A Flyer of Gy

I read somewhere that one of the ways humans became separated from nature is people forget that spiritual stories are stories and then turn them into something akin to facts. He is talking about Buddhist sutras, but Thich Nhat Hanh always says that we need to use our own intelligence and not follow blindly what we read. I think what matters is the relationship to the text. What happens when one engages with the text? I think commentaries are useful, especially since I don't read or speak Mandarin, but I also think one can get lost in the weeds. For me either gentleness while engaging any writing, or a return to gentleness and then reengaging the writing are valuable tools.

I have a reminder on my phone that goes off every so often to remind me parts of the David Hinton translation of this chapter. I don't think it has stuck yet though. In yielding is completion. In little is contentment. In much is confusion. Give up self reflection and you're soon enlightened.

I am in a strange mood tonight I guess.

My spiritual path to this point was through my love of the natural world. I have always loved being in nature. I am told the only surefire way to get me to stop crying as a newborn was to take me outside. A few years ago, I realized I needed some kind of spiritual path, some tradition I could engage with. I considered druidry of different kinds, but it just never clicked. Then I considered Buddhism and for about six months I have been attending a Zen Buddhist Sangha in the Plum Village tradition and it has been spiritually very helpful but something seemed missing. I am sure this is a simplistic rendering of how Zen came about, but when I learned Chan (Zen) Buddhism emerged from Buddhism coming to China and interacting with Daoism, it opened up my mind and heart to other paths. Then I read an English translation of Daodejing a few weeks ago and it was the first spiritual text that completely overwhelmed me. I am now making my way through multiple English translations and starting my way through the Zhuangzi. The famous stories in the Zhuangzi of "a tortoise dragging his tail through the mud" and "the butterfly dream" really struck an accord for me. Nature's indifference and decentralized structure has always been comforting to me, long before I could articulate any of this. Also, a week ago, I started practicing Qigong from YouTube videos. I am grateful to be a part of this community!

I would like a personal practice journal. Thank you.

Thank you!

Thank you! I honestly have no idea which qigong. I am using Nick Loffree videos on YouTube. I am still doing very basic ones because of Long Covid issues.

I agree. I have a lot of unlearning to do,

"Getting scientists to consider the validity of Indigenous knowledge is like swimming upstream in cold, cold water." -Robin Wall Kimmerer "Braiding Sweetgrass" was eye-opening for me on how science itself has been a colonizing force throughout the world. I have come to see western science as a powerful tool to elucidate understanding of our universe that is often used as a tool of violence and power, including in colonizing contexts. One way this has been done is through stories in the western tradition that scientists often act from and don't notice. The nonfiction science book "Context Changes Everything," talks about how many, including scientists, behave as if an object can have an identity (Plato), outside its contexts and relationships. Because of the academic flavor of my post, I am likely a perpetuating colonizing agent, even if I don't want to be, but it is hard to break things so ingrained. This is one reason I find it so important to cultivate my inner world, including heavily questioning myself.