Weeding the Garden

A friend who is a garden expert and landscape architect once explained to me why there is a constant need for attention to keeping a garden weeded. He said that in any given square meter of ground, there will be many, many seeds. If you take a square meeter of pavement and vacuum it, you will see many --some are only specks or the size ground pepper bits, but lots of seeds. And seeds can sometimes remain ready to germinate up to 5 or 7 years with more seeds adding to the area each season. So in any garden, you can't prevent weeds from growing. A finely landscaped garden must be weeded regularly or it will soon become over grown with wild plants and even trees. Even one season of inattention can spell the end of what was well planned and crafted.

Seeds then have a way of drifting in and some stick around for years--just like life's issues that can create stress.

Recently I got a Friday off of work and a long weekend. but some of my relatives were visiting and it was just a point where I briefly got away from my daily morning and evening and through out the day ritual of settling. On one night I intended to train late after everyone turned in for the night, but instead spent time with the friends and then I fell asleep. At any rate the bottom line was that I neglected my settling and mediation and regular posture work for about 4 days in a row.

Life happens our SGL always says. But here's the ting. Without realizing it, I was experiencing a great deal of anxiety over having to begin a new work week on Monday. I was easliy angered and a little depressed as I dwelled on what problems were occurring there. These thoughts were dominating my evening. And of course I started thinking about what I hate about my job, wishing it were different. It was in a moment when I noticed that I spewed out a string of negative comments about my career, that I realized in a moment that I was headed down the same pathe that I had went so many times before. I realized I hadn't taken the time to at least do some quitet sitting--even for brief periods. In short, the wild horse mind was returning.

How important settling now seemed. It is the foundation of the training. It was the settling that leads to focusing your attention on your training. Settling makes you receptive. And then after this period of time, I recall sitting for just a few moments seemed like a nice warm bath. I realized in a way it was like taking time for myself. It was like respecting myself enough to take a moment of calming for its own sake--and do a sort of mental grooming to try to get myself back on to a more healthy route. You have to have your own house in order first before you can give. You help others better when you are calm and have a clear uncluttered mind.

For what it's worth, left to itself, anger, negativity and stress can take over your thinking. And the bottom line though is that settling and calming is a practice, as well as a learned skill, and must constantly be weeded and maintained to avoid that "wild horse mind."

Turning While the Dragon Serves Tea: Exercise & Elegance

It really goes without saying at our study group that the Dragon Serves Tea is among everyone's favorite exercises. There's a certain elegance to the movements and also a wonderful feeling in the long and slow moving stretch that the exercise produces. It's a very dynamic exercise--lots turning, shifting and energetic motion, even when done excruciatingly slow.

I remember how our study group leader just told us after learning the exercise on the right side that it was our homework to teach ourselves to do it on the left. This was not easy. But after some back and forth between the learned side and the unlearned side, it all began to make some sense. At any rate, there is just something about the dragon serves tea--it's dynamic quality or it's elegance--that I really enjoy.

One other piece I like about the exercise--it actually that there is a story behind it. That little story about the body guard who began as a waiter. It's such a humble occupation, one of an ordinary person in an ordinary kind of job who has made body movement into an art form of hands and feet. I like the story of how he could move effortlessly though the crowd without spilling a drop, and how this seemingly small humble task was recognized by some emporer or chief, who saw its potential.

Recently in class, we have been working hard on our turns, "ba turns". Getting the footwork and the shifting correct to carry the momentum of movements with the turns. The turns are something that can be worked into daily practice in any small space. Almost the tighter practice space, the better--you have to make more turns. I even begin work turns while talking on the phone. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of these in a lot of different places. So sometimes with and without shoes. With the turns, the piece that made it finally start to go was the realization that I was missing the weight shift to the leg that would make me turn slightly in the opposite direction of the turn. This little, seemingly counter movement, really seems to piece the turn together. So there's been much slow think-about-the-weight-shifting kind of practice.

Anyway, I was putting away dishes the other day and had two saucers in my hands. Without thinking, I just moved right into the serves tea exercise, and the kitchen counter was in the way, so I turned. By coincidence, the backward movement of my right arm moved precisely with my opening foot in the direction I needed to go to avoid the counter, and I moved into the turn. Then I turned again and then opposite, and then again now serving with the other hand in a different direction toward an open space in the kitchen.

It all happened spontaneously. I was just moving, turning, shifting. It was just happening. But it was really delightful to put these two pieces together. It was actually a lot of fun and after several turns, I started laughing because I couldn't believe how "in synch" it was all happening.

It reminded me of when I first learned to play songs on the violin and then later on the guitar. With both instruments, at some point you begin to play a song the way you hum a song. Not one note at a time as you have been drilling it, but with the fluid sound of humming. Plus, with both instruments (since they are both string instruments) at that point, it has always seemed to me that I could "hum" the song instead playing note by note because "my fingers were remembering" the song for me.

I think something like that was happening. Finally at a point in the learning curve that my feet were remembering the turns and my arms and waist were remembering how to serve tea inthe same way that my fingers remember a song.

Of course in science terms, it is the brain controlling all of these motor skills. your finger tips don't really remember "Jesu joy of Man's Desiring" on the left, while your fingers on the right know exactly how to cross slur the bow. But at that point you have put much of it together. Even if it is a little rough yet. At that moment you can play a song the way you hum it, and get a little lost in your own music. So at least for that moment there was something of a genuine song made out of dodging a corner and putting away the dishes.

On Settling

Stand like a tree-- the base is rooted into the ground while the top reaches toward heaven in beautiful opposing forces

While everyone knows Baguazhang is famous for its legendary martial applications, ironically, it is the calming aspects that I believe are the most powerful. Any trained high school wrestler can take most people down. But the gift of Nine Dragon Baguazhang is what it can give to you in self control. I now believe that with practice and over time, it can change your life in significant ways. That seems so extraordinarily powerful for me.

Make no mistake, calming, settling is a learned skill. And already I find that it has to be continuously practiced to be learned, maintained and polished. I mean I didn't get it at first when our instructor told us we should attempt to settle twice each half hour--even if it were only 4 to 6 breaths. Also at this point I am only a little way there, maybe 10%, but that 10% has improved the quality of my life. Learning a method that begins to control my tendency to over react is in itself is a miracle of sorts for me.

"When one is still it is possible to counter excessive excitement
By learning to hold back one can counter the plans of those who would harm you."
-Li, Zhang Lai

Here was a strange way that my view changed with settling. On my job I am in many heated and emotional meetings. It is very easy for my own emotions to follow the rising tensions of others. They get angry, my heart starts to race. Now when I sense this happening, I say to myself. Hey, this is an opportunity for me to practice the settling thing. Initially, just that thought disengages me momentarily. Then a few settling breaths and "looking through" the others. I come back more focused on the problem. I can work with a clearer head. Of course if I can settle for a bit longer that it better, but whatever the case, it really helps.
One odd thing happened a few weeks back. I had a really heated episode. It was pretty serious stuff. And in the middle of it, I got real angry, and I got angry real fast. I was on the verge of having my old self come out

But something just happened. The idea of settling pass through me. Then the simple mental act of just telling myself, "Mike, you needed to breathe, visualize, settle," made it begin--I mean that very second I was told myself that, I mentally disengaged and gained some measure of control over myself. In the act of breathing, maybe after just 3 or 4 breaths, I could actually hear my pulse racing. I was conscious of that heart beat. It seemed as loud as a truck, and I thought "damn, I didn't know I was this pissed."

I tried to settle longer but things were moving fast. While I did not get it slowed all that much, I did manage to regain control over what I said--and what I did not say.

For me, this was remarkable. Also I repeated the settling right after the episode was over, and was quickly able to bring the focus back to solving the problem and communicate with the other person involved. I got past it quickly. We actually solved some of the problem, and although he really is not talking to me much today, I think he came off of his anger, becasue I came away from mine.

While my settling was not perfect, maybe-- 20%-- It was the thing that helped me. It was tons better than how I would have reacted before I was in this class. Before, I would have stewed over it, I would have said things I regretted, I would have brought up past stuff. In a nut shell, I would have been totally "wild horse" in my response. Settling was invaluable.

The bagua meditation has really changed me—in such a slow way, in such a subtle way, in a way that happens without trying. Sometimes, the meditation gives me a better appreciation my life. Occasionally, if I keep with a lengthy meditation, it leads back to family. It was happening not long ago like this: As I sat, I noticed the room around me, the sounds, the things in the distance, the cold air in the room, the wind and snow hitting the dark windows. I hold a moment at the top and again at the bottom of each breath. I begin to "even out." With my eyes closed, I see the snow out of the dark window drifting in and out of the street light, there is moist air moving over cold skin, there is darkness, there is quiet there are lights, spotted over the obscure distance. I step slowly, my feet sink in wet grass under a thin layer of snow. I am calm, I am tall, I am here and now, only here. If I close my eyes, I see nothing but the moment, nothing but the time, there is her and there is now, there is no more. Nothing here but moisture, a hole in the dark, where the snow now moves in and out. I am reminded breifly of key points in my life. I think what family means to me, how much a part of my memories, experience, day to day events, attitudes, and outlooks-- I see my wife and what she influences, I see her as she was when we were first in love. The way she just made me happy to see her, the way my attitude quickly reversed after a few minutes with her, the way she believed in me, the way she believe float back to when we were young together. I see my son, my daughters. How they make me laugh, make me excited about things that are important to them. All of the things we thought we had ahead of us. The fact that we talked about what happiness lie ahead of us the way we looked forward to things together was almost as powerful as happiness itself. The anticipation of what the years would bring was in itself a pleasure. There was something about that energy that draws me, something about her positive nature, about her outlook on things

On Wuji and why I love it. (Stand like a tree)

In the first months in Nine Dragon Baguazhan, I often skipped doing wuji. I thought "what was the point of it?" I mean you are just standing there. I just would get to embracing posture. Wuji just made no sense to me at all. But one day, I was sort of going through the motions of standing in wuji because I was supposed to, and the breathing, the settling, the music all started to work it settling on me.

At any rate I started to feel extremely comfortable just standing in wuji. The settling progressed and I just did not want to move out of wuji. I wanted to just "stand like a tree." as Dr. Painter has said. In the following weeks my feeling for it had completely reversed. Wuji and settling became the thing I looked forward to the most. It was like settling into a warm bath--a bath I didn't want to come out of. It was my personal place, here nothing can harm me. I am slow time. It takes a year to add a ring. Ther is nothing to time, it is the moment, it is stability, it is connected to the earth, nothing can harm me. The arguments of the day spin and swirl over me. I let them pass.

Steadily, I began to wonder if it what I thought was meaningless, was perhaps the most important posture. Wuji carried me, wuji held me. There I was beautifully balanced ridgepole spine. I could feel it balanced and plumb, and stable with the earth's gavity, my legs with just a touch of "squishy" flex now feeling as solid as barnstones, a century they have been here leaving their mark in the clay, and no tornado or storm can move them. my head expanding up--beautiful opposing forces. And there's more...