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December 19, 2008

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Brian,

For my conversational need of clarification:

Is an anept, One who has a "free-minded" normal mind?

The free-minded "normal" mind means that One is not free or independent as long as that One uses the mind that releases the mind to rope that One's mind and keep dragging it back.

The normal free-minded, is One that does not stop and linger anywhere even when set free.

When One embodies this free-minded normal mind, then independence is possible in One's actual practice.

I like these passages, hopefully my rewrites are in order.

In addition, is the word, "adept" an English translation of something? I wonder how or why the "adept" word was chosen?

Thanks for any replies,
Roger

Silly me, I searched for adapt, didn't find anything. Then realized my typo, and searched adept, found much clarification.

Roger, your modified rewrite sounds good to me. The basic message I get from the passages I quoted -- as influenced by my Tai Chi practice -- is this:

Flowing fluidly and appropriately with life is mostly a matter of seeing what is really happening. This is different from what our conceptual mind considers to be happening.

Tai Chi is mostly a responsive martial art. It isn't based on taking the initiative and overwhelming an opponent, as traditional karate pretty much is.

Rather, it is "fueled" (so to speak) by an opponent's or partner's movement. Then the Tai Chi practitioner responds to the movement fluidly and flowingly, adjusting continually to the overall situation -- physical, mental, intentional, emotional.

In this sense Tai Chi is similar to the sort of swordplay discussed in the Soul of the Samurai book. When you stop to note, "He's about to strike me" or "I just got in a blow," that's when you're most vulnerable. You're no longer in touch with what's going on in the moment, but what is imagined to occur in the future or past.

There are lessons here for spiritual practice and our attitude toward religiosity. Maybe we're a lot closer to where we want to be, or should be, than we think. Maybe it's simply our failure to see what's going on, right here and right now, that creates a sensation of "something is lacking."

We're all prone to second-guessing ourselves. There can be some value in that, for sure, in certain circumstances. But the samurai realized that first-guessing is what keeps you alive, a free-flowing attentiveness to the situation in which you find yourself engaged.

Once the "normal mind" adds on a reflection of itself, pondering what has appeared in the normal mind, hesitancy, doubt, and mechanical responses are fostered. Not good if you're in a sword fight. Or more broadly, life.

Testing to see if I can post a comment, since someone else said he couldn't. TypePad has a notice saying: "Some users are experiencing issues with the comment form on their weblogs. We are working on this currently."

If you're "some user," hopefully the problem will be fixed soon.

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