Character

Standing builds backbone. While it's great to have energy, and cosmic experiences, and internal power, in the end I am a believer in the fundamental importance of character. I believe in the practice that becomes discipline. I believe that energy and power should be going towards making people's lives more vital and meaningful.

Standing helps me to build character by helping me to resist the cult of personality that exists in our society. Obviously at some point character was a cult too. Maybe the worship of character in the 19th century made some people rigid and judgmental. That's not what I want. What I want character to bring to my life is stability and security. To my life and to others.

Standing never ceases to be a challenge to me. You'd think at some point I would get up and feel some huge reservoir of power that will never need more replenishing. Maybe it works that way from some people. But it's not that way for me.

Life is demanding. My mother is ill and depressed. The economy is changing and the career I chose for myself, writing, seems less and less feasible every day. My son is sad because he doesn't seem to be cultivating meaningful friendships at his elementary school, and his father doesn't make much effort to keep in touch.

I'm trying to cultivate a saying in our family. With responsibility comes power. But with responsibility comes challenge and this needs the power that you have to give.

metal brain

Things are progressing. I'm feeling more focused. I'm feeling more grounded. But I know that I'm still more anxiety driven than I want to be.

When I practiced today I began to imagine that the metal energy that I was cultivating was forming this deep permanent structure in my body and in my brain. Almost as though my body was becoming a very high quality, enduring machine that consciousness was going to flow freely through for the rest of my life.

I finished my practice by visualizing a wrecking ball destroying all the old structures used by the anxiety and sadness to dominate my life. My body and brain is now this funky new machine. It's going to last a long, long time.

There's still some clean up to do to move on from the old structures. But I feel quite firmly entrenched in my consciousness practice. And as a result I believe that consciousness is now firmly entrenched in my being.

more metal

Still having some focus problems. But the metal training is taking root.

One of the things I realized is that metal is a symbol of endurance, permanence and commitment (although, sadly, if we really wanted a symbol of endurance we might want to consider plastic training. From what I've read McDonald's happy toys have as great a chance of being around hundreds of years from now as wedding rings. But I digress because my mind is digressive.)

Anyways. Maybe if I work on my metal training I'll be a little less at the mercy of my anxiety drives.

What I'm doing right now is imagining my tan tien as a magnet that sucks in all the little distracted thoughts that keep buzzing around in my brain. Another thing I imagine is having a couple of big axes that cut through the scattered thoughts. Or little blades that quickly slice them into mulch.

Mostly I just try to imagine my inner strength as something extremely permanent. A permanent grounded force that will be there no matter what.

heavy metal

Of course it's not my brain I want back. It's my core. My consciousness.

I'm distracted, at the mercy of an anxious drive in my brain that drifts off to reparative fantasies to sooth whatever it is that's bothering me. But whatever it is seems lost in the chaotic underbrush of my mind.

So today I'm trying to cultivate some metal power. There are specific exercises in chi kung where you cultivate a feeling with the sharpness and weight of metal instruments. In martial arts you can use this power to use a sword, or to use your limbs like swords.

But you can also use it to develop mental clarity, to develop the ability to get right to the point.

These energies are supposed to develop protective strength. Right now I'm feeling tossed around by inner forces, bad habits, unchecked drives. I don't really want to live this way. So I'm setting out today with my mental machete.

I'm also trying to gather my power by focusing on my tan tien as though it were a magnet drawing more and more energy into it all the time. So that it can't suck my scattered thoughts into my gut and fuel my instincts.

Let's see how that works.