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By the time you read this, we would have been past the first week of the new year that is 2017. In last Sunday’s conversation, we had touched upon the notion of new beginnings in the new year. For me, one aspect of ‘new beginnings’ is a commitment to a somewhat ‘regular’ evaluation of our Self. Maybe you will join me for a few minutes.
How was the first week of the New Year for you? Did you come ‘barging out the door’ after the holidays, full of energy to deep-dive into your action plans – to find that you were running on fumes by Thursday, and the shortened week left you a day short of what you thought you were going to be able to accomplish? If so, join my club. If not, you probably had a better focus, a better balance, and a better energy distribution than I did. Wonderful. You and I need to talk offline 🙂
Now that we have our quick self-evaluation behind us, we can move forward. In getting ready for the Sunday chat on twitter, I often pick up a book or two on Friday evening, and stack them on my bedside table. Last night, I openened up “The Way of Zen” by Alan Watts. This is the page that flowed out…
So long as the conscious intellect is frantically trying to clutch the world in its net of abstractions, and to inssiste that life be bound and fitted to its rigid categories, the intellect will wear itself out… Philosophy of Tao
This stirred my mind, and then my heart. What are some of us (including me) doing in the New Year? We are barely into the first week of January, and we are at risk of ‘wearing out our intellect’ by focusing on ‘frantically trying to clutch the world’ and fit it into our ‘rigid categories’. And the author went on…
The Tao is accessible only to the mind which can practice the simple and subtle art of wu-wei…
A ‘simple and subtle art’? OK. Now I am really paying attention and focused on what the author had to say. What is this art, this principle of wu-wei? Memories of my Karate Sensei’s lectures during class started filtering through my mind as I searched for this term. No. Nothing. So, I read on.
wu-wei is the experience where the mind arrives at decisions spontaneously… decisions which are effective to the degree that one knows how to let one’s mind alone, trusting it to work by itself…
Aha. There it is. Spontaneity. A sense of flow returns, to break us out of our ‘rigid categories’. I sense a return of and an embrace of freedom for the mind from the shackles of too much focus, by ‘letting one’s mind alone’. Trusting. Now, the literal meaning of wu-wei is further broken down…
wu means “not” or “non-” and wei means “action”, “striving”, “straining”…
Wait. Does this mean that if we adopt wu-wei that we are signing up for “non-action”? I look at it as signing up for “non-striving”… dialing back the mind’s hyper-focus on what we set out to ‘achieve’, to ‘strive’ towards. So, wu-wei can create time and space for flow and spontaneity. We relax our laser-life focus on our ‘goals’, and allow for “peripheral vision” to let us see out of the corners of our eyes.
The author uses the analogy of how a baby or infant actually sees the world. Their field of vision is wide, often even ‘blurry’. They do not focus on one particular thing, yet they manage to “see everything”. The world labels them as inarticulate, even “dumb” or “stupid”, but in their lack of cleverness, their innate spontaneity, is hidden a wonderful spiritual ability…
Cut out cleverness, and there are no anxieties!
So begins the poem that talks about the benefits of being ‘stupid’ in the world’s eyes. There is often great merit in being without ‘cleverness or ‘guile’ in the matters of the heart and soul. Consider this. When we act spontaneously to do something that brings a spark of Joy to our heart, we rarely do it from a position of stress or anxiety, do we? We trust the mind, we let go, and deep dive into spontaneity.
In summary, the message for me seems to be – keep focus, but don’t build the focus wall so high that you don’t allow time and space for spontaneity to enter your heart. I share the message with you, in the hope that it helps all of us relax into the week ahead.
As if to corroborate, I learnt in this week’s meditation MasterClass ~ Learn to let the mind relax. That is the first step, the beginning of meditation.
Namaste,
Kumud
P.S. As I was finishing up this post, I recalled my Sensei often reminding me – ‘peripheral vision’ is one of your greatest assets… anybody can develop a keen, focused, ‘straight on’ vision, but the great warriors have great ‘peripheral vision’… and you develop that by relaxing, ‘not-striving’… there it is. Wu-Wei! Join us on twitter in #SpiritChat – Sunday, January 8th at 9amET. We will talk more about Focus and Spontaneity. Namaste.
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