A life of comfort is one easily disturbed by fear.
A life of freedom is one easily disturbed by necessity.
Why? Because we desire our security so incredibly much. Because we fear limitation; because we fear death.
I fear limitations because my mind sets up grandiose ideals that need to be realized. If they aren't realized, well that's just not good for business, and then that situation requires more something. When we do this, seeking something new or better, we ignore the possibility of something truly new, which is beyond our conscious capacities. Isn't that the meaning of "new"? Something we haven't experienced before. Well, if we haven't experienced it, how can we imagine it? Our greatest ideals and dreams tragically limit the experiences we can have. Not only the number of possibilities, merely because we don't see them while focused on the ideas we already have, but also the quality of a new experience, because our ideas of the goal are limited to cerebral desires, a small factor compared to the holistic experience of reality. Even if we compose wondrous dreams that we do in fact realize, taxation is given to the original idea, limiting the holistic experience of a new experience.
Death? Well, I guess I fear not-me; my non-existence. But what a selfish thing, right? I don't even mean the negative social connotation of selfish, but the kind of selfish that can't experience anything without some credit due back to oneself. There is only ourself, and yet to not understand not-ourself, is to miss everything.
Practicing aikido and exploring mountains have nothing to do with me, and yet I can't think of anything more "me" than those two activities.
I'm trying to look at the outside through my window, but it's completely fogged over. Seriously, I've never lived in a place where this happens everyday, but no matter what, my windows are always completely covered in precipitation. I continually wipe them off only to have it fog over again in a matter of minutes. I'd break it open, but the comfort is too valuable.
This is my situation.
The taiji master Cheng Man-Ching proportedly said:
ReplyDeleteThe more you relax, the less afraid you become. Fearing less, you can relax more.
He does! I remember the first time I read it, and he really just says it just like that, I said, "this is bull#$&t." But it's true.
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