I wanted to write about vocation: hearty, enjoyable work, even inner calling. I can’t write about this while extermination and ethnic cleansing are taking place, currently in 4 places that I know of, in addition to Palestine. Forgive me. Here are three things, some written several years ago, that feel appropriate and that I can post here with good conscience.
(I recorded the audio for this on my phone at A School Called HOME on Sunday night after a wonderful day here with
and Anna Björkman. Please excuse an audio error in the last section which I could not edit out due to a software glitch late at night…)Photos this week are from my ‘altar’ at home, a place where things which help return me to my right mind can gather together. An ecclesia of aides memoires. The whole assemblage is a call to prayer and practice, beauty and nature. It changes seasonally, in incremental ways. Everything is either a find or a gift.
No hero
15/03/15
There will no brave solo hero like in films. Pervasive awareness and sustained attention are hardly telegenic. What must be borne, transformed, returned or achieved will be done by some ordinary people together and not by a maverick lone man or teenage girl who is gonna - godammit - save the day. It'll most likely be small groups, large groups, not necessarily even exclusively by humans. These people will be what we currently call friends. This friendship can include family, it can embrace the inanimate. Kindness will be appropriate. There will be stops for meals and tea. There will be backtracking and head-scratching, possibly snogging and most likely some fights, but mainly there'll be heart. Not only will it famously not be televised but neither will it be recognised or theorised. Commenters won't even apprehend it - we are as mould on bread to them. We are not available for their consumption, and we taint a bigot's daily bread with our fuzzy distasteful ways. There will be yielding, and this will be our resistance. There will be steadfastness and at the heart - true connexion.
The Ten Suggestions
(Originally for my T’ai Chi students, and with apologies to Moses)
14/10/2007
1. Be gentle with one another, especially at the moment when someone is being less than gentle with you.
2. Judgment and pontification are like wearing stupid hats. These hats are only impressive to other judgmental pontificators, who will engage one in lively debate. This is really only about comparing the size and magnificence of the hats. Leave the stupid hats to actual judges and Pontiffs.
3. Listen to the energy behind a communication, rather than the words / actions. We have heard this one so many times, and it's really difficult for those of us who have spent a lifetime cultivating words, 'saying what we mean' and trying to be clear communicators. Never mind, keep trying, even if you mess up. Have another go, fail better, as Beckett said.
4. Righteousness and self-righteousness are deadly. See: Iraq, Burma, China, Glasgow airport, gangs of Peckham, etc. When we think 'I absolutely know I'm in the right and they are wrong' then it's only a few minutes until war, confrontation, winners and losers, or simply ignoring the other's humanity.
5. Justifying one's grievances sucks. 'I only did that because I thought you were against me'. We all sometimes lash out. Take responsibility for it, then make amends.
6. Even with the best of intentions, realise there can be misunderstandings. This works best starting with those closest to us where there's just the occasional blunder. The trick is to extend it towards folks who don't even seem to like you. Then it all feels a lot less personal.
7. Cultivate doubt. (Be wary of unquestioning faith). Be sceptical, especially don't take what you think or emotionally feel to be truths. Of course it's convincing! Pinch of salt. All people and things are conditioned and subject to change. Test things out in the crucible of one’s own life. 'Place no head above your own' -Buddha.
8. Listen to plain song, or prog rock music, or Stravinsky, or gamelan, or a cat fight, birdsong, your lover's heartbeat, traffic, the sea. We can tendrilise the world and all things in it with our listening. By this I mean out-reaching. We can also do this with our eyes, noses, sense of taste, our hands and all our skin, and also with our hearts and minds. Ears are really good to start with, though. Actively listen to a new or old thing. Reach out to it, meet it halfway and hear it transform. This creates a whole new thing.
9. Stop being so po-faced. In dealing with one's 'self', it helps to have a sense of humour. For those of us who started with only a vestigial ability to laugh at ourselves, this takes some work. But it can be done. If I can do it, anyone can.
10. Never give too much credence to: lists, anything at all said on blogs or to the thoughts of strange women who like cats.
Discriminating Wisdom
(adapted from my T’ai Chi website blog)
23/06/2017
Studying Sword may seem an anachronism in our age of frictionless surfaces, but for me has been essential in my development in life and in T'ai Chi. What we study is far from being the negatively-charged image of macho hack-and-slay found in gaming and blockbusters, and also nothing like the computer-enhanced ballet of martial arts movies, fun though that can be to watch.
Throughout history, not just in Chinese culture, the sword, correctly wielded, has been the symbol par excellence of discriminating wisdom. This includes the faculty of knowing right from wrong action; cutting through lies, deceit and illusion: removing the inessential. Through meditation, insight, correct practice, contemplation, study, and hard work the mind is made to reflect the sharpness and balance of the ideal sword. Think of the ubiquitous Western figure of Justice, in her hands a sword and scales, or in all the Abrahamic cultures Solomon and his penetrating wisdom. In Buddhist images of Manjushri, transcendent wisdom is represented by his flaming sword. Think of Occam's razor, or the wrathful sword-wielding deities of Hinduism, Bon and the shamanic traditions of northern Europe, remember Arthur, Freya, Boudicca, Joan of Arc.
In China the double-edged sword (Jian) was the sword of the scholar, and considered a fine art to study alongside poetry, calligraphy, literature and medicine. John Kells' teacher Dr Chi Chiang Tao had a great sword teacher - Sword Master Hsu, (there is a great photo of them in the Kobayashi Classical Sword book). In our culture currently swords and knives are rarely seen as useful and noble tools but mostly as threatening and evil weapons, used only by madmen and those with a grudge. In Sweden, for instance this is not the case at all, and young children learn the safe use and respect due to sharp blades at a very young age. Demonising swords and knives leads to recklessness, a lack of skill and unwarranted fear. It will ultimately lead to an impoverishment of the unconscious, as the rich ancient procession of images of beneficial sword-wielding archetypes, historical figures and deities seems to have entirely stalled. The side of the sword that we wish to cultivate includes restraint, sensitivity, courage and above all, awareness.
You rapidly develop spatial awareness when studying sword. If you don't you get hit. Outreaching, joining, yielding, returning: the great principles - these are all brought sharply into focus when the opponent has over a metre of steel or wood pointing at your heart, even in the gentle, good natured environment of Mark's classes.
Not having grown up as a young boy, I missed out on running around with toy swords, and chose netball over archery and fencing at school. In our era there are no longer age, race, class or gender barriers to learning T'ai Chi weapons, (there certainly were in many earlier times and in most places), and I recommend it to all who have a few years practice under their belt. Once, during the nine years I was teaching in Hackney, a man came along saying that he had done T'ai Chi for 5 years elsewhere and that he wanted me to teach him Sword. I said he could come along and do Long Form and Push hands for a while first, as obviously it would be entirely inappropriate for me to arm a stranger whom I did not know... Needless to say his pride and haste meant I never saw him again. All the serious students of sword I have met, whether of Iaido, Western fencing, Kendo or T'ai Chi, have been peaceful and skilful people. There are some people to whom one should not teach weapons, and it is abundantly clear who they are when one first meets them. However, as we have seen far too much recently, anything can be used as a weapon: a hire car, a beer bottle, a kitchen knife. I wish to suggest that we rehabilitate the thoughtful and responsible study of the sword exactly as an antidote to mindlessness and explosive reactivity, both in ourselves and in the wider culture.
Just like the intellect, the sword may be used to good or bad effect. Ignoring the energy of the sword, and the place of the use of weapons generally, in the long history of humans will not make them go away. I suggest that the conscious and mindful study of weapons in T'ai Chi is of great benefit physically, mentally and symbolically in the inner life of the practitioner.
This week’s good thing: John Berger’s Photocopies. At the moment I don’t have spare money to buy books but I found a very useful lamp and this superb book by Berger at The Crooked Book, my favourite vintage goods shop in my town. So I spent a tenner and am immensely happy I did so. This book is incredibly moving. Reading as Berger’s eye alights on people and things, feeling his heart opening to others, the world, to the tiniest details, leaves me speechless. He really was a great soul.
As always Caroline, your writing makes me pause and ponder. Love the ten suggestions and love that altar! Especially the bit about everything being a “find or a gift”. And is that really a ginormous acorn on the left?
The piece of pāua on your altar looks just like those I find on my beach