Relaxed Awake Tai Chi

Dedicated to Great Grandmaster Willem Reeder (Liu Siong)

photo from http://www.tibetantaichi.com/LiuSeong.htm 

Relaxed Awake is a general attitude toward being, however we are discussing an attitude with Tai Chi practice in mind. 

Relaxed Awake 

Movement timed to our breath. 
Counting breaths, measuring time,
For each stance, each moment,  shifting.
Each stance only a temporary milestone,
Along a long journey of 108 Long Form kata.
Movement happening in a relaxed manner.
Not-holding, embracing, stillness, a pause.
Not-pushing, feeling volume, allowing space.
Not-pulling, connecting, centering inward.
Tension and compression always coexist.
Balancing tension and compression,
Being the synthesis of cohesion.
Being fully awake each moment,
Is all that is needed to
Maintain balance.

Physical form ebbs and flows, always cycling. Round and round she goes, where she stops no one knows. 

Stance flows into stance and there exists a pause between. That's the wide open door right before it closes. Or, the fully closed door right before it opens. The opening at the end of the Blue Tube Ojai Portal.

The pause right after in-breath and right before out-breath is different yet similar to the pause right after out-breath and right before in-breath. Observe this difference from complete breath to complete breath, multiple times in a row and achieve Heightened Awareness. 

As the kata progresses through 108 stances, it is joined by relaxation and awareness. The intrinsic nature of breathing overrides willfulness. The breath slows down on it's own. The mind settles and movement tends to Stillness.

Breath is the ever-cycling junction between self and other -- between our individual mind/body/spirit and the greater Universe Of All Existence. 

By itself, the kata slows down always, never done slowing down (Hexagram 64). Observant consciousness (different from controling consciousness) relaxes control, but at the same time becomes more awake. Relaxed Awake Tai Chi.

The system which slows down informs a self-governing process. If the observer/performer is successful in Turning The Light Around, then powerful life-energy pours forth from the Fountain Of Youth. 

In other words, the physical body has an innate ability to slow itself down when our mental complex releases control and observes our inner processes with continuous, un-interrupted attention. The observed lengthening of intervals influences conscious processes in general. Stillness increases for all processes at the root. Profound stillness opens etheric channels of communication with the Essence Of Life.

Ultimately the kata performs as a self-governing feedback loop resulting in an increased flow of life-energy accompanied by bliss, peaceful mind and healthy body. Relaxed Awake Tai Chi. 

Karma Lodro Gyaltsen

Tom Greenbaum

20201104

The Power of Myth

The full meaning of the term "myth" is something you should learn. Understanding the role of myth in your life is perhaps the most powerful tool you can attain. It is a tool that you can pragmatically apply to help you live your life with joy.

I consider Joseph Campbell one of the wisest scholars of the 20th century. In some ways he is wiser than Bucky Fuller. Campbell's book The Power of Myth changed my life. The Power of Myth is a book and six part television documentary (available on DVD) originally broadcast on PBS in 1988. The documentary comprises six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell and journalist Bill Moyers and includes selections from Moyers' interview with Star Wars creator George Lucas. 

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. His philosophy is often summarized by his phrase: "Follow your bliss."

George Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to credit Campbell's influence. Lucas stated following the release of the first Star Wars film in 1977 that its story was shaped, in part, by ideas described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other works of Campbell's.

Check out the YouTube video: The Mythology Of Star Wars which is a Bill Moyers interview of George Lucas and his thoughts of God and "The Force."  Lucas says Mythology creates a context for the unknown. The video includes a great clip of when Luke Skywalker first meets Yoda and receives his first lesson about "The Force." Lucas says that when Star Wars first came out, almost every single religion took Star Wars and used it as an example of their religion and related the Star Wars mythology to the Bible, the Quaran and the Torah. He goes on to say if the Star Wars mythology is a tool to make old stories be new and relate to younger people - that's what the whole point was.

When Campbell published his book Historical Atlas of World Mythology,  a reporter interviewed Campbell and confronted him with some tough questions:

Reporter: "The word 'myth,' means 'a lie.' Myth is a lie." 

Campbell: "No, myth is not a lie. A whole mythology is an organization of symbolic images and narratives, metaphorical of the possibilities of human experience and the fulfillment of a given culture at a given time." 

Campbell: "That which human beings have in common is revealed in myths. Myths are the stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.

Joseph Campbell defined myths as having four basic functions: 

1. the Mystical Function--experiencing the awe of the universe
2. the Cosmological Function--explaining the shape of the universe
3. the Sociological Function--supporting and validating a certain social order
4. the Pedagogical Function--how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances

See more in an interview with Campbell regarding The Function of Myth In the Individual Life.

Some inspirational quotes by Joseph Campbell:

Follow your bliss.

If you do follow your bliss,

you put yourself on a kind of track

that has been there all the while waiting for you,

and the life you ought to be living

is the one you are living.

When you can see that,

you begin to meet people

who are in the field of your bliss,

and they open the doors to you.

I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,

and doors will open

where you didn't know they were going to be.

If you follow your bliss,

doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.

☼

People say that what we're seeking is a meaning for life. 

I don't think that's what we're really seeking. 

I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, 

so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

☼

Find a place (inside) where there's joy,

and the joy will burn out the pain.

☼

The goal of life

is to make your heartbeat

match the beat of the universe,

to match your nature with Nature.

A Song By Gampopa

I offer you the following song by the Tibetan Buddhist saint Gampopa. Gampopa lived in Tibet from 1079-1153. Gampopa founded the monastic tradition of the Kagyupa, which is the lineage of my teacher. My teacher, the venerable Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, has written a book on the teachings of Gampopa called Instructions of Gampopa. He is the abbot of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Buddhist monastery in Woodstock, NY.

Gampopa sang:

I sing a song from the dharmadhatu of great bliss.
I speak these words in the state of wisdom,
Thus resolving the truth of nonduality.

This compassion that is free from attachment and that benefits others --
Seize firmly as supreme upaya.

This coemergent consciousness --
Seize firmly as wisdom.
When uncertainty arises, that is it.

These discursive thoughts of fixation --
Seize firmly as dharmakaya.
When one experiences this, the essence is seen.

Sights and sounds, the habitual patterns of labeling --
Seize firmly as ultimate truth.
When uncertainty arises, that is it.

These discursive thoughts are the birth of fixation.
When one has mastered this, the truth is seen.

If one desires to realize the truth of this,
Practice continuously, like a river.
Rest loosely, without further fabrications.
Rest naturally without seeking further.
Rest easily without thinking.

Experience and realization are one.
When realization is uninterrupted, that is it.
When it is as limitless as space, that is it.
When one sees one's mind as Buddha, that is it.

Now, I may have realized the true dharmata.
Fixation may have been self-liberated.
Without thinking, I may have spontaneously achieved realization.

This is not ordinary, and is not for the ordinary.
This cannot be understood by great learning.
This cannot be known by great knowledge.
This is not for the labeling of discursive thought.

I remain on the path of blessings.
I attend to the words of the guru.
It is the faithful who achieve realization.
Is your realization like this, all you great meditators?
This should not be told to everyone.

You might find the following definitions helpful when reading the poem:

• Dharmadhatu - "realm of dharma", the true nature that permeates and encompasses phenomena. As a space or realm, then, the realm of dharmas is the uncaused and immutable totality in which all phenomena arise, dwell, and pass away.
• Dharmakaya = "body of the great order", the true nature of the Buddha, which is identical with transcendental reality, the essence of the universe. The dharmakaya is the unity of the Buddha with everything existing.
• Dharmata = "nature of the dharmas", the essence that is the basis of everything. Synonymous with Buddha-nature. Dharma = the cosmic law, the great "norm," underlying our world; above all, the law of karmically determined birth.
• Upaya = "skillful means or methods", upaya is the activity of the absolute in the phenomenal world, which manifests as compassion. From the standpoint of enlightened understanding, individual beings are not perceived as suffering, since nothing exists other than the dharmakaya, the absolute. However, when regarding the universe from the point of view of compassion, enlightened beings recognize suffering, which arises from attachment to forms, everywhere. In order to liberate beings from their suffering-ridden state, enlightened beings (boddhisattvas) devise all possible means (upaya) helpful toward the attainment of nirvana. These are supported by the limitless compassion of the dharmakaya.