Prisons, Freedom and Kindness

Current Events

Todays headline which captured my attention:

1 in 100 Adults now in prison.

I worked for Drug Addiction and abuse treatment services for a little while. I assisted in a research and prevention project. The project showed from the data: That for every dollar spent in education or prevention programs, the state saved 10 dollars in treatment services. It then showed for every dollar spent on treatment services, the state saved 10 dollars from legal and prison costs.

In many states the prison/corrections budget has exceeded education by a large amount. Yet the real life results show and prove the educational budget should be 10 times greater than the correctional budget for an effective balance of social spending.

More fundamentally, the problem is deeper, being rooted in everyday lifestyles. In doing nothing meaningful, by being comfortable, by pushing one's choices out from the home to larger social systems, by not working locally with others. Our society actually removes personal freedom. I am saying this partly because our research also showed an additional surprising truth: the programs and education which worked the best (by a factor of 10 to 1) were the small local programs with active community participation. The larger, more generic programs didn't nearly improve things to the same effect as acting locally.

So a truth is:

To make a difference isn't: waiting for government to change or by creating large scale "solutions". Instead changing personal & local activities to pro-actively live in kindness, working directly with the local community becomes the true force of 80% of the change. The small and local oriented changes are the ones which would make the largest difference in improving the problems we have with the United States correctional system.

In the history of Taoism:

Taoism always concentrates on the local community, on personal choices we each have and in being kind to each other.

While people might focus on the high profile items such as The Yellow Emperor, Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching or other high profile works or figures. This only represents the most minor part of Taoist history.

The majority of Taoist history is not even recorded as the majority of Taoist action occurs at the local or personal level of effort. Not many pay attention to the little acts, the helping of each other. Yet enough shrines and occasional scribbled notes of such kindness remain, enough to show us: that is indeed where the heart of the teachings in Taoism reside. Taoism ignores most of its own contributions on purpose! The ideal is to let go of ego and be an part of the larger universe.

Taoism resides centrally to the actions of the heart!

Living this way isn't easy, which is why when given a choice many people opt for comfort. But a Taoist lifestyle does improve and increase the wealth of experience a 1,000 fold.

The reason we live is to experience life. Taoism is about acting to what you want to be and making life an experience worth expressing. Kindness is core to Taoist philosophy.

When people first learn about Taoism, they assume it is a selfish teaching. However, Taoism is the most selfless religion or philosophy around. The whole practice is to let go of ego and to be part of the universal essence.

The very definition of Kind is: Essence! To be part of the fundamental nature and quality of being.

So Kindness: is the act of being kind, the act of being in one's essence.

To release others from prison, to be kind and help a person be of their essence, reflects back to help a person be part of the universal essence of the Tao.

So Taoism believes not in prison systems, but in kindness and helping others along in their path.

Try it one day,

Instead of lashing out or trying to dictate how someone should be. Try helping a person along with some kindness. You might be surprised how much you end up helping yourself and making the world a better place.

peace

Morbid thoughts of the day

The two things in life that are constant

death and taxes

perhaps death is life's tax

So in the end does that mean

its all about taxes?


Seesh! I am getting out of the pondering business!

Questions and more Questions about Finding Inner Peace

I received this question the other day:

I have no idea how to go about resolving the constant questions that go through my head! Asking these questions just makes my life miserable as it always leads to no answers over and over again.

I cant see any light at the end of the tunnel all I see is more questions! Is it possible for people like me to achieve inner peace?

Everyone can find inner peace. The path is through acceptance. However, countless paths for finding acceptance exist. Its just that some seekers take a longer path than others.

I have blogged about finding acceptance many times before. So you can check out earlier posts on this topic, or just search upon the term acceptance in this blog to find other entries.

Countless practices, and systems of belief exist to help people find answers. The biggest problem is finding a practice or system that matches to your nature.

For example: In Zen practice you just keep asking questions and then more questions until the mind says enough is enough and you discover how to let go. Of course Zen then takes this a step further and you ask even more questions just to be sure you mind has learned to be empty of questions.

In Taoism you learn everything is relative which means most answers are not worth chasing. So you let go of the questions and skip straight into acceptance.

In fact Taoism takes this a step further to teach many questions don't have a larger answer at all, that in fact the only answer possible is that you yourself are the answer. In other words, a Taoist reaches the point of acceptance where you yourself are the answer for a majority of the questions you face...

So for a Taoist, questions fall into two categories: Outer Truth and Inner Truth. Questions that fall in the zone of Outer truth are questions which could be consider universal in nature. For example : What is Red? Red is a color... pretty clear cut right? Nope.

Since most questions end up being relative:

For instance What is Red? Well depending on how you perceive the world, Red means something different. So to someone who is color blind their RED may not be the same as your RED.

So questions which are dependent on your nature fall into the category of Inner Truth.

Even more confusing: some questions might have different answers depending if you are trying to answer relative to an Outer Truth or Inner Truth as the "What is Red?" question illustrates.

So when considering this: of course a person can get stuck in endless loops chasing questions. As answers are infinite. A Person can spend an entire lifetime chasing answers only to left still chasing after more.

The real problem is many people try to force questions which are strictly Inner Truth in nature as if they were Outer Truth issues.

This is the root reason religions can cause so many problems: trying to force personal answers upon others.

So back to the question about finding inner peace.

Taoism teaches this:

Inner Peace can be discovered when accepting most questions are Inner Truths. To discover Inner Peace is simply a question of accepting yourself as an answer.

Peace

Dancing Moon

I looked at my day timer.

I scheduled a date with the moon tomorrow night.

Julie, Mina and I will dance with her in the moving light. The moon is very important in the history of Taoism as a teacher in fulfilling the nature of emptiness.

Here is the second pass: for a poem, from the moon.

Long long ago:
Moon and Earth were one
Until shattering of celestial hammering
Left two dancing where once was one.
Setting a tempo for life to come.
But that was long long ago

Long Ago:
She wined with sages of old
leaving them drunk upon her light.
Men wanting to have more,
yet treasuring
only the emptiness of her embrace.
But that was long ago.

Today:
It's a busy life.
Rockets to build.
Humanity busily pounding outwards while...
Societies ebb with human tides.
No time for poetry
as life becomes tied, to fulfilling orders.
But that was this morning,
already lost in the afternoon press.


Tomorrow:
I will dance with her
Knowing we will be eclipsed
Our motions moving us on
to get lost in earthly shadows,
leaving me to walk alone: yet fulfilled.
But tomorrow will be nothing,
for those chained to consuming the earth now.

Peace

Setting Pace in Taoism

I personally feel the hardest thing about the Taoist path is the balance of the overall long term practice.

For many people after a period of time a Taoist lifestyle can seem to be boring, monotonous or even at times pointless. (Anyone who feels this way, in reflection, feels that way about their own life. They are actually looking for practices to spice their life up.) This is not an issue about Taoism, it's an issue of deciding what practices you choose to fulfill your empty space.

I can compare Taoism to Jogging. On the surface I find the activity of jogging to be very boring. I don't enjoy pounding the crap out of my knees and I don't enjoy running. I am rarely in a rush to get anywhere.

But jogging isn't boring and it's not about a rush to get somewhere.

Boring is merely a matter of perspective.
It's a matter of pacing yourself for the distance.

Taoism is a practice geared for your entire life. You don't run full speed expecting to find all the mysteries of life in the first few days. Taoism teaches a person to pace their exploration, discovery and wandering to cover the path of an entire life time.

So many get excited when first learning Taoism, only to then lose focus over time. They put all their energy into focus of achieving the results they desire in the now: seemingly in the fewest possible actions.

This is why I am careful about which students I take when teaching Taoism. Not everyone is at a point in their life where their perspective is ready to pace out the practices. As a result as a Taoist teacher I have learned to teach different aspects of the practice to fit the person relative to where they are in life.

My goal is always trying to help a person find a sustainable set of practices. So the key to a long term Taoist practice is not about focus, it's about living. Very similar to jogging when one lets go of actually running to instead give in to the movement, to run the distance. Then in time a person also discovers to relax and just take it all in, to watch life , to watch the run through the trail.

It's similar for Taoism.. People place initially all that energy into exploring ... and then lose their intensity after finding answers just don't pop up as they would like. Yet the answers are all there. You just have to run the distance.

People want short cuts.

Taoism does teach many short cuts... but the short cuts aren't one of time, they are of perception. Taoism provides the tools of acceptance so it's possible to settle down and enjoy the run.

Taoism shows a person to take care of mind , body and spirit so it's possible to run the distance. Taoism teaches to drop expectations so a practitioner can have patience to complete life: to discover it's about yourself rather than answers. Taoism also teaches that you will embrace many practices over time, to match shifting needs.

Taoism is never boring, it's your life.

It's just a question on how we choose to jog through that life.

peace

Dance Retreat

Julie and I have expanded our retreat to include Dance of the Tao.

We have been working hard over the past year to integrate dance practice and Taoism together, to help others release into spiritual movement practices.

The Tao is about acceptance within movement of life. What better way to release into the Tao than to dance freely into that state of freedom.

Sometimes we trap ourselves in our minds, into thinking too hard. This often leaves a person in a state of paralysis. With this dance practice, we open up with free flowing movement to help unblock such mental road blocks.

Peace

Flowing with the Day

You have also touched my heart

I think of you with a smile,

life is short Yet the heart is eternal.

---

I rarely follow holidays, but I wrote this quote a while ago and been meaning to blogerize it for a while. So today makes a good day to post it upon.

As far as who I refer to: does it matter??

For this statement holds true to everyone within my heart., and when truly sharing heart the feeling is mutual and understood without statement or pause.

peace

Dancing Change into the Times.

My partner Julie is putting together several dance workshops this spring.

In movement we can find ourselves and freedom of self.

In movement of being ourselves, we can dance a revolution of change into being true.

Many people have trouble actively moving towards what they would like. So many souls get trapped sitting at the job or being en-tranced into losing oneself into televised dreams.

Life is movement , even when still: our heart beats movement of life steadily within the body's core.

Be more, follow the heart beats outward and expand with movement.

In Taoism: Life is always a dance. A dance between possibility and change.

peace

Good Morning

Time to start the day.

So just wishing to anyone who bebops here:

"Good Morning"

It's important to just reach out and connect in such a positive manner. Life is as much about "pause" as it's about movement.

Anyone who knows me, knows I say good morning three times before noon. It's part of my practice, part of expanding my nature and connecting to the world.

Stopping to smile, to say good morning... and to really pause in that... not to rush on by becuase an exchange is expected... But simply to pause in the

"Good Morning"

Now that is something worth doing. Far batter than coffee also when practiced with an exchange of positive energy , to reach out and swirl in a Qi-Gong manner to connect outwards with energy.

Practice and activity are never separate in life... It's always part and soul, integrated into one's life. This ends up being one of the major problems I see in western culture. How westerners split out everything to be separate and distinct... to the point we never have enough time to exercise , to explore energy and life as we busily rush about.

So trying saying Good morning and feel the energy, imagine spirit reaching out, entwining up to the sun to warm your core with an extra boost of light, feel lifted as "good morning" connects to the breeze and wind above us, Discover peace of connection in the smile that goes along with meaning "Good Morning"... extending outwards in so many ways... This is Qi-Gong, this is Taoism, this is life: integrated and present in each moment...

The first Good Morning is to yourself: to sense and travel in your own body, to know yourself at the first moment of the day.. to be able to then move on.

The second Good morning is to open the mind, to expand outwards, to sense what is around you. To greet the flows of energy about you and to embrace that in a loving manner, to energize your movement of living.

The third Good morning is to connect to others, to give thanks for sharing with them. To interconnect out in the puzzle that is the day to come.

moment to moment

in

Good Morning

:) Till later

me

Who ever would have thought that something as simple as "Good Morning" could do so many things???

But this is Taoism, the secret of Taoist practice: interconnecting your life to the path of living, in each moment no matter how seemingly small: is also universal in impact to the world and yourself....

Peace

Taoism

Taoism is a primarily an oral tradition at its core, Within Taoist tradition, a Taoist keeps a true journal within life, in our heart. However, we also keep the occasional personal writings as reminders for purposes of transmitting knowledge. More importantly our writings are merely Meta Data (That is: information is relative to existing conditions useful for transitions between one stage of our experience to another). It's a strange mix in that regard. Taoists don't embrace the written word as truth, instead, written words are only a tool to aid transitions toward acceptance and nothing more.

As we live, our perceptions revolve in a spiral of different stages.

At different times, a person is able to take in different truths, different aspects of their life.

So a Taoist's oral teaching is always relative to one's needs. This is why Masters are important in Taoist tradition, a Taoist Master helps a person transition smoothly as a outside resource to help gauge what advice is best for a person. Taoist teachings are absolutely relative to each other. In books, in using the written word, people make the false assumption that it's possible to use the written knowledge at any moment in your life. Taoists know instead it's only meta data: dependent to where you are in life.

So when diving into written materials: know to embrace only the words that call to your heart. Never taking what doesn't make sense in the now, since other information ends up as a distraction or can even lead one backwards in their path.

It's amazing how much Taoist scholars have written in the past. The majority of it being lost or destroyed over the years. More importantly most of it's never even seen by most Taoist's as it's truly immaterial. Since to a Taoist the truth reveals itself naturally as we live. It doesn't bother us, that our temples have been destroyed to dust, that books were burned away, that "history" merely fades to the whims of society ...

We are the breeze

No dam ever stops our flow
No net ever captures our essence
No destruction truly touches our eternal nature

We always flow to the truth of our life.

I shed my bones once long ago and yet in the now I still happily wander in wonder. Life meanders to where I should be.

Don't worry about what Taoism might or might not be...

Just be, be yourself.

Peace

Grace

What is grace?

Grace isn't defined in words: it's defined in motion and action.

This statue captures grace

Of someone letting go into the moment of shaping stone

And then sharing that action with us in the stone.

Peace

Question and Answer Time

Piles upon piles of questions I do have scattered about.

I leave questions in piles, like gold, since answers often are more problems than they are worth. Burdensome in the weight of keeping in hand. Also left as gold, questions glitter even more prettily upon a pile.

Besides in Taoism the questions are far more valuable than answers, as answers spawn off endlessly upon rainbows of perception.

However, if answers spawn off rainbows, then in retrospect I suppose even answers have their use when pinned to the sky as prayer flags to our hopes.

Just don't reach for the answer, lest they fade to the distance. Instead, grasp gently, with enjoyment and leave glittering in the distance as a beacon to explore, knowing all such destinations are merely illusions of our movement.

Peace