The Zen Diarist

Author website of Andrew Marshall

Archives

Categories

If home is where the heart is, we must learn to be there

by Leave a Comment

Just a few days, and for other countries a few weeks. That’s all it has taken for our world to be turned upside down and inside out. While key services are working flat out, most of the rest of us are at home. That can be a challenge. Like many, if not most, I must confess initially to having had a slight dread of being confined for any length of time. But I very quickly learnt that accepting instead of resisting was not only vital but could bring a great sense of peace – Yin soothing Yang.

Too much Yang requires Yin

The world has been fixated on the generation of power and wealth, whether financial or otherwise, for a very long time. This is an expression of Yang – outward movement and growth. Yin – the opposite – is just as necessary. Humanity cannot expand its activities and relentlessly seek to satisfy its desires forever. We know that if we exhaust our own body and don’t rest, we get sick. Humanity has pushed Nature, of which we are an integral part, too far and for too long, making her and us sick.

Restrictions are Yin

Some people think that Yang is strength whilst Yin is weak. Not so. Our very roots into the Earth are Yin. Foundations are the source of strength. (Try pushing over a good taiji player who is rooted.) Restrictions on our movement and social gathering are like medicine. Though we would rather not have them, we know they are necessary. Being confined to our homes for a while is like a compassionate lesson from Mother Earth – learning to be at home on the planet responsibly. It’s time for her children to grow up.

Keeping healthy with Shibashi

Qigong can help keep the body in balance and a good set of Qigong movements is Shibashi. It reinvigorates and strengthens the body, supporting the immune system and very good for the lungs. Here is a free video originally prepared for our tai chi class but that can be followed fairly easily by anyone.

Can’t settle? Take a look at The Art of Not Doing .

Take care and stay safe.

Related posts:

  1. Something to smile about
  2. Chaos? Yes, but there is a way out of this
  3. Clarity: why it’s a vital antidote to this mad world
  4. World peace is fragile – it’s no joke but we can all help

Losing those we love, and the search for constancy

by Leave a Comment

We all lose friends and loved ones, at various times during the course of our lives. When separation happens, life can be painful. In that moment, a familiar feature of the landscape of our life disappears and nothing seems the same anymore. Like a drawing in wet sand that gradually fades with the ebb and flow of the waves that pass over it, what was real to us is no longer there.

It is not just emotional pain, either – the fine and rather subtle energetic connection that existed between us is rent, like a broken cobweb. That has to heal.

Constancy versus change

Most of us resist change. There is a deep aspect of our psyche that craves constancy. A bit of excitement is okay, but on our own terms, please. We could say that constancy is more Yin in nature and change is more Yang. When our Yin side is strong, we enjoy a stronger connection to life and are more able to cope with change.

Life is a play of these apparent opposites; one cannot be without the other. When we are emotionally attached to someone, to something or to some ideal, the constancy in that relationship satisfies the Yin aspect. It provides an anchor or root. When that is removed, our balance is gone and we become very wobbly. We will miss the joy and stimulation of that friendship, too – the Yang side – which is why so often we can feel numb.

Restore your connection

We are very complex creatures with many layers of energy, mind and emotions. When we suffer loss, it is very easy to lose our perspective on life. The computer of the mind goes a bit haywire. That is why it is important that we push the “safe restore” button. Stand or sit up straight with your feet flat on the floor or ground. Let your body reconnect with the Earth and your mind with the Universe. Keep the head up but let the shoulders relax. Don’t do anything else or look for anything to do. Let the breath look after itself. Stay for a while…

Book now for our next meditation and energy workshop in Staffordshire, which is coming up soon. More details.

Do less to accomplish more? The Art of Not Doing: How to Achieve Inner Peace and a Clear Mind is still available.

Related posts:

  1. Mortality: why our own impermanence is such a wonderful gift
  2. Rest or be busy? 5 essential tips for restoring balance
  3. Stillness and clarity: here’s how they can save your life
  4. Stop the world? You can’t, but you can stop yourself

Habits – when and how to manage them

by Leave a Comment

Forming habits, now there’s a thing. Someone told me once that it takes three weeks to form or break a habit. I’m not sure where that came from or whether there is any evidence to support it. Nevertheless, the turn of each new year has features editors of newspapers and magazines publishing articles on the new habits we urgently need to acquire or lose. Is that a habit of theirs they could safely shed, I wonder?

Habits don’t like awareness

We all know that new year resolutions generally fail before the end of January. Except the one not to make any, which I find works well and lasts all year! Old habits die hard, so the adage runs, and in any event it would be silly to suggest that we should have no habits all. Many are very useful, like washing our hands after we have been to the bathroom. If only everyone did. The problem comes when our repetitive thinking and behaviour (which is what habits are) have a negative impact on ourselves and on others. Then there is something we can, and should, do.

Just observe and break the chain

The key to change for the better is not self-flagellation, dieting, running up mountains or taking ice baths, interesting and challenging though such activities may be. Rather it is to become aware of what we are doing and why we are doing it. Simple awareness can work wonders because it is the portal for our innate intelligence. Try it sometimes; better still, often. Before doing anything, pause and observe. Break the chain of one automatic response after another. Starve the habit of oxygen. Those few moments of comparative silence allow something rather good to happen. What it is, though, you must discover for yourself.

Do less to accomplish more – read my book The Art of Not Doing – How to Achieve Inner Peace and a Clear Mind

Free guided meditations

Related posts:

  1. Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life
  2. Rest or be busy? 5 essential tips for restoring balance
  3. Stop the world? You can’t, but you can stop yourself
  4. Taste with your ears? It makes sense

Simplicity – the root cure for all problems?

by Leave a Comment

Simplicity-mindSimplicity is a wonderful word, I think. It has a ring of freedom about it. Deep down, I suspect that we all have a secret yearning for simplicity in life, to some degree at least. The basis for how we experience life is consciousness – the sum total of our thoughts, sense impressions, beliefs, memory and, particularly, the capacity to observe. It is this last that we tend to forget, yet it is simplicity itself. Being free from judgment, it is also the key to the higher aspects of our minds and to inner peace.

Simplicity of living or of thinking?

There is a wonderful saying in the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism: “May you be filled with comfort and ease.” This has nothing to do with living a comfortable or luxurious life but with having a perfect state of mind. It is the direct experience, the realisation, of simplicity within ourselves. When we have that, it doesn’t matter what our job or responsibilities are because everything is crystal clear. Nothing can faze us and whatever we do or say will be correct because it arises from pure mind.

Gradually, softly is the way

That perfect simplicity is not somewhere else. It is already present. You and I are simplicity now but it is difficult to see that because we all suffer from mental fog. Just as it would be extremely foolish to drive fast along a foggy road, so our progress towards finding inner clarity also needs to be gradual. Soft, not grasping. There is a great deal wrong in our human world but real change for good depends on collective consciousness. That can only happen if we as individuals change, moving towards our own inner simplicity. Then the outer changes will come.

More on simplicity can be found in The Art of Not Doing – How to Achieve Inner Peace and a Clear Mind

Our next evening workshop, Managing Life, is on Monday 10th June 2019.

Related posts:

  1. Clarity: why it’s a vital antidote to this mad world
  2. Habits – when and how to manage them
  3. Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life
  4. Stop the world? You can’t, but you can stop yourself

Stop the world? You can’t, but you can stop yourself

by Leave a Comment

Stop thinking “Stop the world, I want to get off!” Most of us probably feel like that from time to time. The world does indeed seem mad, so it’s perfectly understandable to want to escape. But what we see isn’t so much “out there”. It’s what the mind makes of all the information we take in. The pictures we have are inside, the result of a meandering mind that conjures up all sorts of images and conclusions. In the process, it takes our vitality with it. So perhaps it’s not the world that needs to stop – we do.

Stop thinking – or stop over-thinking?

Stop thinking? It’s not a bad idea but the mind is in an almost perpetual state of motion. It is not used to being in a state of “not doing”. It will engage itself in almost anything, so long as it doesn’t have to stop and become aware of itself. Perhaps we are afraid of stopping because if there is nothing to think about and nothing to focus on, what is left? Most of us have a fear of the unknown and of having nothing to cling onto, so we busy ourselves in the practice of chronic avoidance. That needs to change.

Don’t keep spinning the wheel because it’s not going anywhere

The mind is like a wheel that is always spinning. If we want the mind to slow down, we have to stop feeding it rubbish. When the mind is whirling from one thing to another, it seems impossible to do anything about it. But we can learn to pause – and we must if we want to reconnect with our true state of being. Stopping is more than a matter of preserving health. A pause gives us time to breathe and to appreciate everything we have. When we appreciate and feel grateful for life, we value and respect ourselves and others. The world then seems a better place, and maybe we don’t need to jump off after all.

[Read more…]

Related posts:

  1. Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life
  2. Action: Why everything you do and say is more important than you think
  3. Habits – when and how to manage them
  4. Thinking too much? Why it can make you ill