The Soft Fish Hook

“… those who know well how to live meet no tigers or wild buffaloes on their road, and come out from the battle-ground untouched by the weapons of war.”   Lao Tau

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‘Ancient Chinese Wisdom’ can often sound hocus-pocus or even nonsensical until you sit with it. Tigers & Wild Buffaloes are easy threats to ignore when seated comfortably, wrapped in a blanket or shawl, but when the door to our imaginations are opened even a little, it is not much farther a distance before realizing how present the feelings of being threatened really are.

In my Book of Gardens, I look into the seeming abyss of behavioural economics, and just how pervasive the sensation of scarcity is, under our current version of economy. Constant Growth on a Finite Planet simply cannot add up to much else, and a reconciliation is forthcoming putting us all - psychologically at least - in potential positions of peril. 

Each morning during my Sit and Tea, I re-read a verse from the Tao Te Ching. I’m currently on #50 where Lao Tzu speaks of tigers and buffaloes (oh my!) 

Lao Tzu is arguably one of our species most prominent Teachers ever, keeping good and easy company with Socrates et al. - despite having penned so little himself. The Tao Te Ching consists of a mere 5000 Chinese characters (81 verses in English), which is the entirety of what he put to paper. That’s it. And yet the book is alive and well - and as relevant - as ever. Lao Tzu is a very subtle teacher. 

Despite having stepped through the Tao Te Ching about six or seven times, I still catch myself breezing over a sentence here and there - only to come back to that exact point for clarification. 

Such moments are like soft fish-hooks... 

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Given my current ‘obsession’ to fully understand the ramifications of growth-only economics, I found a ready comparison with Bear & Bull psychology, and Lao Tzu’s Tigers and Buffaloes. Both the bear and the tiger attack with their claws, both are large predators, capable of mischief, stealth, agility, and possess a fierce strength to pull down its prey. The bull and buffalo are herbivores, prefer the open calm of a field where they can observe anything coming their way, and similar to the degree of strength of the tiger and bear, become a frightening force to deal with once enraged.

Such pairings to my mind reflect back to me our sympathetic nervous responses; ones which invariably arise out of our current economic situation. I’m very excited to see Hollywood’s latest “The Wolf of Wall Street,” whose timeliness ought to be of no surprise given the long standing connection between Hollywood and Washington… However, I’m always rather amazed at what Scorsese ‘gets away with’ in terms of suggesting how things really-are.

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Playing with juxtaposition in meditation - pairing of things - is very beneficial and in fact quite fun. Our imagination gladly cork-screws toward an idea, passing its point through each side of a pairing, looking for the central root: between the tiger and buffalo, between the bear and the bull, between fight or flight… 

What is the lesson here...

Lao Tzu ever so gently draws you in toward his understanding. He is quite the timeless ghost in this regard, ever ready and glad to teach and help. I find it continually noteworthy that Lao Tzu - so far as I understand - refused many offers to be part of King Wen’s court… Such a way, suggests to me that he prized the open space of his autonomy so dearly, that no riches - even in name - were of greater value.

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It cannot be said enough today that what is taking place on Wall Street has very little benefit for Main Street. Without becoming too biblical about it, the sins of Pride and Greed readily come to mind. The path of Libertarianism dances somewhat dangerously with both of these - a strange three-some - but instead of becoming entangled by them, moves instead toward the purpose of an actuated freedom and autonomy: our status quo, regrettably, merely gives us the husk of such things. It strikes me that, to know autonomy and to possess freedom, one must know intimately what your enemy is.

The Bears of this world, which economically speaking I am currently quite glad to identify with, are for better or worse a rather proud bunch. They look at fundamentals. The lively cynicism in these circles puts the ‘fun’ in fundamental, with the ‘mental’ part trailing close behind, tripping upon the lack of restraint and reality our supposed ‘economic recovery’ is deemed to possess. There is an occasional sense of being the victim underneath that pride, as if the bullish enmity took a solid swipe out of their side, impinging their wind.

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Paradoxically then, the bulls and buffalos, the seeming innocuous herbivores, as they put their charge and horns into a thing, lifting it ever higher, have the quality of the addict - of greed - being given a window to express their otherwise dormant powers. It is also a kind of pride, ever-quick to invert into action. All of these qualities - pride, greed, victimhood, the addict - reside within our psyche moment to moment, and gently, it is up to  each of us to discern our direction. Such is the work of Emotional Resiliency, and the main offering throughout

 The Book of Gardens: A Lover's Manual for Planet Earth.

www.thebookofgardens.com

So a few questions come to mind. Mainly: What is it to be at Peace with Oneself... We understand such a statement, but what does it FEEL like? Why are such individuals, or moments, so rare? Why does our inner peace disappear? Have we not looked into that 'blind-spot' repeatedly? Why do we remain 'blind?'... And where then is the point of entry for this feeling? Such arises Lao Tzu’s concluding statement in his 50th verse:

“… a buffalo would find no butt for his horns, a tiger nothing to lay his claws upon, and a weapon of war no place to admit its point. How is this? Because there is no room for Death in him.”

In one of the poems in The Book of Gardens, (#26), I write “Being of no threat / how, can you be threatened?” And such is Lao Tzu’s lesson here: aware of one’s enemies - or rather, aware of enmity - one is not so passive as to lay oneself open for unwelcome and attack, and one is simultaneously not so defensive so as to become the cause of unwelcome and abuse. Walking such a path, there simply cannot be any room of Death…

The Entry & The Balance Point

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Finding this entry point asks that we sit with ourselves in quiet for a little part of the day each day. I do recommend the early morning hours to be sure. The morning possesses an inherent peace worth capitalizing upon. The sensation of breadth, watching the light spread out into the time before you (I live somewhat in the North) is a wonderful thing to allow in to yourself. It is a place to rest one’s breathing - fully and freely.

Staying on that balance point is of course the challenge. Growth-Only Economics generally prohibit that, siphoning our time into the pursuit of a currency, keeping the ready bulk of us dancing to the tune of “more for you is less for me…”

In The Book of Gardens, I call this process, Crossing the Bridge, and Opening The Door. And I’ll conclude here with a selection from this point in the book. I give a very brief beginner-styled intro-to-meditation in the book before diving into the deep end of my take on today’s behavioural economics. Bringing out a truer understanding of how practical the study of Taoism actually-is, and the method of I-Ching is the soft fish hook I offer.

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Visit 

www.thebookofgardens.com 

to order a copy.

Or Click Here. 

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“The traditions which have long addressed meditation in their pedigree are fantastic to their detail, yet I found many groups functioned best by an initial acceptance of the tradition at large before learning anything on the practice of meditation. I respect that the process a person need accept toward an embodied compassion is multi-faceted, and next to the fact that cultural or behavioural change is a gradual process, I continue to see a consistently growing, immediate, and intimately felt need for mindfulness on the steady increase. That is, our culture today is experiencing the pressures of an intrinsic change, and it is between this inward pressure and the externalities of our situations where I invite in your concentration here. Readied cultural change is rare, and making a behavioural shift becomes an overtly broad exercise to ones psychology when greeting something otherwise foreign. It can be difficult to begin, and if constantly propelled by the busyness of ones external situation, the intrinsic invitation for change often gets discarded. So the remainder of this Prelude is a primer toward a way of mindfulness through the lens of a cultural critique, reasoning out how mindfulness may well be the cultural salve to apply to our current ecological and economic confusion. If you find yourself in agreement that this is indeed a potential remedy, or a preparedness to bring forward into this rather intense predicament, you might then further explore cultural traditions should you be inspired to do so. 

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     Under the banner of Western psychology there are now many discoveries to be made on the subject of Mindfulness. Yet they come to us only after a considerable length of scientific resistance to apply scientific scrutiny toward things seemingly 'esoteric' and tricky to observe. And it is the resistance which is interesting to me here. I am finding it compelling to watch these seemingly disjunctive pursuits of religiosity and science come together, and I am of the opinion that my fellow Westerners will find less arising antagonism when meditation is presented in a form closer to that of an exercise. Which is not to lessen the thorough impact of meditation overall; under the banner of an exercise might its introduction and efficacy travel much farther. I had too often seen in our culture a general confusion between a seeming oblivion and the pursuit of enlightenment; and by such confusion, catalyzing a rather contentious, dark and culturally divisive mess toward something which is otherwise profound, beautiful, and reliable. Perhaps now the balance on this tips...

     Those already into a mindfulness practice may have found Part One as a kind of review, and I hope I didn't bore you to tears. There is always much to be said in any avenue of learning for sticking to the basics though. It is my hope here in 'Opening the Door' that my point of view on the economy will supply an interesting and pointed degree of awareness – an influence tucked neatly into a cultural blind-spot - by which one may find very practical, moment-to-moment, interpersonal applications for everyday decisions and conversation. 

It is my wish for us all to begin to see just how dominant of a factor the economy has become in how we are able to experience the fullness of our minds and our lives. Reducing the economy to a factor within a psychological landscape may be insulting for some – threatening certainly – however, I have not found this one element of human civility to reflect accurately Our Nature."

www.thebookofgardens.com

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Fuel Your Wonder. Know Your Authentic Power. Discover the I-Ching.

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Ian Mackenzie recently described the "mind bomb" which has been Occupy. His message is excellent, describing well the social conundrum of an 'underprivileged meme.'  I'd like to add to his message with sharing an age-old method for self analysis and mindfulness meditation - an often neglected, misunderstood, or romanticized meme - encouraging a renewed sense of culture much needed to heal our planet, our relationships, and our sense of freedom.

The Book of Gardens: A Lover's Manual for Planet Earth, is a manual of self-study via the I-Ching. In sixty-four poems, The Book of Gardens contains the lessons of mindfulness meditation held by this true and great classic. 

Briefly, the I-Ching is the original study of Yin & Yang. You might compare the practice with Tarot, but there is a significant step away from egoic energies. Yin & Yang are pure energies flowing through all things, and are in proportion throughout all space, matter, and time: Yin & Yang dance through the weather before you, just as much as they dance through every moment of your thoughts. The I-Ching, is the method of observing Yin & Yang within yourself, distilling thought and emotion, experiencing your sense of self as a seamless extension of Nature.

Inspired by Charles Eisenstein, I am giving proceeds from the sales of this book to the Johnson's Landing community, recovering from the largest landslide to hit the area in 12,000 years. The area remains widely unstable, with all major rivers in the area literally moving mountains. In this region of glacier-fed lakes this event marks yet one more symptom of climate change; and this otherwise quiet and self-sustaining hamlet is now deep into a Transition thrust upon them.

"Sacred Economics" put to rest so many of my long-held fears and ambitions which seemed to go nowhere. His book illustrated that many of the solutions we need in action today are already here - waiting for us to engage with them. We already know what to do, and where to go for our solutions. One such method is Gift Economy.

In terms of our emotional resilience, The I-Ching is a profound tool for facing transition and transformation. The Book of Gardens: A Lover's Manual for Planet Earth, makes this otherwise foreign process, familiar.

My study for this book took place in Johson's Landing - sitting in the exact creek which flooded - six years prior to publishing The Book of Gardens. I had honestly never heard True Silence before living there. You can hear the entire valley on the smallest hint of wind… I began my study of the I-Ching in 1995, and its practicality continues to feed me both surprise and Wonder for this beautiful life.

In a nutshell, I am committed to making a contribution of Emotional Mastery and Emotional Resiliency during this Great Transition. The Book of Gardens introduces what the I-Ching is (the first ever study of Yin & Yang), how to use it, and essays on why this skill is crucial for us as we head ever deeper into Transition - into Change. The book has a brief primer on non-denominational meditation, pointing readers toward The Practical Value of Wonder. Or what I also call, Eco-Theology.

All the preparedness in the world - all the gold, guns, and baked-beans - mean little without a new Emotional Accountability at our collective fingertips. The economic collapse coming is without any doubt excitable, but as old systems peel away, revealing our much-needed changes, no doubt many may find chaos where before we had felt secure. At some level, we all know Change is coming...

Kaun Yin by Moonlight.

Having long been part of an underprivileged meme, the I-Ching (also known as the book of changes) has been my guiding light for nearly two decades. This study has always stood as the hermit of spirituality: that one quiet book waiting for you to introduce yourself to it. It is a true blend of science, method, discipline, and true Wonder. It is a map of the human psyche as palpable and physical as a dollar bill...

I know I am far from alone, yearning for cultural and economic change, and in these pages I offer you both my story and my study, that you may gain strength in this skill-set, which, as the SHTF, will serve you greatly toward building your community, thriving by the meme of your truest choosing.

Bring Gift Economy into practice. Visit:

 www.thebookofgardens.com 

or Lulu.com to order a copy.

Fractional Reserve Banking: How to describe a Paradox.

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I experience this particular paradox as a nightmare. Hubris sealed into derivatives; the seed of each our unrest, leveraged so far we can now barely name it or claim it... The 'fraction' of this fractional-reserve system has grown thin to the point of transparency: it simply no longer exists. We are not a free culture, but one adept at Insolvency Management. 

Our current understanding of Wealth is now a fiction we drink, a bitter decoction soaking up the human spirit, and with it our sense of truth, coagulating into a seeming and eternal slow-motion clot, winding its way into the heart of our one ecology… Constant Growth, on a finite planet…. We long to escape from the bonds which we ourselves designed - we, our victim - and cannot do anything other than continue submitting to it. We are not just spent: we are over-spent, and spent for years to come.

At the heart of such a philosophy - one which dates back to a time when the Earth by all rational measurement was flat - Fractional Reserve Banking now strikes me as the most bitter refusal to accept that Life is temporary and gentle. A bubble. This age'd business ethic is diamond for its inability to accept the seasonality of things, believing never-ending growth is the cause of happiness, singling out one thrust in human thought amongst a panoply of choice and consideration. This way of bringing forward human-motivation may have been very useful during more tribal times, but no longer holds relevance for an actuated global civility. Its catalyst and follow-through appears more and more of the fallen angel who had grand ideas; who felt the intense and blinding love of this creation - this universe - and desired so greatly to share its power, and to know it by its completeness. A shared demon - a potential, posing inert - who in perfect and unceasing detail has now surrounded the soul of humanity, making slow a silicon museum of something once covered with lush green.

Prohibit once, and double enmity... It is the natural psychological response to a situation which catalyses scarcity. Right at the heart of our currency system - constant growth on a finite planet - resides the key to the problems we mislabel innate to human nature.

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This voice within our psyche - this constant-growth impulse - understands something can be created from the thing which prefers a steady-state, and then offers no Return. Constant Growth economics is arrogant, flying only toward the light, hooked on the idea of the infinite. Such perpetual one-way motion, such youthful and happy-blind thinking, inevitably forces all things toward an ever grand reconcilliation to recognize how amateur we handle Choice. Is this a punishment from above or from the past?.. Mentally ill - manic - forcing the rapture into the face of all grand wishes for peace and unity, muddying the sentiment of a brighter tomorrow, any hope for human social values becomes slave to constant-growth instead: it is the dark heart of a vast  - and-so-then-an-ever-vast -  Shadow.

Such is Our Situation, and not each our personage. It is how Che Guevara winds up on a t-shirt. It is the monetization of yoga. It is deforestation. It is shooting John Lennon. Or Kennedy. Or Ghandi. And then Lee Harvey Oswald. Or barely noticing the Mother Theresa passing in the shadow of a Diana. It is the acidification of the oceans. It is species extinction. It is shitty food served quickly. It IS poison. It is the loss of top-soil. It is GDP versus Happiness. It is the picture of a golden time, and only a picture.

It is a surface, underneath which fall only dead echoes, haunting us in unison 'That was Yesterday, and of course, it didn't matter...'

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Knowing this - feeling the unrest pulsing within our psyche - we stick to a certainly-uncertain future like fly-paper, lamenting the Present in lieu of thriving by the rules of a glorious and BLUE bio-sphere.

It is not something we can take personally. We were born into it, and such rules shape our Psyche. But it is something we can address - reshape -  and purge - if we direct our attention onto the centre of the conundrum. 

The study of metaphysics may make your neurology feel good, but the study of Wealth will allow those feelings to last. Both reveal the physicality of our psyche. One symptom of Our Conundrum lies with Gold. Such a proposition may seem ludicrous, but the feeling of ludicrousness can only come to you from a blind-spot: the fallacy of normalcy. A bias. Today the COMEX and the LIBOR are being systematically killed. The very elements which have always conjoined human energy to that of the planet, are being herded and hoarded, manipulated, discredited, and seemingly drained of that inherently nebulous possession, Wealth. Psychically, it is no less epic than Darth Vader slaying Obi Wan; dreamer of that profound and deliberately-thin diplomacy… Wealth today is being concentrated as the means for future population control.

Peak Oil, peak metals extraction, peak currency creation, peak extinctions... It is a battle contained to a nook within our thoughts, playing out the drama for the rest of our creations to live by. The opulence now available within the species will not travel well for seven billion: and yet we all want to know its taste, and fill our cupboard by it. There is a saying in some think-tank circles across Canada which arose from the universal-health-care debate several years back: 'If you kill it, it will die.' Which surely feels like the solution for an economic situation whose conclusion is invariably falling upon us. It is a terribly optimistic course of action. And I do emphasize terribly. If we look to the future with any anticipation and authenticity, we await the opportunity to forgive ourselves, smelting down every grail in hope of starting-over.

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Certainly we would all have our cake and eat it too: we would have unending riches and comfort pinned to ever-less work, but that truly involves cooperation. Even with the cosmos. And especially with the seasonality of the given things before us... Insider-Trading is a form of cooperation, but more so it is a confession of bitterness and childishness, as if Cake were not a thing for sharing - let alone gratitude. And those-without-cake(!) must have inherently never deserved to experience cake in the first place. Not a crumb. But such thinking is again Our Situation - when given a voice. Such is the inevitability of classism, which is the inevitability of constant-growth.

Which brings then four levels of confidence to mind, of which Growth Economics speak to these lower and lesser expressions: supplicant, combative, competitive, and finally, Cooperative. Each creates the next as we mature, and, given our Situation, we either progress through these stages toward the pinnacle of cooperation, or we stagnate or stalemate-ourselves within one of these steps. Those fine-and-good with this system grow comfortable into their competitions and their combats; happy to find supplicants, ridiculing the Cooperative.

The thing I find most curious about human Life is that we can observe from deep-down when we can be doing better. There is something about the inherent stubbornness tucked inside a bitter gesture which tells me so, and I believe growth-economics to be a very large, and very bitter, gesture. Hence its appeal: it does satisfy many an amazing thing - landing on Mars, say, or the will to conquer having known what it is to be divided - but again, the overall system offers no Return. Our investments offer a return (on paper), but rarely to the ecology which issues forth our current level of prosperity (not to mention the paper). It would be akin to selfish love-making, the supplanting of an exercise which might otherwise reveal much more beauty and soul. And so this way of living is condensing the pleasures we might also and otherwise find in the future.

Is such a system Creative? Quite possibly. Divine: definitely no. In spite of its architects. It is busy work, and not our Best. If we have the audacity to label our own human lives sentient and the endless black matters standing between one another and up to the planets not-so: what grants us that authority? Where does this power to self-author come from? It strikes me that matter itself is intelligent - that the light which passes through a thing, holding a thing together is where the ingredients for an idea discover themselves thriving - and our good chances are to have had us born with some fine sense to see them(!) Will we monetize this too? Moreover: have we not already..?

Courage, is simply to do the right thing then. True and authentic growth is to see that One is not alone; that any thought new-to-you came from circumstance, and from the same set of circumstances which float through the ages and the cosmos. Growth economics truly skew and dampen our inner, best, and authentic sense of what-is-right and what-is-possible. It assumes a win-loose outcome within a garden where All, thrives ever by Win-Win.

Constant growth on a finite planet pits us against anything we experience as holy: our time, firstly, our creativity, our social values, and of course Nature herself... Our basic needs, rather than moving in tandem with the natural abundance of this ripe planet, are sought out against those who surround us. We assume distrust is natural and good... How contrary to the human heart(!) Bound to the system which organizes us, we are simultaneously divided by it. By such is war made inevitable, and all the peace protests in the world spell out  m-i-s-d-i-r-e-c-t-e-d   e-n-e-r-g-y.

Our focus would serve such "lofty" goals better if focused instead on monetary policy and not the missiles… as money gets a thing done… The rules to our wealth are simply out-dated and in need of reckoning. "The Russians Love Their Children Too," so let us get on with it. Let us sharpen our focus onto the root causation of our many issues; let us learn the current set of rules to the currency which binds us, and let us play afterwards quite differently. You and I, are overdue for a Return to the Garden.

Welcome to:

www.thebookofgardens.com

~ A Lover's Manual for Planet Earth ~

UN Report Says Small Scale Organic Farming is the only way to Feed the World

Well the ole say 'better late than never' comes to mind. In terms of health & happiness this decision certainly points toward a brighter future. Happy Reading:

http://www.technologywater.com/post/69995394390/un-report-says-small-scale-organic-farming-only-way-to