Tag Archives: thoughts

A Little More Slowness

Posted by on January 25, 2012 1 comment

I’ve revisited the idea of slowness recently and touched again on Wu-Wei when I thought about accepting our limitations. I saw this article in the New York Times a week or two ago and remembered it as tying in with the things I was talking about quite nicely. The article makes the case very well that Yoga is not as safe as we’d all like to believe. My opinion is that this is true of anything; which is why, in my SitQuietly instructions, I give a warning to consult your medical practitioner before taking up a meditation practise. But this article makes specific mention of people who seem to be treating Yoga as if it were a performance sport, specifically one man who threw himself into a spine twist and had three ribs give way.

The article says a lot of things that ring true for me, that echo my own gym and Tai Chi experiences. I realised a long time ago that it was up to me to make things easy on myself, that I had to do this by realising and respecting my limits. Apply Wu-Wei, don’t do things at an inappropriate speed, don’t force yourself into exercises that are inappropriate for your body type or mental state. When growth in our abilities occurs it should be unforced and as a result of the “70 percent rule”, which I’ve talked about before. This says that you work to 70 percent of your potential, with the other 30 percent held back for growth and improvement. Eventually, your 70 percent is equal to what used to be your 100 percent, and you’re still only giving 70 percent!

My other observation is that practises like Yoga, meditation and Tai Chi are not performance sports. The wisdom of Wu-Wei and the Slow Movement comes back again to the fore, these things are healing arts without a doubt; but only when used appropriately and at the right pace! They can heal your body and mind, but will do so in their own time, to try to hurry things seems to me to be a mistake. One that can only end badly as well. We in the West seem to be bringing our own neurotic hurried flavour to these things, but in doing so I worry that we lose a lot of their essence and bring ourselves further pain.

Accepting Our Limitations

Posted by on January 22, 2012 No comments

In a few posts recently, I’ve mentioned our limitations. It’s a theme that has reoccurred through my writing and something that I think is worth exploring a little more.

I’ve found throughout my career, both in the gym and in the workplace that some people seem to have a disdain for the idea of limitations. This doesn’t just apply to themselves, but to the tools and technology around them. I remember after a server problem at a previous employer, the Managing Director asked the Head of IT how long the server would take to get back into service. As the database needed to be verified, the answer was “about 45 minutes”; to which the MD replied “make it 10 minutes”. This wasn’t possible, of course, things had to be given time to run their course; the job had to be done properly.

I have seen this in the gym before, I’ve done it myself. Do extra classes, push that bit too hard, then things start aching and hurting. Oops. Eventually, I discovered Tai Chi and Taoism and learned from these things and some very wise people that it was OK not to keep pushing the limits. There is more dignity to be found in accepting the limitations of our bodies, mind and technologies with simple realism, than in striving to do the impossible and cursing when meeting with failure. I also learned that you need to pay attention to your body and mind, that the warning signs of approaching limits are there.

When we fall into this trap, we all pay a physical and mental price for it. Stress and burnout are very real in our minds, they take an awful toll on our health and our bodies. We sustain numerous injuries, both minor and major, from refusing to accept that it’s time to stop exercising. But it is, through the practise of mindfulness and humility, possible to stop this.

I think that these are things that need more emphasis, as in this case they work hand in hand. Mindfulness helps us with our work or exercise and also lets us spot the warning signs; humility helps us put our egos aside and walk away unharmed.

The Riches of Agnosticism

Posted by on January 11, 2012 2 comments

I was considering this after writing my recent post on my views about God. I remember that in his book “The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins has a chapter on “The Poverty of Agnosticism”. He takes aim at Agnosticism and tries to demolish it as a valid position, I think he goes too far and that we need to look again.

Agnosticism is more than a simple “I don’t know”, when come at from the point of Buddhism that “I don’t know” gains a vitality and an urgency that is easy to miss. It’s not a wishy washy form of indecision, but a potent statement of humility acknowledging honestly our uncertainty in a world of constantly changing phenomena and events. When everything we try to grasp is constantly shifting and changing, how can we stand on a firm bed of knowledge? When we draw on the Dharma, we rediscover our Agnosticism from the knowledge that all the things we know are just mental constructs of a changing reality, not reality itself. They’re imperfect maps to a shifting and impermanent territory.

It’s easy to say that things are proven and settled, but consider the discovery of Continental Drift. The discoverer, Alfred Wegener, had to overcome the disbelief of his peers; in part due to the fact that some of their supporting theories were plain wrong and also because he wasn’t a Geologist. In fact, even though it was discovered in 1912, it wasn’t accepted until the 1960s. [1] They thought they knew, they were unable to see that they might be wrong, that’s part of my point

In the realm of belief and faith, things are always being interpreted differently by different people and groups. This isn’t limited to one faith, it has caused some fairly awful rows in the past and has even caused sub-sects and new faiths to bud off from existing religions. The differences can extend to every area of doctrine, from the nature of the divine through to . Now, this stuff was being argued over when the Buddha walked the Earth 2600 years ago. It’s not been resolved since then, to be honest, my feeling is that it’s not going to be. This looks like another area where people are refusing to admit that they just don’t know.

The solutions, I feel, is based on an honest acknowledgement of our limitations. The idea that some things may be beyond the ability of the Human mind to grasp is anathema to many, but it may well be more truthful than we’d like to admit. As the Masai wisdom says “One head cannot contain all knowledge”. In the light of all of this, how can our position be anything other then to step away from this constant bickering and engage with the mysteries of the world with an honest “I don’t know”?

[1] The Science of Discworld, page 128-129.