Clarity

I was recently asked by a student about qigong methods to sever old ties and let go of energy to replace them with healthy ties and energy. I found the question interesting and after some time of contemplation this is the letter I wrote:
It's a long painful process, this learning. Letting go of past hurts and severing bonds is never an easy task. Additionally,  it is not something one is ever done doing; even singular bonds. This is especially so because of the various software we carry around from our childhood. Some of this software is basic operating structures of our neurology.
We are creatures made to bond, and we bond powerfully and deeply. What we can best learn is compassion. Compassion for self, and compassion for others in any situation. I have found that by actively practicing compassion for each person in a situation I am able to let go of any energy I need to.
There are no magic formulae; no secret qigong methods that instantly dissolve all your attachments. So, you can forget looking for them. From my experience, anyone selling you one is doing just that; selling you something. Listen to the sizzle of the steak and how much they talk about how effective it is and why and you'll know what I mean. When something works and someone knows it does they don't need to convince you to 'buy into' it.

The only way I have ever found that effectively teaches a person about how to stop forming unhealthy attachments and start forming healthy ones is clarity. Clarity is not something that just happens. Clarity is something that is built brick by brick with your awareness. Everything must be included. And this is no mean feat. We must learn to observe ourselves with detachment and compassion while still being truly and fully engaged in being our authentic selves. There is no short cut. and there is no one method or easy way to do this.
What I've taken to doing is questioning. Question every moment. What is happening right now?  What am I feeling? Where does this feeling originate? What does it pertain to? This moment?  My past? Who is this that is feeling? What is this feeling? Live in the place of not knowing anything and make no assumptions.
Curiosity can be your guide and your teacher, but only if you have the courage to give up what you think you know or even what you think you are feeling to experience what is authentic. Our minds are the true illusion makers. They lie to us based upon the patterns of our wounds and the illusions we have learned to live with. So, we must always question what our heads are telling us. Even what we think we are feeling. Ignore what your head says about your feelings. Listen to the feeling itself, not the words associated with it. Words are not the Tao, not the ever present power of being. They are not the life force, the subtle voice of the mother or the green. They never can be. They can't even do a creditable job of pointing at these things, only our lives can do that. And we are not usually living our lives but living our minds.

WuWei. What? Wait, Who what?

                Balance.  What is it? I ask this question of myself and of others and I may get many answers. Homeostasis is one possible answer. Another is a central point amidst an ever changing backdrop.  But what is it? Is it a place, a thing? How can one arrive at this place of balance, if it is a place at all?  In the body one may say you are balanced when you are not falling over.  But are you truly?  After all, are you not often creating tension on this muscle against that to maintain your upright position? Is that truly balance, or is it more of holding a state of imbalance so that one does not fall over? And what is the result of this tension?  More tension that builds up in an ever increasing state until entropy over takes the inherent order and break down occurs?  So then balance, even in this simple act of not falling over, is something more.  But what?  Perhaps it is a state where one is not falling over and also not creating a state whereby more actions need be created to rectify the actions made to create the balance in the first place!  (wow, what a thought - full of words! I think however there is something in here.)  Not creating the need for more activity to rectify the actions previously taken to rectify other imbalance situations… hmmm. 

                What is that state?  How do we get there?  Suppose we were to start where we are. (The only option available to us, incidentally and also quite a challenge in and of itself.) Wherever we are is likely in some state of at least minor imbalance. (at least).  But before we can act would it not be prudent to observe first?  And even in the situation of observing something as simple as standing upright we can discover quickly that we have a seemingly endless capacity for not paying attention to all the details so that we are still always compensating for previous activity.  We never truly arrive at a free point of true balance but more of a constant rectifying for a previous habit of over acting (also an interesting point to be explored).

                By this then it correlates that we can never really arrive at a state of balance by doing more, but rather by doing less we may have the possibility of achieving a state of balance (try this with the aforementioned standing still exercise).   In fact I would go so far as to say that in order to achieve balance we must actually first do nothing at all. Perhaps I mean here to give up all doings (at least temporarily) in order to apprehend what a state of balance may feel like.  Of course once we begin doing again we usually will begin by doing as we have always done. And so we will again need to come to a state of non-doing in order to find and re-familiarize ourselves with this state of balance until we can learn how to do while always not doing (or more precisely, not doing anything that will not serve balance). What is this that I am talking about, this doing/not-doing?  WuWei has been used, as has non-doing and a whole host of other phrases.  But all of it comes from this concept. This is exceedingly difficult in my experience, this doing/not doing.  In order to embody this principle it is my experience that one must become intimately familiar with this state of balance (harmony).  So much so that it becomes a natural state of being and that one may follow this feeling of balance through doings, or rather, happenings.  For in this state one may come to realize that all doings are folly but following happenings while maintaining this state of balance is not only possible, it is the only rational choice when held up against the effort and cost of doings.