For today's blog I thought I'd pass on the thoughtful words of Shifu Yan Xin.
"Sometimes when it gets all a bit much and crazy, we can work a different way through the training. Thinking more inward, working towards our self.
In Jin Ji Du Li [Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg], for example you have to feel yourself, you have to balance, you have to stick with yourself, as soon as all your awareness goes out you lose balance.
Sometime we just need to concentrate, find simplicity. More simple is better.
So often the things we think are important, are really not!
Finding clarity what we take in, being aware and choosing consciously. More clarity means more options. Keep looking inside yourself, and see what is really important."
"Turning from multi-tasking to single focus
What is the last book you read?
These days we consume a lot of words and information in video format, images and sound, which on one hand can enhance the experience in some ways but in other ways it changes the internal process that happens when we engage in the reading process of a book or article.
As we read, we first engage with what we are reading, and when we are fully present with the read information and the reading process in itself, we can receive our own response to the read, rationally and emotionally. In this sense reading leads to engaging in two ways, with the words being read and with ourselves in our response to it.
Reading can hold so much joy, whether its reading to learn something or to be carried away into the world of a story.
Maybe reading can be considered important even.
Reading means engaging. On one hand with the topic, we are reading about, and on the other with the mere act of reading in itself.
Whether following a story or comprehending new learning material, reading requires our full attention and that in turn means turning from a multi-tasking mind to single focus.
There is a certain simplicity and a slowing down that happens when we make the decision to sit down somewhere comfortably, open a book and enter into the world of its words.
A simplicity that allows body and mind to settle and a sensation of focused calmness as we engage with the process of reading. Quieting down external activity and focusing the mind in one direction but with the invitation to pay attention, wonder, imagine, question and actively engage.
It’s in this kind of internal space we allow inspiration, wondering and curious inquiry to rise, to then be carried into our thoughts, conversations and out into our world.
Sometimes it’s quite simple.
Just that creating that simplicity in our lives, more often than not appears to be not quite so simple.
Some things can’t be done in a multi-tasking manner, or we are not truly doing them!
There is just reading or not reading. Training or not training.
Simplicity. Engaging ourselves fully. Reflecting and inquiring.
Whether in physical training, meditation, spiritual practice, writing or reading a book – carving out the time in our busy days to engage with the voice of our heart, has the power to change the way we experience and carry ourselves through our days".
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