About open and close
The night blooming Cerius is 'a queen for one night'.
Just for midsummer as night falls the Cerius opens his beautiful flowers.
Just for one night, then closes forever with the first rays of the morning sun.
Chinese have an idiom that refers to very short living things:
Tan Hua Yi Xian.
'Hua' refers to the changing point between open and close.
It's closing time you say? Ah no.
There is no closing without opening, no opening without closing.
"It's closing time.
Closing time, open all the doors and let you out into the world".
Leonard Cohen
Beguinage Diest 1671 Belgium.
My hometown, this is the place were I live.
“Closed garden
Come in my garden, my sister”.
This (spiritual) garden is open and closed at the same time.
Open
the mind to possibilities.
The world is full of people who have never, since childhood,
met an open doorway with an open mind.
E.D. White
"Open the mind to possibilities", and yes it sounds well, but is there a possibility that all
possibilities exist side by side or that all possibilities are impossible ?
Open
the mind to possibilities.
An open mind is what makes the difference.
Dialogue Shotokan karate - Wuwei Old Yang.
A martial art should not close your mind, it should enrich your life.
Karate and Wushu are different martial arts. Karate has had many influences which then became
absorbed into the local culture. Mostly I like differences. Korea is not Japan, China is not
Japan, the Chinese Jian-sword is different from the Japanese katana, which means that the way it
can be used is different. It's not better or worse, it's just different. The line (karate) is
different from the circle (Tai Chi). And of course there are a lot of common points between the
two; to find the common points of the circle and the line, the circle married the line and the
line married the circle. In martial arts systems we use Qi (more than others) by studying the way
of our choice. Two different martial arts systems, and one Qi. I have yet to meet a person
without Qi - (Ki-Japanese Ai-ki-do). Ki-Korean: Hap-ki-do)
or Qi, (Ch'i-Chinese) -, unless he or she is dead already.
Dialogue can create an open mind attitude.
People want nothing more than to connect and to be connected, and this has nothing to do with Facebook
or iPad.
Dialogue can create an open mind-open heart attitude, debate always creates a closed-minded
attitude. Real dialogue is a conversation with a center, not sides. It is a way of taking the
energy (qi) of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created
before. It lifts us out of 'line versus circle or, hard versus soft, female versus male, It lifts
us out of Yin versus Yang polarisation on to a greater common sense.
Which martial art is best suited for you ? It's a fact that all men dream, but not equally.
In Taoism everything has a beginning and an end.
In Tai Chi Chuan as in life there is an opening and a closing part.
Every part of your Tai Chi form has its opening and its closing part.
Follow the course of Nature. When one door closes, another opens, but
often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see
the one which has been opened for us.
Do you like smelling flowers... inhale through the nose in a natural way.
The mouth (exhale) seems to be open but is not open,
it seems closed but is not closed.
Every single Tai Chi movement has its opening and its closing parts.
We can use a short stick to feel exactly the opening
and the closing parts of the body.
What, when, why?
That’s a Tai Chi study on his on right.
Not so easy to do.
'Hua' refers to the changing point between opening and closing.
'Hua' refers to the empty point between fullness and emptiness.
'Hua' refers to the empty space between Ying and Yang.
Opening and closing the 'kwas' is a very important part of your advanced Tai Chi training.
Real chi power comes from correct opening and closing.
The centre is not moving while opening and closing.
The coccyx is centred and aligned, the spirit (shen) reaches to the top of the head.
Stillness of the body and the spirit leads to flexibility and balance,
Stillness leads to calm and deep respiration,
to deep relaxation.
By separating open and close we come to understand ourselves and our interaction with the whole universe.
Ultimately we come to understand
between the manifest world and Tao, the universal spirit of all things.
These seem to be two, but are one.
The past is closed, the future is completely open.
The moment 'now' is open and closed at the same time.
Tai Chi movements (postures) must be open and closed at the same time.
In the form your mouth should be open and closed at the same time.
Open and close are one, these seem to be two, but are one.
All things are one.
Permissive (open) or restrictive (closed)?
Being open minded is not about accepting information mindlessly.
It's about having information and making the right decisions.
About accepting others, yourself and the world as it is, without prejudice.
Being open minded is about sensitivity and balancer.
Open the mind to possibilities.
Your garden is your first protection from burglary, It is said : "Protect your garden"
(Chinese saying). In the same sense, we could say : "Protect your mind, it is your best
protection. Open doors of perception and set yourself free, but don't open your mind
for everyone and everything. "An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred
and unguarded". Better : still the mind, the mind that is really still needs no protection,
it is active and alive.
There is a difference between an open and an active mind. What Taoism requires is not an
open mind willing to examine ideas, nor a closed mind, but a clear and active mind willing
to examine ideas critically. Such an active mind -your inner knowing to the still and small
voice within, your knowing without knowing-, is open and closed at the same time. Having
such an active mind attitude is asking how something can be done rather than saying it can
be done. It is simply not true that there are no solutions to contradictions and polarities.
Taoism is not the lazy man's way of accepting the inevitable. The Taoist is not a pessimist,
nor an optimist, he's a pessimist because of intelligence, he's an optimist because of hope
and joy. Joy does not simply happen to us, we either make ourselves happy or miserable and
we will never be happy as long as we are looking for the meaning of life. Relative happiness
depends on a good night's sleep, some good breakfast, flowers in the garden and a good bottle
of wine. While the Taoist walks the Middle Way, things happen and he's one of those people
who believes things happen for a reason. His balanced mind needs no protection, his joy
depends on inner peace. His source of inner peace is the balance that has to be struck in
his mind, when he can find an active and peaceful balance within himself, he becomes the
kind person who can live in peace with others. His truth is balance. Balance is dynamic and
open to possibilities, and the opposite - which is unbalance - may not be a lie.
"An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood, it does not remain floating
forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty, by assuming the responsibility of
judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds them. Since it is able to prove its convictions,
an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants, a certainty
untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear".
(Ayn Rand. Philosophy : Who needs it).
Walking the Middle Way:
Open the mind to possibilities.
Taoism doesn't hold any secret wisdom, it only seems like a secret. There is no secret wisdom,
wisdom is the sense of balance and there is no secret for balance, you just have to feel it.
The active mind we are dealing with is not uniformly still. The problem is that our monkey mind
always creates barriers for us, the monkeys in our mind come and go depending on all the other
chaos in our life, an unstoppable landslide of thoughts about anything and everything, which keeps
coming and cannot be turned off.
An open mind is a balanced mind. It is all about balance : the balance between reason and passion,
body and mind, action and non-action, open and closed... the balance between opposites. The 'via
media' or the way between all opposite extremes is not to be found in books but through observation
and direct experience. The balanced Middle Way is so simple that complicated minds cannot see it.
Just this : reason is lack of balance, passion is lack of balance. An open mind is a lack of balance,
a mind so open that anything is welcome. A closed mind is a lack of balance, a mind so closed that
nothing is welcome. Taoism encourages to walk the Middle Way, in the middle there is balance. Man
will stay away from Yin-Yang extremes.
To walk the Middle Way is perhaps the most difficult thing, it is like walking on a razor's edge.
The challenge of walking the invisible Middle Way is that extremists on both sides only see their
visible enemy in you. Open or closed? That's a good question. Taoism is noted for its integration
of polarities; open is lack of balance, closed is lack of balance. Action is lack of balance,
non-action is lack of balance. The Chinese concept of Wuwei (action by non-action) means walking the
Middle Way.
Open your mind to possibilities.
Meditation and Tai Chi combat techniques are all about
the Middle Way found by knowledge of the extreme things.
Open and closed are relative to each other.