The Spiritual Force of Gratitude

[wandelaar]

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

Isn’t Daoism supposed to be about finding a balance?

 

Correct. See: https://www.taoistic.com/taothemes/tao-moderation.htm

In other words: survival by avoiding extremes as much as possible.

Edited November 24, 2023 by wandelaar

[Nungali]

39 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Whenever I feel bad about something I deliberately count my blessings:

 

- No war in my country.

- No natural disasters in my country.

- I'm not suffering from debilitating diseases or psychological problems.

- I don't have financial troubles.

- I don't have relational troubles.

- I have a roof above my head and clothes to wear.

- I have enough to eat.

- I have many interesting books and records.

Etc, etc.

 

Realizing all this is often enough to feel gratitude notwithstanding the minor hassles of life. 

 

I   do this a few times when I am mindful  ... I was , the other day, with new friend  (who is just getting used to me )  :

 

" Wait  !   Stop !  ...... Do you feel that  ?  " 

 

" What ? "

 

" This moment ... this moment of stillness ; here we are in this amazing place amidst the beauty of nature , in a peaceful country , beautiful day , nice weather, no natural disasters  assailing us , no one arguing  or yelling ,  we are not sick or in any bad pain , we are not hungry   .... etc etc .   if we just sit here , together in this stillness  and peace and joy , and concentrate on that , it makes it 'last' a lot longer .  " 

 

All it takes is a bit of rain to fall on the cabin roof at night ;    thank goodness I have a roof over my head .

 

I suppose experiencing  the opposite helps  ;  once I was out in the bush camping , cut off and alone due to floods ,  had food poisoning ( because I ran out of food and  got very hungry  and ate  something I should not have ) ,  virtually delirious ,  had to leave all my camping gear including tent  and sleeping bag behind as I was too weak to get it across the flooded creek and up out the valley I was in . Took another three days to get home .     Home is good . 

 

Also working in a hospital ,  with refugee relocation ,  amnesty international  and with ex torture victims  .....  MY GOD there is a LOT of shit going on 'out there'  for people . 

 

Bugglebear ... thankyou   , for looking after me  and thank you to what ever , however maybe even who ever , that I somehow ended up the way I have . 

 

I ran into an old acquaintance yesterday , he is looking at homelessness , as more and more people are around here  ; ( wealthy moving into country towns , buying up and making Airb&b or using them for holidays and leaving them empty for the rest of the year , meanwhile local workers and service people and nurses  and many other important people cant afford the 'new ' rents .  Combine that with an influx of people from  flood and  fire displacements   ...    )  and he was  "  I cant believe I have been so stupid so as to let my life turn out such a mess ."  He , like so many others , had the possible chance , like I did ,   to secure land and habitat , and he 'blew it ; yes, by being stupid .

 

Even my Indian dentist was saying to me the other week :  " I have contacted my family in India ; ' Whatever you do DO NOT sell any of our land , none of it ! In fact, try to see if you can buy some more . "

 

When I did a crash course in law, for our supreme court  'take you  house and land ' case , I  had to keep going back in history  to grasp the roots of it . Way back, based on English law ... it all started  with  issues ( and  associated 'power' )    related to land ownership .

[liminal_luke]

2 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

 The original follows the Romanticism tradition and is heart-wrenchingly tragic -- the protagonist (actually a self-portrait of the author) is this stiff-upper-lipped sufferer who is "grateful" out of pride and restraint -- as an antidote to lamenting and complaining.

 

 

Ah, OK.  I wouldn´t be too quick to blame the translation.  I suspect part of my misreading comes from unfamiliarity with the cultural mores of Lermontov´s time and place.  For better or worse, it rarely occurs to me to feel grateful as "an antidote to lamenting and complaining."  

[Cobie]

Deleted 3 posts, I do apologise. 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Cobie

[Cobie]

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Edited November 24, 2023 by Cobie

[Cobie]

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Edited November 24, 2023 by Cobie

[Mark Foote]

22 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

This feels important to me and I´m wondering if you could say something more about it.  What exactly is an offering and how do you make it?  I guess if it was a living person one felt gratitude for one could give a small gift.  But how would you make an offering to, say, the dead lineage of teachers who practiced a particular qigong form? Perhaps with incense?  Sometimes I´ve started a practice with an expression of gratitude to the practitioners who have come before me.  I like doing this and have thought about making it a regular part of my routine.  

 

Wouldn't the best way to show gratitude to the dead lineage of teachers be to carry on the practice?

 

I did a podcast with David Chadwick recently, and at the close of the podcast I despaired of my efforts to write about my explorations.  He picked me up:

DC: Well, yeah, I understand. What you're doing and what you put out will actually reach to the furthest reaches of the universe.
MF: There we go!  ... I just have to pray that that's the way it works. Certainly, we have teachers who have given their lives on the basis of that belief, and we bow to them.

 

Chadwick's is a mighty effort, to reach to the farthest reaches of the universe (IMHO).

 

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Taomeow]

40 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

Wouldn't the best way to show gratitude to the dead lineage of teachers be to carry on the practice?

 

 

Yes!!  And AFAIK it would be the ultimate insult to the dead lineage teacher to change the practice to suit one's own ambitions and/or limitations and/or the current market and still claim lineage art.  I've seen too many examples of this kind of un-gratitude. 

 

(A digression.  One exception would be someone who is not just a lineage practitioner but also a direct descendant by blood -- son or daughter of the teacher.  They are the only ones who can change the practice and still claim lineage.  Interestingly enough, such occurrences are exceptionally rare.  In my taiji lineage, e.g., I'm only aware of one such case, and even in that case, the practice was changed because the guy believed he uprooted an older version of the same lineage -- but called it "new" none the less, since he was changing the version that was originally inherited by him.  And someone who did invent his own, quite different version of the practice didn't keep the name of the lineage, giving it his own name instead.  Which was the decent thing to do.)