Child-like wonder of the world

[ganjaboy]

I am interested in getting back in touch with my sense of child-like wonder of the world that I experienced when very young, as I believe it would give me greater appreciation of the arts and music. Can cultivating chi help with this? Thanks

[joeblast]

What made the world so wondrous when one was young?

[Samurai Mountain man]

I don't know if chi can help, but child-like wonder comes from experiencing new things which you're largely ignorant off so as to use your imagination to fill the blanks. Or experiencing stuff you've fantazsized about.

 

Y'know, there's no time like the first time, even if it wasn't as good as it could have been.

 

Might want to consider going on vacation at Mexico and visiting The cave of crystals, if that doesn't amaze you into a child-like state then you've been jaded beyond repair by your routine. Might want to check the Aurora borealis too.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Samurai Mountain man

[hydrogen]

I am interested in getting back in touch with my sense of child-like wonder of the world that I experienced when very young, as I believe it would give me greater appreciation of the arts and music. Can cultivating chi help with this? Thanks

 

no. cultivating chi won't help curiocity.

 

To reap curiocity, you have to sow curiocity. You cultivate curiocity with help of chi.

 

I don't know what I said above is true or not.

 

You actually brought up a good question: why do we always want to recapture the feeling of the old?

[Samurai Mountain man]

You actually brought up a good question: why do we always want to recapture the feeling of the old?

 

Remembering positive past experiences feels good because it's a tiny part of the original feeling. Resurrecting one's childhood is invigorating, takes you back to time less complex and troubled.

 

That's my take

[liminal_luke]

Yes, I think it can. Seems to me that having a sense of child-like wonder is our natural state, and that as adults most of us lose that because we put up a barrier between ourselves and our experience. The world is truly wondrous and if we're not feeling it the question to ask is what are we doing to block that experience. Practice can make us strong, and when we are strong we can relax and feel safe. When we feel safe it seems OK to experience the world in the more direct, unmediated way, ie with child-like wonder, and so we do.

 

My two cents.

 

Liminal

Edited May 9, 2013 by liminal_luke

[silent thunder]

I have vivid sensory recollection of entering samadhi as a child.

 

Complete loss of self in the moment, in the now.

 

All subsequent work has been to find and open that gate again...

[SantaRosaGuy]

Recently I've been asking myself, what use is meditation, since I don't have powers like the Magus of Java or some chi master from China.

 

Maybe if you can get powers or something it would renew your sense of childhood.

[liminal_luke]

Maybe if you can get powers or something it would renew your sense of childhood.

 

I want "powers" too so I'm right there with ya. Maybe if I renew my sense of childhood I won't want powers so much anymore though. I'll know I'm ok just as I am.

[SantaRosaGuy]

I want "powers" too so I'm right there with ya. Maybe if I renew my sense of childhood I won't want powers so much anymore though. I'll know I'm ok just as I am.

 

I don't think I ever had any child-like wonder of the world. Now, though, I just can't make sense of the world. There is so much good, yet so much bad.

 

I think I wonder now much more than when I was a child.

[liminal_luke]

SantaRosaGuy,

 

Yes, it's hard to make sense of the world when, like you say, there's so much bad. My partner likes to say that "everybody's crazy," and I believe it. Usually the people trying to pretend that they aren't crazy are the craziest so go figure. Anyway, your spiritual practices might not make you like the magus of Java it's true. But maybe they'll make you strong inside and you'll just know how you want to go about your life.

 

Just felt like saying this. Hope it makes sense.

 

Liminal

[SantaRosaGuy]

Anyway, your spiritual practices might not make you like the magus of Java it's true. But maybe they'll make you strong inside and you'll just know how you want to go about your life.

 

Just felt like saying this. Hope it makes sense.

 

Liminal

 

I look at the birds flying around, eating, mating. How'd it all get here? Why are there birds? Animals? People?

 

1 billion Christians would say one thing, 1 billion Muslims something else, 1 billion Hindus something else. They can't all be right, though.

 

Maybe I shouldn't have found out about the Magus of Java. Before enlightenment was enough ... I was like "I want to be enlightened." Whatever that meant -- I have no idea of what I was thinking at the time.

 

Now I want powers. LOL I guess I should be satisfied with what I have.

[hydrogen]

I look at the birds flying around, eating, mating. How'd it all get here? Why are there birds? Animals? People?

 

1 billion Christians would say one thing, 1 billion Muslims something else, 1 billion Hindus something else. They can't all be right, though.

have.

 

Why not? Why can't we have a world that everyone is right?

 

We're in a physically 3 dimensional world. Why do we still think in black and white 2 dimensional logic?

 

There is nothing wrong with looking for power. What kind of power do you want? How do you plan to get it?

[silent thunder]

I equate power to Wu Ji. My experience of power is not yin or yang until I define it, or fill it with intention.

The desire to attain and grasp power can be harmful if out of balance, i.e. am I obsessed and it interferes with my balance?

But the desire to attain power can also confer the ability to relieve suffering, so here is a desire, yet it can result in benefit.

 

The methods I go to, to attain power can be harmful or helpful. But the raw energy is neutral, like a tool.

I don't find it to be yin or yang until I try to 'understand' it or 'make sense' out of it.

Harm or Heal... are two ways of experiencing the same force.

 

So for me, it seems, often it's just my perspective that determines how I experience it.

Or it's the intent with which I encounter the energy that determines the experience.

But that experience can change and is fluid. Harm may become heal etc.

 

For me, a good example is pain and pleasure.

Two experiences of sensation.

 

I lived with chronic pain for decades and was able to manage it quite often and function well. Other times, not at all.

 

As a child, sitting in class, when I was bored, sometimes I would take and push a pin into my hand. Just a bit, until it got uncomfortable. Then, as my curiosity rose (how far could I go?), and as my friends reactions were egging me on, I started to see how far I could push the pin into my hand without suffering (I was no superman). Or rather, I could feel the pain, but could I find a place where it did not bother me.

 

In my mind, I would stare at the spot I was inserting the needle and I would try to find the center of the pain. If I could find that center, I could go into it and through it in a way and the sensation I experienced in my hand was not 'pain' it was a level of sensation I could get used to and so my experience of it, was not one I avoided. Often, there was no real experience of pain until I went to remove the needle, sort of breaking the trance and then feeling it.

 

I found this tactic immensely helpful when dealing with intense training and pain from chronic body issues.

 

Just a few weeks ago, I was working on a show and an old propmaker shared his definition of pain that really resonated with me and it applies to power for me as well. Pain is a level of sensation, deemed to be unacceptable.

 

I would venture that cultivation, philosophical study of the Tao or any spiritual pursuit, or any interest at all, is based on child like wonder. Foster that spark and when it flames, keep the flame in balance and it will serve well.

[Ish]

Yeah when your mind/energy/body are aligning closer to Nature you do feel like this.

Taoist qigong/medition should start to have this effect once you can practice effectively IMO.

 

It's beautiful

[Ish]

Pain is a level of sensation, deemed to be unacceptable.

 

Yeah that's a way of looking at pain that most people will never consider. Can help to lessen the emotional/mental suffering linked to pain which can end up being worse than the physical pain itself.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

I don't know if chi can help, but child-like wonder comes from experiencing new things which you're largely ignorant off so as to use your imagination to fill the blanks. Or experiencing stuff you've fantazsized about.

 

Y'know, there's no time like the first time, even if it wasn't as good as it could have been.

 

Might want to consider going on vacation at Mexico and visiting The cave of crystals, if that doesn't amaze you into a child-like state then you've been jaded beyond repair by your routine. Might want to check the Aurora borealis too.

 

When you believe you know anything at all about the world around you, it becomes less wonderous.

 

 

We are taught to fear wonder. if you wonder something, you must learn about it and wonder no longer!

 

So sayeth societal conditioning institutions.

 

But it's ass backwards to believe you know anything at all. embrace the wonder. know that you know nothing at all about anything you percieve, as it is the genuine and first time ever that you have ever seen it. every "time". This is because all the cells in our bodies are new every month, everything that exists when i typed the letter "i" is different by the time i got to the letter "t". the wonder is, to me, that people can believe they know. like, at all.

[zanshin]

I think we just forget to pay attention. Travel and contemplation of philosophy may induce wonder, but so does watching bugs or watching clouds. I watch the plants grow and try to remember to look up at the sky everyday; it is a wonderful world.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

it's called listening.

There's transmitting, which is speaking, and there is receiving, which is listening.


Transmission is a fantasy; fantastic.
Reception is a wonder; wondrous.

[shanlung]

Forget the chi and the Tao.

Kill LaoTzu if you see him on his ox coming towards you.

 

Try hard not to grow up and be cynical from the child that is actually you.

Or see with eyes that know this may be the very last day of your life.

 

Idiotic Taoist