The Fastest Way to Clear Your Mind
Calmly snap-kick your thoughts back to the present
In life, we have only two areas we can get to work on — our body and our surroundings.
Our Body
Daoist wisdom (loved by martial artists) helps us to understand Dao — the harmony of our inner universe (our body.)
Dao 道 (sometimes written Tao) in Chinese 中文 means “Way or Path or Goal.”
Only the perfect path leads to the perfect goal. Only when each step towards the goal is perfect, will the goal and the path become one and the same.
Because perfect is never in the future.
The name is the solution. The way is harmony. Anything outside of that is a drama that leads to problems. In a positive tone, anything outside of that is there to help us improve and develop towards it!
They call this “Self-Nature.”
- Less physical tension in the body,
- less mental worry,
- less psychological fear,
- and less emotional up and down — creating balance.
Once I bring my own body into balance I can then get to work on step two — my surroundings.
Surroundings
Buddhist wisdom helps us understand our surroundings (the outer universe.) Anything outside of our own bodies.
This is called Dharma.
Dharma is a system. This system is a perfectly fair, complicated, web of cause and effect called causation. Causation is a never-ending stream created from every life. This even connects across lifetimes and is called Karma.
Phew! Now what?
Buddha did not create Dharma. Buddha remains aware of Dharma. Dharma is perfect, so Buddha’s consciousness becomes perfect. When we match the perfect system we also can become perfect as well. That’s the magic trick.
So Self-Nature is to bring ourselves into balance. Then Buddhist wisdom helps us to understand ourselves as a cause. In fact, we are the main cause of what we experience.
How do you know? Because we are always there when we experience anything!
So logically we must start with ourselves. But how?
They call this Observing Self-Being (You might notice that at the start of the Heart Sutra.) Be aware of yourself and how you are being, at this moment.
Being is always changing so we need to remain aware of how we are being constantly.
How to use it?
- Our body is 70% water — you know what happens to a pond when the water stops moving….Yuck stinky! That is our joints! That is our organs. That is the lips we use to kiss our loved ones! So move them.
- Only two ways — relax and charge.
- Too relaxed — no life, too charged — short life. So we need both.
1. Relax
- There are no straight lines in nature, so don’t try to move your body in straight lines either. Rolling, rolling, rolling.
- Stand up and take a deep breath and roll your arms up and roll your shoulders around and hips around. Relax the arms down and feel your tension and shake it out. Feel a rolling sensation. Like a rubber ball floating on the surface of the water — twist in any direction gently no tension.
- Start from your little toes, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, and neck. You might hear little cracks and pops — no worries.
- If you need inspiration — watch Jellyfish.. they are the ultimate kung fu masters in no tension relaxed motion! They attack and defend with no bones! How is that for relaxation! :)
- Smile. If it is hard to smile then you have not practised smiling for a long time.
2. Charge
- Imagine all of your joints are balloons filling with air, but not so much you lose a straight centre line.
- Stand still, feet pointing forward, knees straight, hips under tuck your bum in, squeeze pelvic floor, tummy in chest open, shoulders back and down, chin in and pull the top of the crown of your head up so you balance on your lift your heels up and balance on your spring points — the balls of the feet — try to balance there for as long as possible. Try to get 10 seconds total with a few tries.
3. BONUS — Relaxed Charge
- After a few moments gently relax the heels back down and stay present. Feel every part of your body charged and open and relaxed but switched on. This is the foundation for meditation practice. Calm, but switched on.
- Every joint can be open like a balloon, with no stiffness, breathe gently.
- Smile.
- Feel breathe in and charge up and open, feel breathe out relax down to the floor but stay balanced centre.
4. Now practice observing yourself
- Before that moment I was much less aware of my body than now.
- If I am less aware of my body, by definition, I am less aware of my surroundings. Because I USE my body to be AWARE of my surroundings.
- If I am the main cause of my life, the more aware I am of myself, the more aware I can be of my surroundings.
This is the true seed of where wisdom ability grows from.
Practice bringing full-body awareness in a sharp but relaxed way into everything you do. My Sifu is constantly telling me:
“..put your Kung Fu into everyday life, become Kung Fu. To remain aware of your posture, your motion, all of yourself, your life, your surroundings, other people, to constantly improve your level is being Kung Fu.”
This uses Self-nature wisdom to practice Self-being wisdom — Daoist wisdom into Buddhist wisdom.
Anyone who can sincerely practice the two together will surely develop intelligence and health faster every day.
Note: Relaxed charge is the secret to improving all of your meditation practices — not relaxed enough won’t work, too charged won’t work — you need a balance between both to experience magic.
I hope you enjoyed this post. Please feel free to ask any questions you have. It’s such a pleasure to share the philosophy I love with others.
This wisdom has brought me so much joy and wonder into my life and has helped me fix so many injuries in my body, every year I have more energy!
