I would guess that about 5-10% of my students are like you. They just hit the ground running. Awesome!

At some point down the road, you may struggle though. It might be 5 years from now, or 15. If/when that happens, don’t beat yourself up. Just work through it.

Students like you often end up being fantastic long-term practitioners! Yay!

Thank you Peter Levine. You also have my respect. I know sometimes comments and messages are difficult to grasp the context and meaning behind the words spoken. I think you and I and everyone on this same road will appreciate the collective insights of our spiritual journey. You Peter and everyone I hope that we can bless each other with discovery of ways to perceive our existence and being.

Before I begin, I want to salute Tom Judge, who is 10 years my senior, and may I, like Tom, be Qigong when I’m 85. Thank you Tom.

Also, I want to say hi to Joseph, hope that nothing I have said is a disturbance to you Joe. We’d have to sit down and talk to tease apart all the various threads that go through this one. In the meantime, I offer you heartfelt respect and reach out for your blessings as well.

Seems like you pushed a lot of buttons with this one, Sifu. You’ve mentioned the practice of entering Zen. Someone else talked about living in the present moment. Conversely someone else mentioned fears of what will have to be dealt with when the book (or anything else) is done. My class mates all have their own styles of discussing the subject at hand.

I feel that we can actually discuss this analytically. Like, what is this thing, called the mind, that hesitates, procrastinates, avoids, and is seduced by distractions? And what is Zen mind, and how is it that it enables everything to become simple and straight-forward?

We all know it. We all have it. The monkey mind. As opposed to living in the present moment, the surface mind is endlessly comparing, accepting and rejecting, living in the past and the future, lamenting our losses, and hankering for gains, experiences attractions and repulsions, etc., etc……unending. I don’t have the stats, but probably 99%+ of the planet lives their lives on this platform. And those that know how to enter Zen, only go there to visit for a while from day to day.

So what is the monkey mind doing, jumping about like this? It’s looking for satisfaction, resolution, a resting place, a sense of fulfillment. And usually it wants to find it in things outside of ourselves. But the revelation is that satisfaction is an inside job. Therefore every billionaire thinks he only needs a few more billion.

And the “Zen mind”, or “awareness”, or “mindfulness”, or whatever we want to call it, puts us in touch with a deeper faculty within us, a faculty that has an inherent sense of well-being, an inherent sense of peace, and inherent sense of fulfillment, an inherent sense of positive self-worth………without separate endeavor. It just is. And that’s why the Zen mind enables us to live in “present time”, in “the moment”, because our need to look to the past or the future, that need evaporates as soon as we tune-in. The monkey mind can express a full exhalation, “Haaaw……”, and let go.

From that point, one is not pushed by fear, or grasping for something that is out of reach. But we still have activities. We can just be still for a moment and inquire within ourselves, “What’s the right thing to do in the “now” that’s before me.” and the answer is right there. It could be “qigong”. Or it could be “dishes”, or it could be “Write that book!” But when the answer comes, we can trust it, and go with it.

There is Qi in our body-mind complex. But there’s also Qi that pervades the cosmos and fills the earth beneath our feet. Advanced Qigong masters talk of making a connection with the greater ocean of Qi. So in the same way, this self-satisfied spiritual center of our being exists within us. But there’s also an infinite ocean of spiritual energy that pervades the cosmos, and everything in it. So maybe there were some few who could sense that. And they could understand that there were “skillful means” for getting in touch with that sense of connection. So they made a few rules, do’s and don’ts. And some of them felt that relationship was personal. And others felt that that great ocean of spiritual energy was impersonal. In either case, they started giving classes. So there were different schools for basically the same thing. Schools with different names. And as time went on, people became members of these different schools. The art of establishing the sense of connection got lost along the way. But people got very caught up in the names of the different schools, asserting that their particular school was the best. And we call these schools “religion”. But just as Qi can be felt by entering Zen, as the first step, so also, connection with the ocean of spiritual energy can be felt by entering Zen, as the first step – because entering Zen puts us in touch with our spiritual nature – which in turn enables us to resonate with the ocean of spiritual energy (if we feel inclined). Many historical figures really “got off” on this kind of experience.

Now here is what I think. Perhaps the problem is not the lack of focus on the job at hand but rather the lack of focus on what is to become when the job is complete. Without a plan and a positive, clear cut goal for the next phase could I be afraid to put an end to this one. Could this be what’s holding you back? What do you have planned to do once the book is done? I’m sure you won’t let the grass grow under your feet, so to speak, but perhaps you need something specific to set your sights on to give you that push to finish the book so you can get started on the next project. Besides we are all waiting patiently for a publish date!

Glad to hear it, Tom. An hour a day is fantastic!

Thanks for the pep talk!

Hi Cornelia.

To “slay a dragon” is an idiom in English. It is a metaphor for overcoming a huge obstacle.

As I said in the article, I overcame the obstacle blocking me from practicing qigong. I slew that dragon, and I have been happily practicing qigong for years.

If you don’t like the analogy, that’s fine. Words are tricky. They will always fall short of the true meaning.

Thank you, Vera!