Having read this story many times, you’ve shone a clear and succinct light on it and gives it a whole new depth for me. Thank you. Maybe too much reading..
Thank you for this! I sometimes use the story of Wheelwright Pian, from one of the outer chapters, to talk about how hard it is to talk about improvised theatre.
I recall with fondness those subtle smiles and nods from my Tai Chi teacher and his more advanced students during push hands 10 years ago. Though I practiced religiously for about 5 years, my mind was (and perhaps still is) more like a dull axe. I couldn't really appreciate how to 'listen' and feel the adjustments as they were confirmed. Too much philosophizing along with neurotic self-analysis.
As you embark on this work of writing about your path through traditional and modern ways to the Way, I'm curious to learn your take on the austerities in the various forms you've encountered them along your way.
So glad you're writing here and looking forward to following along as things develop in real time.
Thank you very much for this, i have had this article open as a tab of months(?) now, and finally read it - at the right time. Lately I have felt, washed up against my own life - or self. Shipwrecked, my mind and spirit completely blunted and exhausted by trying or trying to try. I always seem to lose the way, the light, rightness, lost and lonely, i loose connection and get washed out into the world and its mentalities,- if our lives our 'broken', we should fix them by doing xyz, rather than just, let-being. My mind feels relieved having let go, let go of trying again and coming to accept my life the way it is, having trust in the inevitable change that is life - that i don't have to do everything or fix everything myself. Thank you again.
I have blunted my tool endlessly (and still do) on anger and frustration. I have a hate/love relationship with most things human. Especially language. It took me so long to find some resonance in the available. I held on to my knowing but was unable to express this how. The way. I have known for a long time the thinking without words, and then dulling my tool in the attempts to explain it to find others who knew. Finding bits and pieces, people who seemed to understand parts but turned out soon to be no where near the full embodied practice of the preach. Finding McGilchrists book was a revelation. Reading about how the right hemisphere way has no arguments was liberating. Now I better understood why I couldn’t find the words.
But Caroline, you are something else. You had the kind of conversation I imagined having with Iain, as opposed to the many, many intellectual diversions he has with clever academics, who got bits and pieces but never seemed to get the core. And here in these honest writings and in your voice I find a teacher. Thank you.
I'm a woodworker and I very much like "the edge of the cleaver has no thickness".
Just so !
Having read this story many times, you’ve shone a clear and succinct light on it and gives it a whole new depth for me. Thank you. Maybe too much reading..
Thank you for this! I sometimes use the story of Wheelwright Pian, from one of the outer chapters, to talk about how hard it is to talk about improvised theatre.
Thank you for this, Caroline.
I recall with fondness those subtle smiles and nods from my Tai Chi teacher and his more advanced students during push hands 10 years ago. Though I practiced religiously for about 5 years, my mind was (and perhaps still is) more like a dull axe. I couldn't really appreciate how to 'listen' and feel the adjustments as they were confirmed. Too much philosophizing along with neurotic self-analysis.
As you embark on this work of writing about your path through traditional and modern ways to the Way, I'm curious to learn your take on the austerities in the various forms you've encountered them along your way.
So glad you're writing here and looking forward to following along as things develop in real time.
Peace,
Dan
Thank you very much for this, i have had this article open as a tab of months(?) now, and finally read it - at the right time. Lately I have felt, washed up against my own life - or self. Shipwrecked, my mind and spirit completely blunted and exhausted by trying or trying to try. I always seem to lose the way, the light, rightness, lost and lonely, i loose connection and get washed out into the world and its mentalities,- if our lives our 'broken', we should fix them by doing xyz, rather than just, let-being. My mind feels relieved having let go, let go of trying again and coming to accept my life the way it is, having trust in the inevitable change that is life - that i don't have to do everything or fix everything myself. Thank you again.
I have blunted my tool endlessly (and still do) on anger and frustration. I have a hate/love relationship with most things human. Especially language. It took me so long to find some resonance in the available. I held on to my knowing but was unable to express this how. The way. I have known for a long time the thinking without words, and then dulling my tool in the attempts to explain it to find others who knew. Finding bits and pieces, people who seemed to understand parts but turned out soon to be no where near the full embodied practice of the preach. Finding McGilchrists book was a revelation. Reading about how the right hemisphere way has no arguments was liberating. Now I better understood why I couldn’t find the words.
But Caroline, you are something else. You had the kind of conversation I imagined having with Iain, as opposed to the many, many intellectual diversions he has with clever academics, who got bits and pieces but never seemed to get the core. And here in these honest writings and in your voice I find a teacher. Thank you.