We have the freedom of choice, but not freedom from choice

If we follow Lao Tse’s advice in the Tao te Ching, we will solve problems while they are still small.  So we keep our choices open as long as possible and, when we know which one to go for, then we’re purposeful in achieving it.  Again, we come back to good ol’ ‘Wu Wei’ – allow the obvious choice to present itself; forcing a choice is almost invariably wrong.   So we stay alert and ready to make a decision as required; we could do a lot worse than follow the Duke of Wellington’s advice to: “keep your bowels open, your powder dry and put your faith in God”

I find in my practice that I am presented with choices.  On one hand, I have advertising agents, the landlord etc wanting me to give them money and, likewise I have Government agencies.  In the former, I feel I have a choice, whereas with the latter (notwithstanding what I’ve written above) I feel I don’t.  The interesting thing is that those that really have the whip-hand, namely those organisations that are backed by law, really feel they have to bully me into paying.  This breeds resentment – not a very Taoist or Buddhist emotion.  Sun Tse believed that it was pointless crushing an enemy when you had them beaten; you never know, sometime in the future you may want them to be your friend.

I also have a patient who takes this choice thing too far – she negotiates with me “I’ll let you put two needles in here, if you only put one in there …” ;  I’m all for patient involvement, but there is a limit.

Protect Your Centre

A recent ‘contretemps’ with the landlord of my practice has served as a good reminder to me of the advice I gave in my last Blog offering, namely to ‘protect your centre’.  This is not only good advice for students but, I suggest, also for all of us throughout our lives. 

You may be familiar with Chapter 11 of the Tao te Ching, in which we are compared to a cartwheel, where the spokes and rim perform the function of the wheel but it is the hub that makes it useful (indeed, it goes on to say that the emptiness at the centre is what makes it useful – ‘without its nothingness it would be nothing’).  Osho, in his book ‘Awareness’, further explains:

A man can live in two ways: he can live from his periphery or he can live from his centre.  The periphery belongs to the ego and the centre belongs to the being. 

If you live from the ego, whatever you do is not an action, it is always a reaction – you do it in response to something done to you.  From the periphery there is no action, everything is a reaction – nothing comes from the centre. In a way, you are just a slave of the circumstances.  You are not doing anything; rather, you are being forced.

From the centre, the situation changes diametrically.  From the centre you begin to act; for the first time you begin to exist not as ‘a relata’ but in your own right. 

This concept of a ‘centre’, therefore, is vitally important as a form of managing our lives more effectively and even as a form of protection.  Buddhists have this view of our minds being like a herd of wild elephants, never at peace but charging all over the place, creating havoc in their random, reactive path; one of their ways of dealing with this is to ‘connect’ and not ‘attach’ (to people, wealth, health, careers, leases etc).  If we attach to things, then we get dragged off in their direction when they move (or perish), whereas if we simply connect then we are not sucked into their world.  So we ‘attach’ with the ‘periphery’ and ‘connect’ with the ‘centre’.

So what’s this got to do with me as a student (or, indeed, practitioner)?

Well, I suppose we all have the choice – to live at the periphery, to live at the centre or, as most of us will do, somewhere in between.   “I don’t have a choice” is an interesting expression.  We all have choices all of the time.  What we actually mean is that “I chose to take this route because, if I don’t, something unpleasant will happen”.  As a student at the NCoA, I well remember a fellow inmate complaining that “they are making me do ….”  It had to be pointed out that she was there of her own choice and she numerous options – she was simply ‘reacting’ and thus abdicating responsibility for her own decision. 

Your response if you ‘react’ to the work you’re given at College can only ever be partial (ie. from the peripheral).  However, if you ‘act’ to do the work, and accept that you have chosen this course of action (from the centre), then it will be total – and hence you will be ‘in the moment’, ‘alive’ and unburdened whilst you do it.

Metta

PS.  I mentioned that this separation concept is also a form of protection – this is a big subject (especially for those dealing in Qi) and deserving of a separate Blog entry at a later date.