Living the examined life

I have always rejected the notion that there is for everyone a different path.  Let me restate that - I have always felt that for everyone there is some essence of how to live life that is shared.  That there is one focus, one purpose, a sort of singularity of motivation that guides us all on.  Spare me now your theories, I’m sure they are fascinating, all.

I have always felt burdened by this.  Because so many claim to know the one true way, and they apply to it language.  A friend, maybe better to call him a colleague, once scoffed at the notion of organized religion, thinking it too spare to hold the vastness of the universe.  Too slim a skeleton on which to balance the weight of all that is done, and undone.  I scoffed right back, vaguely annoyed, but the conversation that ensued was instructive.  That was some time ago.

I have spent the last ten years searching.  Searching far and wide for somewhere to call home.  I have run the table, from no structure to total structure, from one continent’s answer to another’s, feasting my fill on revelation, on explanations of how the world works, on prophets, on Saints, on the history of a hundred religions gnashing at one another’s throats all urging one another on, on, on.  In my guts there lives a yearning, an aching place of remembrance, of befuddledness, of mystery, of earnest bleeding hope.  Hope that there is something, some reason, for this pain and bludgeoning, a certain knowledge that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  It is both a question and an answer.  It is both faith and reason.  It wakes me up in the morning, and it puts me to bed at night.

Tonight, I prayed and then went on a bike ride.  My destination is unimportant for the story.  Or at least I think it is.  This was directly after having consulted the Yijing, a sort of internal guidance system that has worked for me time and time again.  Even when I think it has led me wrong, later I find that it hasn’t, and that its accuracy is always deadly on.  Why?  Because it feeds from me and back into me, it serves as mirror and reflection, it speaks to the secret corners of my mind in a language noone else can understand.  What it told me was perplexing.

On my ride back, at the sun’s setting, I felt a curious lightness.  The coolness, the promise of summer on the lips of the night, the uncertain route to my house, the erraticness of Friday night drivers - it all seemed to lift me, to open me, to propel me.  I lost track of time, and I started an age old tradition of mystics, seekers and madmen since time long forgotten.

I spoke to noone in particular.  Actually, mostly I shouted.

And we came to an understanding.  That there is a central point, a unifying something, an immeasurable unknowable unyielding unseeking awe.  And I will never know it.  I will never know it at all.  I don’t doubt that some do, or will.  But my need to do so has closed my mind, closed my heart, made me numb to the beauty and the simplicity of the world.  I cannot be perfect.

I am not perfect.  I will never be.

Whatever tradition I am a part of, whatever tradition guides me through, I must always be myself.  I am not suggesting that for others, this is any difficulty.  Surely, none of this is an revelation to anyone but me.  But inside of me, as I rode, and got mosquitos stuck in my eyelashes, as I rode and counted irises blooming in the failing light, as I rode not knowing where it is that I was going, I found peace.

For now, that is enough.

Eric

I’ve been working on my Qigong practice, both quiet and moving. The moving part of my practice comes from the Jinjing tradition. I am fortunate to have studied the forms of this tradition for four years with Heiner Fruehauf and other inspiring teachers.  I have not yet had a chance to study with the lineage holder, Professor Wang Qingyu, but hope to do so in the next couple of years.  My current practice involves reviewing the forms I have learned, one form per month - practicing each day.  It is a challenging workload that becomes easier as time goes on - the channels open, the tendons strengthen, the breath and mind both quiet down.

The internal part of my “qi work” is primarily Buddhist in nature.  I have a daily meditation practice that is currently led by the wisdom in the book Wake Up To Your Life: Discovering the Buddhist Path of Attention written by Ken Mcleod.  However, all meditation practices are essentially the same - you just show up and sit.  The unfolding takes care of itself, in a certain way of thinking.  My hope is to have stable attention developed before I graduate from my program in Classical Continue Reading…

Study: Most Children Strongly Opposed To Children’s Healthcare

Seriously, think about the children!

This winter has been a good one, from a weather point of view.  Often, Oregon winters are impossibly long, wet, chilly affairs.  This year we’ve had dry spells, big snowstorms, refreshing rain and plenty of wind.  I’ve enjoyed the variation.

However, energetically things have been somewhat difficult.  It’s partly the difficulty of my fourth year in Chinese medical education at National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM).  It’s partly that we’re birthing a business the likes of which has never been seen.  There are certainly many other factors involved in the difficulty.

The difficulty is most easily described as a kind of pervasive stagnation coupled with a lack of motivation that is entirely uncharacteristic for me.  I’ve found myself playing computer games, sleeping in very late, avoiding work and generally being pretty unproductive.  Of course, during that time I’ve done a lot of work, done well in classes and on clinic shifts, and have been engaged in a rather successful term as my school’s student body President.  So, productive?  Unproductive?  Who can say.

All of that aside, I feel the spring brings a new dawning.  Soon we will enter into the Chinese period called Jīngzhé, commonly interpreted as “awakening of insects.”  This is Continue Reading…