Autumn Autumn,
the end of summer,
walking enjoying the trees
and forest bottom.
The fantastic colors
smell of soil and grass
leaves the forest floor covers.
The sun is low,
long shadows,
the beauty is mind blow.
It is time to find the warm clothes.
Love, Health And Wisdom
Brian
Initially, several things stand out to me here. First was my pre-conceived notion that just focusing on defense will never win you anything. That’s not how you win in sports for instance. But this isn’t a game. Sun Tzu isn’t talking about winning and losing but the contrast between invincibility and victory. The word invincibility also stands out to me because I never hear such terms of finality when talking about military strategy because so often things go wrong and you can pretty much never count on something always working -yet that is exactly what Sun Tzu is saying.
The next word that stood out to me was POSSIBILITY. It is not so certain. It means that in attacking, there is risk. In defense, there is certainty. I think that the act of attack puts you in a vulnerable place, exposes you, and extends your forces leaving you less concentrated. I see it happen a lot when I teach my students in kickboxing. You can only win if you put in that good strike, but you have to do it so fast and avoid an attack from your opponent at the same time. So when you attack you lower your guards and you are vunuable.
Kazuzo, 9th Dan in Judo has another view on this:
It is quite interesting that Sun Tzu, this great conqueror of Asia lists the certainty of defense and the risks of attack yet is a chief aggressor by his own nature.
But when I have said this, Sun Tzu also said, that:
Love, Health And Wisdom
Brian
Love, Health And Wisdom
Brian
The Pause. What a brilliant thing to do – to pause. Yet pausing isn’t something we typically even consider doing when we are in the heat of a moment. That’s the entire reason we need to Practice The Pause. By telling ourselves to practice the pause we are preparing ourselves to be aware and ready to implement it when that heat of the moment does arise in our day…and let’s face it, there is at least one moment that arises in every day when we really ought to be ready to use it.
The Pause is good everywhere. Also in sports. Not the 100 meters of course, but e.g. soccer. Change of speed, you wait for a moment and then a new good situation accurs.
One way to practice the pause is to put a post-it note on the bathroom mirror where you will see it first thing when you wake up in the morning. Then put another one somewhere where you will see it in the midst of your day at the time you know you most often need to be reminded of it, perhaps on the dashboard of the car if you tend to get road rage when you are driving, or perhaps on the garage door as you head into the house so you see it when you walk into the house after a long day of work hungry and grouchy and tired, or somewhere in your home where you find yourself the most easily frustrated and impatient with your loved ones. Just putting that little post-it reminder in a few strategic places can make a huge difference in helping you remember that you want to practice the pause.
I can think of many times in my life, I wish I had practiced the pause, and I cannot think of a single time, I am glad where I didn’t. Nothing good ever comes from a snap response, a snap judgment, or a snap reaction. Reacting harshly to anything only leads to us doing and saying things we will later regret. But if we commit ourselves each morning to practice the pause in our day we will stay alert and be ready to take advantage of the power of the pause and the happiness it can bring when implemented.
Thank You Amy Rees Anderson!
Love, Health And Wisdom
Brian
Always on the move. Always on my way to achieve something. I set myself many goals. I want, I want, I want to have it, get it because it gives me prestige, acknowledgement and happiness. That is what I think, that is what I feel. But does it give me inner peace? Does it really give me real happiness, pleasure and peace in my soul?
…When we know how to take control over our emotions at this point, we are in control and have the ability to think clearly. This knowing and skill saves our health and gives inner peace. You can learn to take control.
A way to find that inner peace is to be good friends with your body. You have to learn to be 100% part of your body. Your body and soul has to be fully connected and work together. Therefore you have to find the FLOW with your body through different kinds of activities.
“You have a choice. Live or die. Every Breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be.”
Chuck Palahniuk
To get there you have to learn how to breathe right. Breathing is your anchor. Breathe as deep as you can and try to feel your whole body at the same time. Feel the great force your posses.
There is a way to access your inner peace instantly when you find yourself suddenly in a situation which makes you feel stressed, worried and overwhelmed. It is good to know that we have to think positive, however when your body is under pressure and tensed it is nearly impossible to access those ‘positive’ thoughts. As your breathing changes to shallow and blood doesn’t receive enough oxygen, your brain is not working clearly. Your body creates a state of emergency, this state is good when you have real danger in life, as it gives you strength to fight and defend yourself. However in today’s world we get this state too often and it just damages our health. In this short article, I’ll show you the way to access your inner peace instantly with a simple method of breathing. It will help you in difficult situations and give you power, clear mind and calmness to deal with the situation.
When we are suddenly faced with stressful emotions, where there is no real danger – we can apply these 2 STEPS:
1. Identify the way you breathe. There are 2 ways of breathing and I’ll give you the differences, so you can identify what way you are using.
2. Switch the Breathing. You will know how to switch your breathing and I’ll give you easy instructions, so you can practise.
…How to identify the way of breathing?
1. Stressful Way of Breathing.
When you breathe in, your chest rises and when you breathe out, it falls. As you are breathing using your chest muscles, it is tiresome and they can’t inflate the lungs as well as the diaphragm. And as your brain needs more oxygen in a stressful situation, to be able to think clearly, you start breathing much faster. This fast and shallow breathing actually is not helping you to get calm, it makes you more stressed and anxious. It seams that you are breathing in a way that there is not enough air available. At this same time your body produces poisonous chemicals, which accelerate aging, damages health and effects general well being.
2. Relaxed Way of Breathing.
When you breathe in your belly rises and when you breathe out – it falls. Long and deep breathing. You are using your diaphragm, which easily expands your lungs and you have enough oxygen, so you can think clearly and be calm. The rhythm of the breathing is steady. When you watch a baby sleep and you see the baby’s belly rising up when it breathes in, down when it breathes out. That is the relaxed way of breathing. The air is sufficient and the state of body is relaxed. You know already what it is and do it naturally when you yawn or sigh.
Pure joy of movement is how Debbie Hanoka describes salsa dancing. She says the energy of both the crowd and her partner help her stop thinking about what happened five minutes ago and get her to focus on what’s happening on the dance floor. “It feels like a rollercoaster where you don’t know what’s coming next so you just let it happen and go with it,” she says.
For those who can’t lose themselves in the pumping and pounding of cardio and weights, yoga offers the ultimate opportunity to experience a “be here now”-type mind-body connection. For Pip Coburn, a marathoner who’s recently turned to yoga for some balance in his workout routine, the flow in yoga is truly about being present in the moment. “There are times when I forget that there is anyone else in the class and all I hear is the instructor’s voice guiding me and encouraging me,” he says. “There is just this moment. And all’s right with the world.”
It makes sense that swimming and flow go together for so many people. You’re cushioned, soundproofed and soothed by the water. There’s no crowded fitness class to contend with—it’s just you slicing through the water. Cait Drap, a triathlete who trains with Full Throttle, the elite triathlon team at New York City’s Chelsea Pier’s Sports Center, says flow didn’t always come easily, but now she relishes her time in the pool. “Usually it takes a little warm up to get that feeling of flow,” she says. But when I reach it, I can stay there forever. Then it’s just kick, pull and go.”
Running is often referred to as a moving meditation. For people like Tina Gowin, an avid half marathoner, it’s almost hypnotic. “When I first started running, I was always very aware of every move my body made,” she remembers. “I worked on my form and at a certain point, my body learned a specific rhythm. I didn’t have to think about every move anymore. Now some of my runs feel more like a daydream, and I finish up thinking, ‘Wow, did I just do all that?’”
Placing one foot in front of the other is an easy way for just about anyone to achieve flow. While it’s possible to do this walking on flat pavement, Kathy Aleoba takes it one step further (so to speak) by hiking up steep mountain trails. Her flow comes from what she calls a “freedom of the hills.” She says: “There’s a moment where you let go and start to trust your feet. I stop overthinking everything and just feel the movement.”
Love, Health And Wisdom
Brian
Love, Health And Wisdom
Brian
In The Buddhist Guide to a Happy Life, The Noble Eightfold Path is described as a journey of becoming detached from desired outcomes. Letting go of the need to control sets you on the noble path.
This simple cheat sheet to Buddhism will help you stay on your path and mindful of The Four Noble Truths, Buddha’s first sermon after he reached the stage of Nirvana.
Love, Health And Wisdom
Brian
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography
I travel each morning through wunderful landscape on my mountainbike to work and from work. Through rain, snow, stormy weather and lovely sunshine. My bike is my true companion.
In the spirit of full disclosure, you must know I am an admitted travel addict and spiritual explorer. My life and the traveled paths I have chosen have been inspired by the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Make as many experiments as possible.
For me, travel is the greatest experiment. It brings forth curiosity and the urge to investigate the experience of being alive. When we travel we get out of the old and settled habits of our daily lives and feel inspired to see the world anew. This heightened sense of awareness stays with us when we go home and permanently influences our perspective on life. When I ride my bike to and from work, I always travel different ways, roads and paths to get new experiences.
As Kate Douglas Wiggins puts it, “There is a kind of magic about going far away and then coming back all changed.” Once you allow yourself to get a little lost, reduce any over-controlling tendencies, and lose the sense of urgency, you no longer want to return to your old habits. You feel like life is offering you a new beginning, and it is.”
Let these traveling quotes inspire you:
1. “Travel brings power and love back into your life.” – Rumi
2. “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
3. “Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.” – Wendell Berry. A Place on Earth.
4. “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Christopher McCandless
5. “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”
– Hans Christian Andersen. The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography.
6. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It.
7. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
8. “There are several ways to react to being lost. One is to panic. Another is to abandon yourself to lostness, to allow the fact that you’ve misplaced yourself to change the way you experience the world.” – Audrey Niffenegger. Her Fearful Symmetry.
9. “What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” – Jack Kerouac. On the Road.
10. “But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” – Bill Bryson. Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe.
11. “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” – Ernest Hemingway
12. “Traveling outgrows its motives. It soon proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you – or unmaking you.” – Nicolas Bouvier. The Way of the World.
13. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
14. “Personally I like going places where I don’t speak the language, don’t know anybody, don’t know my way around and don’t have any delusions that I’m in control. Disoriented, even frightened, I feel alive, awake in ways I never am at home.” – Michael Mewshaw
15. “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” – Pico Iyer
16. “I travel light. But not at the same speed.” – Jarod Kintz. The Days of Yay are Here! Wake Me Up When They’re Over.
17. “I am infinitely curious and almost infinitely patient with mishaps, discomforts, and minor disasters. So I can go anywhere on the planet””that’s not a problem.” – Elizabeth Gilbert. Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage.
18. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese
19. “There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.” – John Steinbeck
20. “The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home — and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.” – Rolf Potts. Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.
21. “Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to.” – Thornton Wilder. Our Town.
22. “We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with the emphasis on “good” rather than on “time”….” – Robert M. Pirsig. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values.
23. “There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed.” – Kate Douglas Wiggin. New Chronicles of Rebecca.
24. “Travellers understand, instinctively and by experience, that travel and adventure change and elongate time, even while navigating the deadlines of airline and train departures.” – Paul Sheehan
Love yourself, love your day, love your life!
Brian
