People spend money on devices to make them feel better. Yet it is not necessary to strap a plastic band to your arm or scroll across a metallic screen, to feel good on a daily basis.
If you, like me, seek to simplify your life, may I recommend some excellent basic tools.
After that long trip to France and New York, today was the first day I feel strong and centered again. Just as the trip was not a haphazard event, but took much planning, the equilibrium achieved today represents one part of a long-term, creative way of life.
La chance, ça se prépare. {good luck comes from good planning}
The image above shows the simple tools I used today. They include:
- Peter Ralston, The Principles of Effortless Power
- Mai-Mai Sze, The Tao of Painting
- The little notebooks where I record my daily routine. (The routine is described here). It includes meditation, warm-up exercise and the 45 min. T’ai chi sequence. NB: As you can see, the little notebook records a person’s handwriting, and allows for short thoughts to be recorded and pictures or doodles to accompany the fitness record.
- The basic laptop computer where I watch the video of Master Peng and practice T’ai chi Yang style 108. (It was recorded last year in a gym near my home.)
C’est tout! {that’s all!}
Here are the quotes that guided my spirit this morning, I read them with my morning coffee.
from Ralston, “Fill out and be complete, yet be empty with nothing to protect. … Integrity, like relaxing, grounding, being calm, and centering, must permeate all aspects of our activity.” (Principles, 17)
from Sze, “In the handling of vast space, their [Southern Sung] ink paintings are some of the greatest expressions of the human spirit. … they merged the details in mists, obliterated them in space, and emphasized by depth of distances the silent majesty of nature and the mystery of the Tao. … The great oceans on these maps were space, the perfect symbol of which is merely the black silk or paper, and in many instances was so represented in paintings. By the directness and purity of this device, the awareness of space was made more acute and its effects more profound. … it should be added, however, that the effectiveness of blank spaces was achieved only through contrast with the vitality of the brushstroke that rendered the forms it surrounded.” (Tao of Painting, plate I, Landscape by Yen Tzu-yu, XII-XIII centuries, Sung Period), below.
The “reverential” attitude toward the vastness of the cosmos in this artwork is refreshing in the early morning. As my mind took its time emerging from sleepiness with lovely strong coffee, it was pleasant to contemplate the unknowingness that exists above the blue sky. It was good to put my feet flat on the floor and think about gravity and living on earth. With so much ugliness from humans contaminating our senses and our media-saturated public spaces, it is refreshing to see people in this painting represented as tiny things in contrast with the soaring space of the evanescent clouds.
Later on, I found this good quote in The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp: “A lot of habitually creative people have preparation rituals linked to the setting in which they choose to start their day. By putting themselves into that environment, they begin their creative day. … What makes it a ritual is that they do it without questioning the need.” (Creative, 16).
I don’t know about you, but with a rigorous, uplifting morning routine, artwork like Yen Tzu-ya to contemplate, and good thoughts from great thinkers in mind, I can sail through any day.
I felt calmly content as I did every single thing I did today–not only a good conversation with a young friend, but also the more banal things like the long cold walks from a parking lot to a meeting, a visit with an uninteresting salesman, and the time I spent out at Dale’s Auto, waiting for a ride after a mixed-up communication. (Rich is watching some loud obnoxious sport channel right now–a good test of my mettle! But even those loud, aggressive men on TV cannot bother me.)
It is all good simply because it is, and was, my life.
And soon, it will be “fun time” again with Honey Girl. I wonder where she’ll take me this evening?
Daily Joy with Honey Girl 