No Room For Effort

 In the practice of buddhism there is no room for effort.  Sleep when you are tired, move your bowels, eat when you are hungry. That's all. The ignorant will laugh at me but the wise will understand.

Zen MasterRinsai/Lin Chi

As I practice Tai Chi and think about "Chi" I want to know more about  the philosophies from which it orginated. I discovered in my research that it came mostly from Taoist thought in ancient China, dating back about 4000 years. It also incorporated other Chinese influences over time: Zen Buddhism (which itself was influenced by Taoist thought), for example, and it later evolved into a gentle martial art created by Shaolin monks.  There is also some Confusism in its elvolving thought and practice. Today, Tai Chi is often viewed as no more than a "gentle exercise done in parks by old people". It is so much more than that. As we do with yoga, we sometimes confuse the orgins of the exercise with the philosophy that started it. Though the original Tai Chi may be 4000 years old the actual physical exercise that is done today is only hundreds of years old. Why would we do the exercise other than to "move our aging bodies in a gentle way"? 

I want to know more about the philosophy of Zen and Tao.  I have such a hard time distinguishing the differences between the two.  I listened to Alan Watts this morning in hope that he would shed some light on that. I discovered, however, there were more simalarities than differences. I can relate those simalarities to the practice of Tai Chi.

Two things that stuck with me, as I listened to his lecture, were these ideas of "effortless action" and the uniterrupted flow from "thought, after thought, after thought" which is equivalent to "only this moment."

Effortless Action

Well Tai Chi is all about effortless action.  If you watch the forms being performed by a master...you will see an effortless flow from one movement to the next.  It doesn't look challenging (I am discovering it is more challenging than it looks)...it looks effortless. As a martial art it incorporates the idea of least amount of effort and tension as well. The idea is to relax into the opponents energy, and instead of resisting and tensing up against it ...to harmonize and flow with it...to use it and your own "chi". So the fight becomes a "dance" rather than a struggle. 

Tao is about getting  free from karma without announcing it or challenging it,,,

The taoist shows you the short cut by using intelligence rather than effort, using cleverness rather than muscle...

No Progression in time

There is also no progression in time in Taoist /Zen thought. We are the stream of consciousness and we are not changing as things change.  We can only be in this moment.  There is only this moment.

ShoboaGenzo/Alan Watts: "There is no such thing as a progression in time.  The spring does not become the summer. There is first spring and then there is summer.  In the same way, the you now does not become you later. 

The continuinity of the person from past to present to future is as illusionary as the red rings on a barber's pole. 

Our seeming to go along in a course of time...doesn't really happen 

There really is no problems. We make problems by connecting these events in time to each other. We block the stream of eternal and ever present consciousness when we do that, creating the illusion of suffering. 

Suffering exists but no one who suffers; deeds exist but no doers are found...a path there is but no one that follows it. nirvana there is but no one that attains it...Buddhagosha's Vishuddhimagga

As long as you are in the present no problems exist.

Q: What is the mind of a child? 

A: A mind is a mountain stream ? Thought after a thought after thoughter with no block. [no hesitation...automatically...no connection to each other...this is the stream of consciousness]

Blocking consists in letting the stream become connected, chained together...when such a thought arises it seems to be dragging its past or resisting its future....when the blocking stops, you have broken the chain of karma. This is nirvanna.

We need to learn to see things in their suchness. 

Q: What makes dying a problem?...

A: You are dragging a past...all the things you collected and stored in your psyche...identifying you as you say you are...memory...into this one experience, creating a problem with it...all that has to go...and that is why we don't like death...we do not want to let go of this idea of "me" and all we clung to...without this accumulation of events stored and blocking the stream of consciousness, death would not be a problem...

What we cling to, what we dread...spoils the taste of what we have to experience today

The taoist trick says...simply live now and there will be no problems 

Everyday is a good day on condition they come one after another... and yet there is only this one...you don't link them...things just do what they do....it has no meaning, it has no destination; it has no value...

Until we are awakened and truly understand the nature of suchness, we must not link one thought to the other, one moment to the next. Onnce we are there though, we can begin to observe these links again.

When you are firmly established in suchness and there is just this moment you can begin again to play with the connections...only you see through them...and now you see they don't haunt you...because you know there isn't any continous you running after them that originated in the past and that will die in the future

To the naive student mountains are mountains, waters are waters; to the intemediate student mountains are no longer mountains, waters are no longer waterss, but  for the fully perfected student, mountains are once again mountains and waters are once again waters. Qingyaun Wixein's saying as quoted by Alan Watts

Hmm! So much to learn and think about...but without effort and without connecting each new thought to the other. :) 

All is well.

Official Alan Watts Org/ Alan Watts (2020?) Taoist Way-Full Lecture.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql4wGGTDapA&list=PLk-d6iSPJdcUet3g8CkTOGhzbgbhIQZm7