Change comes to Alaska and my vote was one little part of it.

Watching a debate today of a Parliamentary Final round I waited excitedly to hear the topic.  After thank you’s and such the Speaker of the House says:

“Today I am pleased to speak with you on the resolution of why democracy is not the answer.  To argue this case we will be putting forward the motion that the position of judge should never be an elected one”.

What?  I can see how it fits, but how did they think of that, and why?  Wouldn’t it be fairer and more interesting to debate other forms of government?

From a letter to my Dad:

My tai chi chuan practice continues to go well, never as fast as I’d like but that only means the practice is also teaching me patience. You would be amazed to feel how I feel now; I can sink right through my leg and feel the opposing force returning upward. Scientifically I’ve known at this would occur, I learned back in Portland but now I can feel it.

I can also feel a noticeable slowing of time. For example the short form takes 10-11 minutes but that can open so much. I have my weight on one foot and step out and feel myself moving through the air and feel my body go through the coordinated positions that mark the transition from one posture to the next. Then my foot connects with the ground and I feel the ground and my weight goes into that foot and that ground and then there are those slight finishing movements almost like a boat docking and then sort of settling.

But of course this is only the transition between two of the 24 postures. Really even though tradition recognizes 24 postures there are actually thousands or millions; the number is only limited by ones ability to be aware and present in the moment and movement.

So you can see how the process of moving through the postures and being aware as one does can really bend time.

The trick now is to be able to expand this perception/awareness/feeling to all experiences. I notice it already in basketball; I’m not sure what the right way to explain it is but I know that my perception of the game has changed and with it my ability.

Now I really want to take this perception and apply it to pushing hands and fighting. Imagine being able to perceive a fight almost before it happen, as if the other person is on 30-second tape delay. I’ve been on the opposite end of that perception gap and it’s alternatively scary, frustrating and funny.

All of this really makes me see how little I have learned out of all there is to learn. There are so many skills and all of them come from having the awareness to see frame by frame and the ability to put it all into action.

For a very long time now I’ve held two conflicting beliefs. They are: the world is exactly as it should be and the world is filled with injustice and suffering.

The first believe is best explained by this passage from the Tao Te Ching (Gia Fu Feng and Jane English translation)

Twenty-Nine

Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency.

This passage resonates with everything I’ve learned in my life and so I believe the world/universe is exactly as it should be. And yet that second believe remains.

The belief not only remains it is supported by a wealth of experiential evidence; just watch as you go through your day and you will find a world where incompetence garners promotion, honesty costs people their jobs, some are born so rich that they will never need to work, others work their whole lives only to see their children starve to death, the cars and buildings and concrete continually expand while trees and marshes are cut down and filled in… in short you will see a deeply sick world.

Holding these two beliefs causes me a far amount of confusion and discomfort (cognitive dissonance) because they’re both clearly proven and clearly in conflict with each other. Just as misaligned bones cause discomfort so to do misaligned thoughts; people in this situation generally change their believes or limit their exposure to evidence that they’d prefer not to see and thereby avoid the discomfort.

I have chosen and not been able to do this. I have lived with the contradiction and for a long time now I haven’t tried to resolve it, I’ve just let it be.

Yesterday I created a lesson based around the word “perfect” and the idea of a perfect day. The lesson is designed to get the students defining English terms using English and involves some speaking and writing practice. The handout that goes with it offers a couple of definitions but they didn’t hit me until today.

perfect: exactly fitting the need in a certain situation or for a certain purpose.

The world is as it is for a reason and while I can’t claim to fully comprehend that reason it seems to me that we’re being offered a lesson: about the world, about ourselves and about the nature of reality.

I hope this makes as little sense to you as it does to me, ha, ha. I’m throwing stones in the dark hoping to hit a window.

peace

There’s a lot roiling around in my head and many things that I want to write about but those things are not ready. So let me just say that Taichung has been just about as beautiful as possible this last week. Check out the link or just imagine a perfectly blue sky, warm temperatures and a light wind during the day and slight cool and a full moon at night…

Weather Report

I come so easily to anger, my patience barely tested already lost, I find myself angry over some rude or stupid or dangerous behavior; the kind of thing that most people would find annoying. (Cars running red lights, friends canceling without warning or explanation, people pretending to be friends…)

This is the seductive thing, I leap to judge and my judgment is not wrong it is in fact very good and in this are the seeds of my self-righteous anger. I apply logic swiftly and competently yet…

Matthew 7:1-5 “Judge not, that ye be not judged [do not judge others if you do not want to be judged by others; everyone will be judged by God]. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again [if you judge others, they will judge you by the same measures]. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

No my judgment is not wrong yet as I judge I make a hypocrite of myself for I am daily guilty of rude or stupid or dangerous behavior. The swift judgment I pass against others is not wrong and yet I cannot even correct my own behavior to match my best judgment.

And so I’m left feeling the breadth and depth of my hypocrisy and I find no rest either in the waking or sleeping hours of the day. The pressure builds and my head hurts, I look past people I used to be friendly with, one of my students who knows me best says, “You look not well.”

On it goes and then some how the pressure bursts and I stop telling myself this story of my failure and people’s failure and this word comes to me: forgive.

We must judge because we are given reason and wisdom in order that we may know good from evil. We must forgive because only by judging and then forgiving can we grow beyond our own foolish behavior.

I leave you with these two quotes.

“How many times should we forgive? The answer is always, one more time.” Ajahn Brahm

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.” St. Francis of Assisi

I haven’t posted any taijiquan notes in a long while but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been practicing. In addition to my usual hour plus every morning I’ve been working with my friend and coworker Glenn. He’s turned me on to some exercises that come from this man Huang Xingxian