Happy Day to All!
Seems since I’ve been back in the office its been non-stop catch up and planning for the next level of my business.
Now that I’m home and grounded my strength is coming back. I had the best deadlifting workout in a long while yesterday. I did 3 sets of 405 followed by a set of 405 x 1 + 365 x 3 and final set of 365 x 4 for 5 sets total, coupled with reptilian crawls. I really feel great!
Today I’ll be working with clients up at the house so I’d like to share with you my Tao-Te-zen sutra: Fire Is A Starter
Fire as you know is a highly transformative agent, yet without fire, would a seed start growing? Without fire, could the biosphere exist on this planet? Without the fire of the sun, could a solar system have gotten started?
Without the metabolism in your body which represents the fire principle, could you even start your day?
The male sperm represents the fire principle; the egg represents the water principle. Without a sperm, there is nothing to start the egg.
So this Sutra implies that fire is a starter and in knowing that we must also be aware of what magnitude of fire or warmth is productive so that what we’re trying to start does not essentially burn us or others down.
Lightning comes from nowhere
The sky goes forever
The earth was once the fire that made the ground
Fire is the light created as everything becomes no-thing
Fire is the starter lit with one hand
Now is when the fire starts
Now is when it ends
Tai chi is where fires start
Wu chi is where they end
TAO-TE-zen practice is that of the fire keeper
Keeping warm and bright
You peacefully lead the way
Mastering your fire as you move, think, breathe, and eat
That is zen
What are your expressions, your ways of connecting to “Fire is a Starter”?
Are you being an effective fire keeper or are you in the habit of burning the barn down so to speak?
If you are, this is a great opportunity to conserve resources and keep the barn warm instead of taking the home away from the animals and losing the functionality of the barn due to ineffective management of the inner fire.
Mastering your fire as you move, think, breathe, and eat, that is zen.
That is the process. That is what life teaches us, and it is that process that produces wisdom.
In that wisdom we learn to manage our desires and wills so as not to create waves, so to speak.
We learn to sleep deeply and focus on what is important and do what we love to do, not what we think we have to do.
Because when we are in love, any labor is a labor of love, and that is something that we recover from with a smile on our face as opposed to being grumpy and disconnecting from life.
That is zen.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
