I "Heart" You

In acupuncture, I think it's a truism that people kind of by default use a certain set of points more than any other over and over, while forgetting about others. Certainly, this was true of me. But, with practice we start to break out of our mental shells, and start exploring.
One of my patients said that what he likes about me is my willingness to experiment, and try new stuff. Recently, I took his advice and used Heart 1 on a patient for the first time.
This particular patient has the beginnings of Parkinson's. The other day he came to me and said that his fingers were really cold, and uncomfortable, and with stiffness and pain in the shoulder. I stepped out of my comfort zone and needled Heart 1, and gave him heat over Ren 6. At the end of the treatment, his fingers were as warm as any other part of him, and not cramping nor uncomfortable.
A second patient, a dental hygienist with neck issues, was finding it difficult to handle the instruments of her trade, because her fingers were becoming numb and painful. Building on my experience with the above patient, I needled Heart 1 on her, but only under the arm with the more severe shoulder pain. When next I saw her, she reported that the hand on that side was pain free, but the other was still slightly problematic, with discomfort in the wrist. I needled that arm's Heart 1 on that visit.
Interestingly, in taijiquan, we try to keep our armpits relaxedly open, as if there were steamed buns under our arms, in an effort to keep Heart 1 open to allow the Yang qi to flow to the finger tips. It really is a wonderful example of how one principle can span a couple of disciplines. Keeping open allows for flow, closing off the armpit checks the flow. As in life, in the body.

History Repeats Itself

A Middle Eastern regime caught between external powers, and engaged in a wrenching civil war, in search for its soul.

Sounds like Egypt, doesn't it? In fact, it describes the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the closing centuries before the Common Era. In his book, "Yavan in the House of Shem: Greeks and Jews 332 - 63 B.C.," author Richard Hooker notes, "After two centuries of peace under the Persians, the Hebrew state found itself once more caught in the middle of power struggles between two great empires: the Seleucid state with its capital in Syria to the north and the Ptolemaic state, with its capital in Egypt to the south...Between 319 and 302 BC, Jerusalem changed hands seven times."

The Books of Maccabees presents a story of war, of a righteous Jews fighting off Antiochus III and his attempts to crush the Jewish religion. In fact, the story is much bigger, and reflected a split within the Hebrew world at the time. Many Jews had become Hellenized, and were close to the government in Syria, while the more orthodox Jews were closer to the Ptolemies in Egypt. On the death of the Jewish High Priest Simon the II, the split in the Jewish world erupted into conflict, between supporters of Simon's son Onias the III (who opposed Hellenization and was pro-Egypt) and his son other Jason (who supported Hellenization and the Seleucids).  Jason eventually became High Priest, and instituted a series of reforms to make the Jewish world more Greek. 

The result eventually was civil war, one in which outside powers became drawn into, as Antiochus invaded Ptolomaic Egypt (which supported the traditionalist Jews) but was later forced to withdraw by the Roman Republic. He then sacked Jerusalem, and tried to ultimately suppress orthodox Judaism in his effort to help Hellenized Jews, but the result was a disaster, and the Maccabean revolt.

Egypt finds itself now in the same position that the Jews of two millenia ago found themselves: searching for its soul, of what kind of Egypt it wants to be, while stronger outside powers vie from the sidelines. Will Egypt turn more Western, or Hellenize, or will it turn more toward traditionalist Islam, becoming closer to the Salafists and Riyadh?

One can only speculate at this juncture. But it's clear that the old adage is true. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Osho's Crazy Wisdom

I've been reading Osho's commentary recently of the Bloodstream Sermon, a Buddhist sutra attributed to Bodhidharma. One thing is certainly clear; Osho doesn't mind saying what's on his mind, nor does he pull verbal punches. At first, I didn't almost stopped reading it before I had even fully started, because Osho attributed India's poverty and caste system to Siddartha Buddha, saying that his admonition to suffer injustice has led to people in India just sitting back and taking it. Which seems, aside from harsh, pretty unjustified, as India is mostly a Hindu, not a Buddhist, nation.
I'm glad I persevered though, because I'm finding it an enlightening read, although I haven't achieved enlightenment. If there's one thing Osho is good at, it's parsing out what was most likely to have been said by Bodhidharma, and what is a mistake by the person or persons who actually wrote the Sermon.
Because, as Osho points out, Bodhidharma of a certainty did not write the Bloodstream Sermon. No enlightened person ever wrote anything anywhere at any time. They spoke their words to wake up the people near them, and that was it. Think about it; Jesus didn't write any part of the gospels, Rumi didn't write any of the works attributed to him (his secretary and aide, by his own admission, wrote as fast as he possibly could while Rumi recited), Siddartha didn't write any of the sutras attributed to him. The disciples remember, and wanting to preserve something of their beloved masters, they wrote down what they remember hearing.
At once, these disciples do a service and a disservice to their masters and to the world at large. A service because we have some inkling, an echo, of what all these buddhas left to us, and a disservice because co-mingled in amongst the works are the words of the disciples, rather than the masters. This is why there can be dissonance even within traditions and is the source of schisms.
One example from the Bloodstream Sermon Osho points out is the use of the word, "mind." Throughout the text of the sermon, Bodhidharma is quoted as saying that the mind is important. That buddhas transmit mind to mind. That the mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the mind. However, the mind is one of the six senses in Buddhist psychology and phenomenology. The mind can't be the source of buddhas, because as part of the six-fold sense base, it's wrapped up in the world as much as they other senses. Mind is something to be transcended, to leave behind, in the quest for enlightenment. What one really has to apprehend is his no-mind, the clear awareness behind the mind, which the mind and its concomitant ego cover up. This is borne out in the Heart of Wisdom sutra, where it states, "...the mind is no hindrance. Without hindrance no fear exists."
How much of any tradition, one wonders, is polluted by the writings of well-meaning but nonetheless deluded disciples, all of whom not only love their masters, but also have ideas in their minds (rather than no-minds) about what those masters are about? How much of Christian love, for example, has been turned into hatred because of over-reliance on words that Jesus never spoke?
In a lovely essay on the Way, Ananda Maitreya talks about a horrible forest where people are trapped. A wayfarer plots his way out of the forest, and he leaves behind a signpost for others to follow him on the way out. However, after a time, an entire community has sprung up around the signpost, with many hundreds of people worshiping the post, writing doctrine about it, theories about it, about what it means, heaping offerings upon it; everything except what they should be doing, which is following it out of the forest!
The lesson in reading Osho's commentary on the Sermon and other things is finally this: don't be fooled by the written word, and be sure to carefully parse the true meaning. More importantly, don't waste too much time studying the words of others. Wake up yourself, and see the suchness both of yourself, and of the world itself. Everything will be luminous in a way it never was before.

Silk Reeling Workshop

Hi everyone,
I'll be teaching a silk reeling workshop at City Wing Tsun! Woohoo! It'll be a series of four classes, starting the last Sunday in October, and for the next three Sundays in November (Oct. 27th, Nov. 3, 10th, and 17th). Hope you all can come by for some fun and taiji-like goodness!

Cause and Effect, Dog Eat Dog

They say that a sure sign of insanity is continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different result. If this is true, then the country, or at least its government, is pretty nuts.
Looking at the recent tragedy in Boston, the lives destroyed or wasted, it's clear that the Salafi/Wahabbi strain of Islam is a clear existential threat. Tamlan Tsaraev wasn't a real threat to anyone until he came into contact with and under the sway of this intolerant, vitriolic, and hatefully violent strain of Islam. Salafists don't even like their fellow Muslims very much, destroying as they do Sufi shrines (Rumi, for instance, was a Sufi), attacking Shiites, and even other Sunnis that they just don't like, or that they deem "not religious enough."
Yet, this country, as well as others in the West, continue to support and send petrodollars to the giant of the Wahabbi world, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia sends Wahabbi missionaries throughout the Islamic world, and the result is always trouble. Salafist/Wahabbist radicals have stirred trouble in Morocco, Indonesia, Tunisia, metastasizing and doing their level best to warp Islam in such places. Look at Timbuktu; a center of Islamic learning for centuries, what happened when Salafists gained control of it from the Malian government? They started systematically destroying shrines that were centuries old, attacking imams that were Sufi/non-Salafi, and generally made life difficult for the people there. Bear in mind, the people of Mali are Muslim. Even so, they weren't spared the violence of Salafist/Wahabbists.
The men who flew the planes into the WTC were Saudi. Saudi Wahabbist missionaries spread their liturgy of hatred and violence in the Islamic world, quietly and not-so-quietly, yet we and Israel are fixated on Iran as the enemy. Iran engulfs our attention, because of their designs of hegemony in the region, because they want to be taken seriously. Well, duh, everyone wants to be taken seriously, and exercise some form of influence. Why should the Iranians be any different? We do it all the time.
Someday, Israel and the West are going to have to wake up to the fact that Iran is not the real threat. Yes, Ahmadinejad is loud, but that just means he's goofy. Saudi Arabia's Wahabbist missionaries, meanwhile, continue to spread their vile message, funded by our petro dollars.
The Buddha warned that all actions create kamma, that the law of cause and effect is one that we all follow simply by virtue of acting. We have to start acting more intelligently, with wisdom, so as not to sow seeds that will bear bitter fruit later.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Recently, I've been reading a lot of posts by friends whom I always thought of as, "having it together." I've always admired their ability to get things done, to organize, to be positive. They've always made me feel, I have to admit, slightly ashamed of my perceived lack of ability. My inattentiveness to my own life.
The posts I've been reading, however, show that sometimes even the most positive of people go through their own personal trials. Feelings of discontent, malaise, and outright dissatisfaction with life. For all their "togetherness," they don't seem to be any happier than I am.
This goes toward something talked about in Buddhism; the levels of suffering. The most gross is, "the suffering of suffering." Suffering with an illness, a major problem, a sick relative, being assaulted. Then there is the suffering of change, wherein a person, any person, feels overwhelmed by the changes in life. Nothing is permanent, and people like permanence, or at least want pleasurable things to last. Finally, there is all-pervasive suffering, a sub-conscious dissatisfaction with life, and existence, itself. Because we all want to be free of suffering, and the ego clings to the phenomenal world. But since everything is impermanent, the world is incapable of satisfying permanently. So, we make demands on the world, changing it ourselves as we do so, and speeding our journey into dissatisfaction.
Pema Chodron writes of an image of the Buddha, where he's seated under the bodhi tree just before his enlightenment. The forces of Mara, the illusory world, are attacking him, trying to stop his ultimate Awakening. The demon army of Mara fires many weapons at Siddartha, arrows, spears, and swords. Yet just before reaching the meditating Siddartha, the sharp points of the weapons transform into lotus flowers. Chodron writes that one meaning of this image is that the very things that one experiences as a sharp sword could also be experienced as a flower; the very thing meant to cut you down can wake you up, if you pay close attention.
Easier said than done. My normal reaction to such problems has been to shut down, and let someone else take over. Ultimately, however, no one can take over your life for you. You have to live it to the best of your ability.
Life is short. Make the most of it while you can. What is this suffering, this dukkha, pointing to? Knowing that, you can perhaps start to make life your friend, and not feel so oppressed.

Gratitude

Hi folks. I know, I know, I've been a very bad blogger, leaving lots of time between posts. I'm going to have to amend my peripatetic ways. 

In fact, I'm grateful to have the opportunity to fix my said peripatetic ways. Which is the purpose of this little post, I suppose. To express my gratitude.

My mom, as many of my friends know, had a stroke in 2010. Not entirely debilitating, it nevertheless deprived her of her prized independence, forcing her to rely on help and considering moving from her home in Puerto Rico into an assisted living residence.

Last week, she interviewed at such a residence. In two days, we got the response; not eligible at this time. My dad took that news kind of hard, but my mom took it with grace and aplomb. She told me, "Things happen for a reason. We always have to be grateful, even when bad things happen, because we don't know what it ultimately leads to." 

How often are we actually grateful? How often do we actually just go about our activities, all the while complaining to ourselves, in our minds, about life's injustices? Able-bodied, well-off, and complaining. This can describe a lot of people, I think. My best friend, who works on Wall Street, talks about co-workers who pull in huge salaries complaining that it's never enough. That they've been rooked. That they deserve more. 

Perception is a funny thing. Here are people with everything, acting poor. My mom, not wealthy, not hale, acting as if she's rich. Well, at least acting content. I find a lot of inspiration in that. 

Cicero said that gratitude isn't only the greatest of all virtues, but is the parent of all others. I think that's very profound. Do you?