The Nature of NOW

Life is so complex not because events follow upon each other in a linked chain sequence; so that when one event happens, another must follow upon it...cause and effect. No. Life is so complex because a cause and a seeming effect of a cause doesn't happen: what happens is what happens and happening has no cause outside of itself. It is not directed. It happens. The fact that things happen is not related to another thing that has happened. Realization of this lack of relationship between past and present is what allows us to live in the NOW, which is outside of an appearance of any time. It is transcendent of time. NOW isn't eternal because to be eternal requires time. NOW just IS. This is reason for our saying: the thing most lovely is the music of what happens.

Loyalty and Survivability

One of the real problems in deciding which to be loyal to is that the object of our loyalty may not survive. It might not even survive our loyalty. For instance, America, the USA, does not look like its very long for this world. Evenually, it won't be able to pay interest on its own Treasury obligations and shall have to default on those obligations. How soon? Well within the lifetime of most of those subscribing to this blog. Defaulting on debt obligations does not necessarily mean demise of a nation if those obligations are with its own citizenry. But in USA's case, they are not. It's a bit foolish to give loyalty to a state that can't outlast oneself especially since the sole reason for the state's demise was its own designed intenion to terminate; states can commit suicide too. When a state issues excessive debt that it knows can't ever be satisfied, it desires its own death.

Be Pulled. Don't Push!

Continuing with close combat strategy from bare-knuckle boxing: there's a saying " Long against Long & Short against Short" What this means is that, depending upon the opponent's attack, the response ought to be appropriate. This is why we practice the eight leaps in class---H-J Chang, because she has a tall light frame, performs them must better than I can so it is probably best to imitate her than myself, as I'm a bit too clumsy and heavy. The eight leaps deal with avoidance of an enemy and an enemy's weapon and they're essential to a study of classical bare-knuckle. There is also a psychic element to all of this, and I'll discuss that here. The body radiates energy and the body absorbs radiated energy. We've spoke about "gill-breathing" light in a prior post. This is all part of that. There is an analogy used about rope-bridge walking; that in order not to topple one must be pulled and not pushed. What it means is that if you concentrate on trying to overcome your fear and forcibly push your limbs to move forward to cross, you shall be bound to fail and to fall in the chasm. But if you were instead to let your mind go, and just allow the other end of that bridge to pull you towards it, you shall succeed in your crossing. This applies to life.