meditation

Notes On The Ecosystem

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I’ve referred to cultivating an “Ecosystem” of thought and relations as part of spiritual practices. The idea is that your practices embrace the “big picture” of your life, tying parts of it together. I figured I’d exposit my current methods here to see if they help folks out.

Part 1: Regular Readings

First, each day I read two passages out of a copy of the Tao Te Ching and may move on to other works. This regularly means I contemplate useful teachings regularly, in small amounts, constantly reinforcing my philosophy and keeping me thinking. Taking regular time to really ask “what does this mean and what did I learn” is quite helpful in keeping to “The Big Picture.”

Secondly, I read about one Hexagram from the I Ching, a sprawling body of divination, advice, and philosophy on the 64 different “Changes” of the world. I have several analyses of the I Ching and regularly cycle through them to be exposed to different ideas. Each day then I contemplate a “Change” in the world and what people have written about it. This grounds me in larger thought related to Taoist ideas and again keeps me thinking.

Plus, there are some amazing analyses of the I Ching. One, the Tao of Organization, is basically the I Ching of organizations and managements, and as a Project Manager, that gets me thinking.

None of these take a huge amount of time. There’s something about having a “pause to think about how it comes together” that’s not overlarge I find helpful.

My Advice: Read a little bit of an important philosophical/spiritual work a day as the break and contemplation is helpful but not overwhelming. Also read something that gives you that “Big Picture” sense – it may be mystical/philosophical like the I Ching, or perhaps a work on history or culture that has convenient “bite sized” chunks.

Part 2: “The Harmony”

A more recent thing I’ve taken to doing is reflecting each day on how the different aspects of my life connect. I write this down in my meditation notebook once a day, and I review different “levels” of my life. I reflect on how I’ve done, what I learned, and maybe what I can do better. Here’s the way I do it.

“Celestial Harmony” is my name for reviewing my life on the mystical and archetypical level. This has two parts.


First, I reflect on the gods. This means I reflect on the huge principles that matter to me, those living parts of the universe that mean something to mean and that I connect to. This may be thankfulness, acknowledgement of the roles in my life, and so on. This helps me understand how I connect to the larger forces in the world.

Secondly, I reflect on values that are important to me. To make this easier I adopted a system from the Chinese Five Element System, analyzing how I did in the “Five Virtues.” Thus I take a moment to ask how I did to embody Righteousness, Benevolence, Wisdom, Propriety, and Trustworthyness. This is not a system I know a lot about, but it worked with my regular readings, and I decided to “wing it” and see if it helped – and it did.

You could probably do this in religious or secular ways. The key thing is to recognize the “big elements” of your life and specific values and review them.

“Social Harmony” is the next thing I analyze. How did I do connecting with people, supporting friends and family, performing my social roles, did I learn anythin,g and so on? I look at things that are both chances to do better and what I have done well.

I found this most useful as I didn’t realize a lot about how social I was. There are times I felt both social and also wanted some “me” time and now I realize I didn’t realize how much socializing I was doing. Quite useful.

Psychology is the last part. I sit down and ask how my mental state is, any issues I dealt with, learned about, did well, or things I can do better. This is usually pretty practical, but also ties to all of the above reviews.

Plus if there’s any issues I want to work on, I can look at progress.

My Advice: Try these daily reviews. Don’t be hard on yourself, but I find it very useful. Thinking from the cosmic and timeless down to specific neuroses is illuminating.

So, Give it a Try

I hope these practices give you some good ideas. I recommend giving them at least 3 months of practice to see how they work out for you. It gives you time to get it right, find what works for you, and see what lessons pop up. For me, It really helps with the “ecosystem” of my life, connecting my spirituality, philosophy, and psychology together. I hope the advice helps do the same for you.

And give me a write to let me know what you’ve learned.

–Xenofact

The Gentle and The Firm

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In my readings on Taoism, I recently read through “Immortal Sisters,” one of Thomas Cleary’s early translations, this one of works by female Taoists. It’s a fascinating read of course, and it’s written by a younger, dare I say feistier Cleary with opinions on certain eras of Chinese history that I believe mitigated with time. However I wish to focus on some writings by famed Taoist Immortal Sun Bu-Er and commentary by Chen Yingning (Cleary has a knack for finding and translating not just documents, but often extensive commentary on the same).

The funny thing was the copy I had I’ve had, as of this writing, perhaps two decades or more. I’d forgotten I had it, and as I was working to expand my Taoist readings, I decided it was time. I found much excellent advice, but one piece stood out in particular.

To show how useful this advice was, let me explain the situation where it helped me.

My meditative practice, as I’ve stated before, is based on The Secret of The Golden Flower, where one rests mind on breath while one tunes breath to be slower and even. It’s a simple process, summarizable in, say, a small handbook. However as any practitioner of meditation knows, the actual experience is one that can be discussed endlessly (as many have).

Trying to rest mind on breath and tune that breath isn’t as simple as it may sound, at least for me. One is trying to tune breath, one is trying to rest mind, one is sitting still, one probably has thoughts arising and so on. In my readings of Taoist literature, I’ve found at least a notable part of the obscure symbolism is useful concepts and approaches to help meditation without spelling it out so much your expectations mess you up.

And the writings of Sun Bu-Er provides to have some extremely helpful advice. The specific section is called “Cultivating the Elixir,” and using alchemical symbolism, it states the following:

“Tuning the breath, gather it in the gold crucible.”

“Stabilizing spirit, guard the jade pass.”

Chen Yingning notes in his commentary (which, as per classic Taoism, is far longer than the things he comments on) that this is about the kind of concentration one uses. Breath requires strong concentration, resting the mind requires gentle concentration.

And, suddenly, I understood meditation more.

There I am tuning my breath – slower and more even all the time. That requires firmness, strength. Your whole body is engaged. That strength ensures a refined breath.

There I am resting my mind – and that is best done gently. We all know what it’s like to force our mind to do things – our mind wrestling with our mind is a painful thing. But when I rest my mind on breath, I can make it gentler and gentler.

It’s firm and gentle, mind and breath, yin and yang – pairings are understandably common in Taoist meditation. A little addition to my understanding of meditation thanks to a modern translator and the writers of the past. A little more for my journey down the path.

That’s a funny thing about meditative practices, about spiritual practices in general. You have to do it, you have to get your hands dirty, and you can’t get lost in scripture and notes and endless spinning thoughts. At the same time you have to read and expand your mind, never think you have the answers – or even all the questions.

It requires a kind of curiosity, a willingness to get into the readings – like a meditation. Be open to surprises.

Just like me with a copy of a book I got decades ago.

–Xenofact

Keeping That Notebook

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In my meditative and mystical practices, I’ve tried to figure the best way to keep notes. I’d keep notes, but it was a pain to review them. I’d try to type them up and of course end up with a pile of notes that I’d have to search to make any use of. I’d also feel bad about this.

At the same time having records to review is very useful. You want to look at what you experienced. You want to improve your meditative techniques. Writing it down helps out.

But then there’s the other problem of writing things down to keep records. YOu might get caught up in your records, have too many expectations, try to force experiences. Once you get notes you can review, you can end up getting obsessed with those.

As you can tell, I think about this a lot. OK, I overthink this a lot. But here’s a technique I’m currently trying that may help you out. I use this for meditative work, psychological improvement, and some mysticism.

Try this out.

ONE. Get a notebook. I like one that’s of a good size. Actually buy a few so you don’t have to run back to the store all the time. Have a pen with it at all times.

TWO. When you sit down to engage in your spiritual practices, write down the date, what you did, and any lessons learned. I “star” things I really want to remember next time I meditate. If you do several practices give them their own page.

THREE. Every time you sit down to engage in your spiritual practices, look back at your last entry, especially the “starred” entries. You might look back a few days if you need to.

FOUR. After doing this for awhile, you’ll accumulate certain “practices” for your spiritual work that help. Create a list and then every day, before practice, write it down again for that day. You may update it or tweak it as you go. You might even remove items or consolidate them.

I found this hits a sweet spot. I sit down and review past learnings. I restate best practices. I keep notes that I’ll review the next date, and maybe improve my best practices. It’s a last-time review, a helpful checklist, and a chance to reflect.

It’s also not burdensome, or overly complicated, or leads to a pile of notes I don’t know what to do with. Instead I have a regularly reviewed (and thus remembered) checklist and some useful notes. I carry forward the best and most useful of what I’ve learned, and by writing it down again and again I remember it as well as contemplate it.

As for writing down and recording more detailed guides and information I am experimenting with that. It’s still in the experimental stage, and I have some success in trying writing up a “short guide” for breath meditation and updating it now and then. But I’ve not done all the things I want to do yet, but as I persist, hopefully I will. My major challenge is the dread of sitting down and trying to write “everything” down. However just writing up this column gives me ideas, so we shall see.

But my own challenges aside, the above method is one I recommend you try. A nice daily review and best-practice list should be easy to start. Besides, I want to hear your experiences!

–Xenofact