How do you want to spend your time?
An oriental sage once stated: "There are many roads to the top of the mountain".
The context of the quote was about self-development in ones life. The oriental
notion of self-perfection includes an intention to develop, a suitable choice
of path, the right kind of guidance and teaching, and the existence of a "top
of the mountain".
Intent - too little or too much
It may be pleasant to let ones life drift from event to event, at the whim of
fate - taking advantage of opportunities along the way. No intrinsic factors
are required to decide what indeed one considers important or worth doing.
There are no earned rewards, only those which one stumbles upon. You drift
to indicate that you are free to choose.
It may be re-assuring to let ones life be dictated by others - people or
circumstances - finding a person to stand in your place as the determiner
of your own destiny. There are no intrinsic factors required to decide what
might be worth doing. The rewards are the rewards of slavery and mutualism.
You surrender to receive a measure of security and re-assurance.
It may be engaging to adopt an obsession. Your commitment can exceed any
bounds you have previously known - although the content of your obsession
remains unassayed by you. When you adopt an obsession, it adopts you!
Without an intention to find out what is important, and what is worthy of
your personal commitment, you may as well do anything at all - all activities
would be equal. If you take the first step to really find out, you have intent.
A Path - going somewhere, not a random walk
A long journey starts with the first step. Your moment to moment engagement and
discovery of your progress and the weight of making appropriate decisions
contains a deep sense of being alive. Even resting becomes the best thing
to do.
Guides and Material - you're on your own, but not alone
How can I tell what this all means, when I have not been there before?
Without advice from someone who has taken a similar path, I can take a
thousand steps in a circle, or even divert far from my intention. My
insights tell me, infrequently, when I have strayed far. I need to learn
to know when my directions are off course.
A good teacher, in the same mould as I believe I am heading, can pass on
this kind of valuable guidance. If my next steps are unclear, maybe I
need to review. But how to tell unclarity?
In martial arts, EVERY instructor exhorts to "relax". Many instructors
lack a clear understanding of relaxation. Some have it in the body to
a reasonable extent, but have never found the presence of a calm mind.
Others have located the disinterested mind, but have adopted the lax body.
In martial arts, the best indicator is that the teacher can move as
quickly or slowly as necessary, and finds the process to be stimulating.
The Top of the Mountain
There are three stages of spiritual development in Hwa Rang Do. The notion
of spirit is not like the self-denial and submission implied in some
religious teaching. It is about going beyond your current position with all
its weakness and limitations - Easy as ONE, TWO, THREE, or ONE, TWO, MANY:
The basic idea is: [ONE] find out about yourself. Then forget about yourself and
[TWO] find out about other people. Then forget about that and [THREE] take
in (commune
with) the whole of existence. The term forget doesn't mean to
disregard, it means that you have already integrated the insights about
earlier stages into your development - indeed, they continue to develop.
Train hard. Train Smart!
Tom Osborn