Correspondences
I am holding this page open for eventual use by people coming from diverse backgrounds who would like to relate their practices and understandings of 'life, environment & people' to the fundamental principle of natural inclusion (and vice versa).
If you would like to be included, please get in touch via the 'Feedback' page.
From Zhixing Wang, 5th September 2019
From Rev Roy Reynolds, 23rd September 2019
Patience (the elusive quality) - The kind of patience described here, which allows rather than tries to force wisdom to emerge from within and in accord with actual life experience, is very much the kind of patience that is needed truly to understand and appreciate natural inclusion. And it is indeed the kind of patience that is very much lacking in the rush of modern culture to compete and problem-solve at a stroke.
From Ken Masters, 4th June 2020
(EXPERIMENTAL) ‘HAIKUS’: OF THE NATURAL INCLUSION OF SPACE AND ENERGY With grateful acknowledgements to Alan Rayner and Zhixing Wang. You will see that I am adopting a flexible version of ‘Haiku’ for the purposes of expressing what is fundamentally simple, but complex in formal language, in as economical a fashion as I can. Please see them as ‘work in progress’ for truthfulness and felicity; other ‘haikus’ may eventually appear…..have a go?
Lime-trees, late summer-drowsy, Full-leaved in evening-sun, prepare for Seed-fall; Survival-capsules, ready to open, shoots sprouting.
Slow river meanders; Light reflects on waters; dark beneath; Tuned-in, see fish, swim.
Pre-dawn Dreaming-Presences from Constellations Reflect cultural-genocide: Even the rocks weep.
Space, receptive, invites; Energy, fluxing, responds. I dance, flow-form.
The Big-bang, then ‘creating’ stops? The void is timeless, always receptive, energy-circulates: Co-creation continues….
A discrete, portable ‘space-bag’ body; An aggregation of ‘parts’, internally-merged, spurious whole? Space renders us dynamically-coherent.
Trees are water-fountains, Communing through (also-sentient) mycelial channels: Mere ‘sticks in the ground’?
Dao, (still, loving receptivity); Qi, (vitalising Life-energy), responds: Mutual inclusions.
A fully-integrated, embodied ‘Unity?’ My ‘Presence’ cannot be so rigorously defined ‘Dynamic-Coherence’ feels better.
Solid, rigid, tight, dead-cog? Me, a machine-like discrete entity, an ‘absolute singularity’? Better: alive, loving, distinctly-unique, relaxed, flowing.
Our Dragon claws funnel energy; As our blood flows, internal spaciousness expands. No-mind flow-movement, non-action?
Gluon particles stick bits? Space, (reckoned inert, discountable) Pools-together.
Merge-fully to ‘Unity’? Complete separation? Human urges, and injunctions, yes: Un-natural extremes make for ‘objectifiction’.
Kenneth Masters
From Ken Masters 10 February 2021
Reflections on 'Settling the Body' Practice; relaxing when sitting, standing and lying...and staying-tuned-with-Qi.
(From my National Service in the British Army, 1956-1958...)
Army Sergeant: 'Obedience on parade'. 'Stand'up straight', (you with your heavy boots, which you must lift up to route-march); 'chest-out', 'chin-in'. 'Stay stiff, still and silent' while you are inspected..... force your posture and prove compliance....you have a uniform, you are a uniform.....I see you.....you are drilled for the habit for military 'bearing', ready to do or die. Find your self respect-or else... (Explicit: 'It'll be easier when you get used to it'.) Imposed discipline, but some good habits did happen. Me, now: 'Qi did not stop rising, then, though I'd never heard of it; nor perceived it as such. I did learn to relax on a route march', but...
What a contrast with what you teach us, and with this weekend's experience! For instance, I've found it too easy, sometimes, still, to force my posture into the right position and movements; neglecting, forgetting the progressively peaceful, imaginative inner perception of Qi, and of my bad habits, especially when sitting at my computer with my 'attention-out'. So I found that your careful, progressive approach to all 'moveable-parts' (except my jaw), this weekend, to be instantaneously transformative, with 'coherence' and 'integration'. I'm smiling as I write; can't see my eyes, but they are brighter! My head comes up without instruction, my breathing calms, the air is fresher. I let go my weight to the loving receptivity of the Earth, of yin-gravity, as I allow my legs to drop; standing, supported, head up with the rising QI, ?yang; sense my open 'Presence-to-myself', an empty-energy-field, within Timeless Cosmic Tao 'everywhere', and with responsive Cosmic, 'external' Qi, 'here and now'. Flowing with stillness, when not blocking.... I went Tigering down my local hill, after; Bearing back...
Am practising whilst I write this, though my active mind still inhibits my breathing, and my head drops; some struggle remains. Top of hips forward; navel imagined in spine; some sensed liquifaction in Jing. Yes! Head back up again. Re-focus eyes. I'm learning! Am both 'relaxed', (what IS that?, you mused for us), and 'alive', but to what degree? We experience Tangibility, 'physicality' of the basic structure; the bones, the joints AND the 'vitality of the Intangible', the non-substantial; both together at the same time. (See also: 'Natural Inclusion' Alan Rayner.) This is all 'Real' beyond any mere words; descriptive or definitive... The effective 'Presence' of your Calligraphy reaches those 'parts' that some aspects of my Gong don't!