥️🥳