Relaxing the mind

Sometimes I will toss and turn all night. My mind will be spinning thoughts in circular webs, over and over. Coming back again and again to the same worries, the same concerns. My stress stays high, and I wake up in the morning exhausted.

But using the Principles of Ki, I have a different experience. When I see my mind running in circles, I stop. Because I already know that if I keep running in circles, I just keep going around and around the same thing. There is no solution, only stress and exhaustion.

I relax my body, but more importantly I relax my mind. 

I think many people have no idea how to relax their mind. But there is a spot that is between the frantic spinning of thinking too much and sleeping. It is a supple area, between hard tension and being a piece of limp pasta. It's an 'in-between' place.

Martial artists are trained to be in this spot, sometimes referred to as 'mushin' or empty mind. But the mind is not at all empty. Rather, it is calm. And in that state of calmness, we can learn to sense the slightest ripple. A cat completely understands this. It will sit in a window, perfectly still, watching for the slightest sign of movement.

Ripples are disturbances in the calm, similar to Yoda describing disturbances in the Force. They can be negative or positive. But when our mind is frantic and disturbed, how can we expect our highly disturbed and frantic minds to sense nuance, to sense the slightest sign of movement? 

Until we calm our mind, we cannot sense the ripples. Until we can sense the ripples, we cannot sit in calmness. Until we can sit, walk and live in calmness, we are lost in noise. 

It's like going out to enjoy the calmness of nature, and bringing a jackhammer with you. Until we quiet the jackhammer, we will likely be unable to sense the first ripple of thought and intention. Cats stare within stillness. Their minds are calm but not empty; they are alert for the slightest ripple.

"Most people can see the difference between the mind and body being coordinated and the mind and body not being coordinated but they cannot see or understand how to maintain this state of being. We often think the mind is a difficult thing to understand because we cannot hold it in our hand, it has no color, shape or physical or visible boundaries. While the body is finite and has substance with visible boundaries. In today's society, we have to deal with our daily challenges and many of us suffer from anger, anxiety, sadness, etc..... This is because most people still think of the mind as being separate from the body. But, since both are born of the Ki of the universe, and are fundamentally one and the same, it is relatively easy to unify mind and body with practice. The difficulty is learning to maintain it in our daily life." - Tohei Sensei, of The Ki Society.

The Thinking Man's Guru

The Thinking Man’s Guru

The order to shut down the Admiralty came quietly. Within moments shock waves were reverberating throughout the corridors of Old Main, right on down to Corporal Effects' office, who promptly picked up the intercom.

“Sorry for the interruption sir, but I thought perhaps the General should know the Admiralty is being powered down.”

“Who the hell gave the order to shut down the Admiralty?” barked General Karma.

“That would be the TMG, sir,” replied the corporal, who couldn’t help but notice he was inexplicably beginning to perspire.

“Good God,” winced the General, trying to ignore the sudden burning in his chest. He bustled out the door, muttering something under his breath about those damn civilians, and desperately wondering if he would live another day.

_____________________

Over in the Power Plant, several thousand alarms erupted simultaneously. Quarterlove, the lone engineer, bolted out of his chair. While he had trained for the worst, no one ever said it would actually happen.

The Power Plant housed all the main transformers and substations, feeding power out to the fleet and sustaining operations in every ocean under their domain. The plant had plenty of redundancy, but standard operating procedures did not account for shutting everything down simultaneously, including all redundancy.

Quarterlove dashed over to the policy manual, nervously flipping pages in search of Subsection Z, 43.1 “What to Do When the Big Switch is Finally Thrown.” It didn’t have much to say since it was only one page long. The contents contained a short article, seemingly out of context, extolling the virtues of not thinking so much, and ending with the innocuous tag-line, “Thinking too much will get you in the end.”

_____________________

Out at sea, Captain Crossburn felt a universe removed from Old Main. He had been keeping his little piece of the ocean pretty steady for a very long time - ensuring 'the everything' remained calm and stable - but occasionally found himself lapsing into reflective daydreams, wondering if the action wasn't a bit more exciting elsewhere. That was all before Lieutenant Craven burst onto the bridge.

“Sir, we have observed a major power failure wave heading our way. It’s off the charts.” She was looking out of the windows, horrified. This could only mean one thing.

Crossburn raised one eyebrow ever so slightly as turned up from his charts, just in time to see Craven’s shocked face. A moment later the wave hit, and everything stopped existing.

_____________________

Would you care for some hot tea, sir?” the butler respectfully asked the TMG.

“Ah yes, Clearity, that would be perfect,” replied the thinking man’s guru softly, as he reached for the steaming cup.

“Would the guru be requiring anything else at the moment, sir?”

“No, no thank you,” replied the old man as he took a satisfying sip, faintly noticing Clearity silently backing out of the room.

It will be nice to take some time off for a while, he thought as he reached for the phone to call his old friend Z, head of the Consciousness Bureau.

Z would be... well, 'pleased' was not an apt choice of words. The inevitable decision had been put off for a long time. Once made, it became a matter-of-fact procedure. However, the effects were disturbing, what with having to build a new model human, and having to retool the 'Creation Program' with its infinite subroutines. Rebooting the program was always a very big deal.

But, for now anyway, his job was done - all the thinking men were dead.

[~ MW, 07 Oct 06]

Thinking Too Much

SCRiPTURE FROM THE NOTHiNGNESS

The Reading: "The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling." - Robert M. Pirsig

The Homily: A young woman once met Shinto priest Hideo Isomoto. They talked for a moment or two when he unexpectedly gave her some modest advice, "You need to stop thinking so much." She looked at him quizzically, turned and quietly walked away... thinking about what he had just said.