I am a Cliché

Kipling Swehla - Meditation 

Version 1 
I am a cliché. It's been eleven weeks, 19 hours, and 37 minutes since I was a normal, self-absorbed human being. I do not mean this in a derogatory way. I don't have anything against how I was. It's perfectly normal. But now, normal is inconceivable. I wouldn't describe myself as a workaholic but I would say if I was awake I was focused on all the things that I needed to get done. Then my daughter was born and that pretty much changed everything. She has a way of making the present moment the only thing that exists. It’s very calming and amazing watching the uncarved block take shape...

 
Version 2
 I’m unbelievably angry. 20 children were just gunned down by means of a semiautomatic assault rifle. People ask how can something like this happen. It’s obvious. The US Congress has become a brothel and laws can be bought and sold by the highest bidder. The NRA has given millions of dollars to politicians to make sure there are no laws or even discussions on limiting access to weapons intended to unleash rapid mass casualties. These politicians had no objections to spending a Trillion dollars on an unprovoked war in Iraq while simultaneously trying to eliminate every penny spent on health care and mental well being because “there isn’t money in the budget.” You may ask what does this have to do with Tai Chi and meditation and my answer is Everything!

Final Version 
It is Sunday afternoon and I just got back from doing Tai Chi twice then meditation. When asked this morning “how are you?”, instead of giving my normal flippant answer, “I am”, I couldn't help but to answer “I’m angry.” It wasn’t until standing meditation, focusing on slow deep breathing, that the anger dissipated and I became grounded.

 Tai chi and meditation are a spiritual practice. Spirituality isn't something you can sit in a pew and have a collared man unleash onto you or something that somebody reading from a book can logicate into your brain. (I realize logicate isn't a word but it should be.) The spirituality of Tai Chi and meditation are experienced by observing and by doing.

 Watch a baby breathe, her abdomen rising and emptying versus an angry old man breathing into his upper chest rapidly inhaling and exhaling like a semiautomatic weapon expelling spent shells.

 See a baby fold and easily put her feet in her mouth compared to a dry brittle stick breaking with the slightest bend.

 Observe children during horseplay, tumbling and laughing, as opposed to a bar fight with clenched fists, tightened muscles, and angry words spewed.

 Admire the way liquid hits liquid and grows while becoming one in contrast to a metal axe being dulled while chopping and splintering wood.

 There are many quotes in the Tao Te Ching reiterating this such as “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, If you can dream - and not make dreams your master, If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with Kings nor lose the common touch, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.”

 Okay, maybe that was Rudyard Kipling’s poem If but seeing as I was named after the guy I feel okay slipping that in.

 My point in all of this is that it is time for us who do Tai Chi, meditation, and other such arts to lead by example. In cities, the anger of honking drivers is contagious but now is the time to show that inner peace and calm are equally contagious. Tai chi isn't something you should do just a couple hours a week, it is the way you should live your life 24/7. It is the way you sleep, the way you wake up, the way you eat, the way you interact, the way you talk, walk, and stand. It’s time for Tai Chi to drown out the insanity which seems to be taking over the world.

On Being

Kipling Swehla - Meditation

On Being
From a deep, soundless sleep I was abruptly awakened by a man's voice. “The universe is expanding at an increasing rate propelled by dark energy. “ The strange, disorienting words were floating in my head when I realized my alarm clock was going off to NPR’s program “On Being”.

It was sunday morning again and again way too early for a night person to be waking up. Those words were stuck in my brain being groggily pondered when it dawned on me that it’s through meditation and Tai Chi that we are able to truly experience the meanings and similarities in Taoism and Quantum Physics.

Recent discoveries in Astronomy and new theories in Quantum Physics are practically plagiarizing the Tao Te Ching and eastern philosophy. Dark energy, dark matter, membranes connecting all things in the universe, and fields in which energy becomes matter are all very new scientific theories trying to prove concepts thousands of years old.

M Theory hypothesizes there is a membrane extended throughout the entire universe which envelopes and interconnects everything and everybody. It is a variation of String Theory, a Theory of Everything, which describes the existence and interconnection of multiple dimensions, including some which are unobservable.

Nasa describes Dark Energy as being 70% of the universe yet other than that, it is a complete mystery. Dark Matter is matter which neither emits, reflects, or scatters light or radiation. It makes up 25% of the universe yet nothing is known about it.

A lab in Geneva is smashing protons at a high speed to replicate the Big Bang, the origin of manifestation, so they can prove the existence of a field in which energy becomes matter.

I hear all this and I can’t help but to think of the lines in Chapter One of the Tao Te Ching,

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

This is all a long way to explain why I love Tai Chi and meditation. If you still your thoughts and empty your mind, the darkness will expand your perception of reality.

Kipling Swehla - Newsletter 2010

Without going outside, you may know the whole world.

Tao Te Ching #47

It is often taught that if you want to learn how to live properly, simply observe Nature. Conversely I would say, if you want to know Nature, explore your internal self. The laws of the universe can be seen replicated within the micro and macro, the internal and external, the physical and energetic.

Rather than reminisce about my internal contemplations during 2010, I’d like to reflect on society’s experience over the last 10 years. People have been suffering from the greatest economic decline since the Great Depression. The cliched musing comes to mind, “How can a loving God allow suffering?”

Last year in a breaking news story, it was announced that a drug company was so successful in eliminating pain, that elderly people who had suffered for years from debilitating pain, were able to participate in sports and activities not enjoyed for decades. The unforeseen result of this miraculous breakthrough, was emergency surgery to replace joints suddenly ground down to nothing as a result of over-activity. Pain is information!!!

Western practitioners love to eliminate the symptoms while ignoring the cause. Western civilization is replicating this behavior in response to the Great Recession. On November 2nd, the American people, in a sweeping voice of anger and dismay, sent the message “Cut our Taxes! Quit spending our money!!”

In the 6 weeks since, the Federal Reserve has responded by printing gobs of new money in an attempt to provide cheap cash and the government has extended tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires in an attempt to stimulate economic growth and job hiring. The immediate effect has been escalating commodity prices and a stock market which has risen almost 4% in a few weeks. Sadly this is evidence that the money is being used by corporations and the wealthy to protect their investments by buying stocks and commodities. Essentially they are building higher walls and digging wider moats to help separate the growing rich from the expanding poor.

You may be wondering what does this political observation have to do with meditation? Everything! All you have to do is observe yourself and you recognize a huge problem in having a growing division between the wealthiest 10% and the poorest 90%.

On a physical level, you could say,

The foot bone connected to the leg-bone,
The leg bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the head bone.
Dem bones, dem bones gon-na walk a-roun'

This verse is literal in economics and is supposed to be how the Trickle Down theory works but, like the 1920’s when the division between the wealthiest 10% and the other 90% was enormous, though smaller than it is today, the middle and lower class had little to no expendable money due to high unemployment and low wages yet despite the slow economy, stock prices went up 600% in 8 years (not dissimilar to the recent surge in home prices and the more recent surge in commodities) because instead of investing in the well being of people less fortunate, the wealthy put their money into stocks and commodities driving prices up causing an artificial bubble. When the bubble popped, you saw Trickle Down economics at its realistic worst. For people to think they can exist and thrive in this bubble is sadly naive.

There’s also an internal, spiritual aspect to this as well. The writer/ philosopher, Ayn Rand insisted that altruism is unnatural and unrealistic. Humans live only to pleasure themselves and are only concerned for their own happiness and well being. If you come from the perspective of western religions, in which you perceive yourself to be a capsule, completely created and entirely divided from God or in Rand’s case if you believe in a complete absence of a greater being then this theory may seem plausible. It is not. It is an immature, short sighted thought. You can build a bubble around you, but as you try to avoid or ignore those less fortunate than you, you only make your world smaller and smaller.

From the Eastern spiritual view, it’s clear that we are all interconnected. We are all the energy that is the Tao. We are all interconnected like drops of water merging and flowing together in a river. The pattern of inseparable connectivity to other people like the bones in the human body is again replicated in the solar system. Life emerged from the oceans, which is swayed by the moon, which revolves around the earth, which revolves around the sun which provides the heat and light and energy. Individuals are just as equally intertwined with the sun and moon and oceans and environment as they are with every other living human and creature on the planet as are their bones to other bones and their cells to other cells.

Through meditation and tai chi you become aware of the internal flow of energy within your self. Next you become aware of the flow of energy in others and your connection to them. Truly profound happiness can only come from the absence of suffering world wide. In the elderly, beauty radiates from those that have lived a beautiful life. Yet in this capitalistic world of the bubble generation, we rely on plastic surgery to paint a happy face, to have money buy us the facade of happiness. A happiness that can only be skin deep.

Three Treasures - Compassion, Frugality, and Humility

This is an exploration of Treasure, real treasure. The 3 treasures. First let me briefly explain why I'm here. Some time in the last century I began studying Tai Chi with Elizabeth. 6 months into it, I felt something I'd never experience. This warm flowing movement internally. After class I was sharing my experience and my fellow students were like, oh, that's your chi, your internal energy. That feeling profoundly affected my perception of reality. I suddenly felt like I had been sleep walking my first 30 years.

A couple months later, a client of mine gave me a book he had just finished reading called the Tao Te Ching. I was raised a Christian but since I was young, I was always questioning certain beliefs in the bible. I was told you wee not to question it, just accept it. But I was really bothered. It felt wrong so I was called a rebel and that I just wanted to be different but it was really a deeply seated gut feeling that I didn't feel what I was being told was right. Suddenly I'm reading this book, the T.T.C., and the chills are running up my spine and the hair is standing up on the back of my neck. Here on paper are things I've believed my whole life and suddenly I'm not a rebel. There's an actual philosophy that I can read and explore.

I was so excited to go to class and share my new discovery with my fellow students only to get these blank stares like, are you serious? Turns out that Tai Chi is based on the T.T.C. and Taoism.

All under heaven say that I am great,
great but unconventional.

Now,
Precisely because I am unconventional,
I can be great;
If I were conventional,
I would long since have become a trifle.

I have always possessed three treasures
that I guard and cherish.
The first is compassion,
The second is frugality,
The third is not daring to be ahead of all under heaven.

Now,
Because I am compassionate,
I can be brave;
Because I am frugal,
I can be magnanimous;
Because I dare not be ahead of all under haven,
I can be a leader in the completion of affairs.

If, today, I were to
Be courageous while forsaking compassion,
Be magnanimous while forsaking frugality,
Get ahead while forsaking the hindmost,
that would be death!

For compassion
In war brings cictory,
In defense brings invulnerability.

Whomesoever heaven would establish,
It surrounds with a bulwark of compassion.
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching - Victor H. Mair

The 3 treasures. Compassion, Frugality, and Humility. 3 things which come in quite handy if say, your country were to fall into a recession. 3 things which are flamboyantly missing from the current administration in the White House. Why are they considered to be treasures? Why are they important.

Compassion. It's certainly challenging to be compassionate is a world of 6 billion people, in a densely populated city of 3 million. Sitting in traffic jams. Stress and anger building. Homeless people at every stop light. From where can you draw the strength to be compassionate? Eastern philosophy teaches us that we are all inter connected. That we are all a part of everything. I was just reading about an aspect of Quantum physics, The string theory. All matter is made of tiny particles. Atoms made of Electrons and Quarks. The theory is that instead of point particles they are all vibrating strings looped together. Through the vibration, shape is formed. The vibration influences surrounding particles. There's a concept in Taoism that says patterns which exist on a micro level, also exist on a macro level. And it really is true how easy it is to be influenced by a mood in the room.

I also love the concept of the collective unconscious. Carl Yung talks about this as being a build up of shared experiences but I think it's much more ethereal than this. Your thoughts really do impact not only yourself, but a greater consciousness. I doubt know the precise method of how thoughts are created, processed, and transmitted but if it's a vibrational or electronic transmission, it doesn't seem farfetched that telepathy is probably on an unconscious level and possible on a conscious level.

Then there's also Karma. I don't think Karma is all that ethereal. It's common sense that actions create reactions and those reactions affect you.

Frugality. This isn't something the government wants you to practice. We live in a consumer society. Don't worry about savings or even debt, buy buy buy. it makes the world go round. Or so they'd have you believe. Last year Ford came out with it's new SUV, the Brontosaurus. So this year, GM came out with the Tyrannosaurus. In overcrowded cities, people want to stake their claim. Their entitlement. They want to have their space. In an attempt to be somebody, to stay ahead of the Jones they've lost touch with frugality. Of living within your means. Of sustainability. It's also a distraction from what is real. All the foods we over consume, all the new techno gadgets we buy, they're really a distraction from what's real. What it comes down to is what really makes us happy, content. Money is a man made concept so it isn't real. Work, even fulfilling, is a temporary fix. It comes down to consciousness. Reality is a perception. Right here right now in this moment, you can choose to be content. It's why I love Tai chi and meditation. In all the stresses of my life, I know through the experiences I've had with meditation and tai chi that through breath, through consciousness I can relax, be content. Frugality is about simplicity.

Humility. That's one that I really don't comprehend the opposite. I'm a commercial photographer. The last book which was published, Spa Cuisine, available at Barnes and Noble, my client came up to me during a book signing and commented you should really be proud of this book. I wasn't really sure how to respond because what flashed through my mind was everything that happened in order for the book to be made. My parents separated when I was young. My mother moved with her children to the city of St Louis where years later I befriend a photographer who happens to hand me his camera with a telephoto lens because there was a small chipmunk too far away to see except with the long lens. That moment, holding the camera to my eye was an epiphany. In that moment I became a photographer. But went on to major in accounting where a professor argued that if I was so passionate about photography, why not do it for a living. I dropped out of accounting and went to photo school. Graduated, Was going to be a starving artist until a stranger called, my little brother knows your little brother and we're looking for a commercial photography assistant. Then as a commercial photographer, I followed my girlfriend to chicago, Got married. Got divorced. My ex wife's husband hooked me up the client who I shot the book for.

Nature and nurture. Why we are who we are. It's so profound and complicated so to talk about a sense of pride in your accomplishments? Then of course there's the line from Grand Canyon. "The Grand Canyon. is laughing at me right now. You know what I feel like? I felt like a gnat that lands on the behind of a cow chewing his cud on the side of the road that you drive by doing 70 mph. " 6 billion people on a planet out of 8 in a solar system in a galaxy in an endless universe. Pride? The counter balance to that of course is an acceptance being an energetic part of everything.