#365Gratitude Day 219: Simplicity & Detachment

Taoism is often paradoxical. It's extraordinarily simple, which makes understanding it incredibly complex.

A core idea in Taoism is its "three treasures", three virtues that when practiced bring peace, and power to your life. They are:

• Compassion
• Simplicity
• Humility

It's that second one, simplicity, or jian (pronounced chian) that's on my mind today.

Jian

A related idea that goes right along with jian is that of detachment. When I first began my studies about a decade ago, mindful detachment was a total mystery to me. I thought it meant apathy, or indifference. Not so at all. 

 Verse 7 of the Tao te Ching has some instruction on this. 

The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desires for itself;
thus it is present for all beings.

The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.

Detachment isn't not loving or caring about a thing. It's just the opposite. It's having identification with all things. It's not playing favorites. 

Let's say you go out to eat, and want the chicken. But they're out. You have the salmon instead. Because your needs are simple, just to eat, either choice is fine. You're detached from having to have the chicken. It's not that it doesn't matter.  It's that you are fine however it works out. 

When your needs are simple, you can fulfill them simply.  

That's it.  

It's taken me over a decade to work this out. I'm grateful for the experience and the knowledge. 

#dailyThink: The Two Most Important Questions

Ironically, I can't tell you exactly when or where I first learned them, but there are these two questions which are THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS IN THE UNIVERSE™

Typographic hyperbole aside, they really are the two most important questions anyone can, will, or has ever asked you.

I can ask you them, and conveniently you can ask yourself them, too.  Ready?  My only proviso is, please read them both before answering either. Then, when you do, answer both.  Here they are:

Where are you?  What time is it? 

I can hear you from here. "Really? That's it? I'm in the parking lot behind a plumbing supply shop.  It's 2:37am. Whatever."

I'll give you that they sound like simple questions.  Heck, they are simple questions. But their answers are profound, if you really think about them. 

Sure, plumbing supply store, 2:37am. Let's dig deeper. ​

Where is that plumbing supply store?  Let's pretend it's Rebuilding Exchange on Webster Avenue, in Chicago. ​

Where is that exactly?  ​

Sure, it's near thr water, not far from a Party City, but go BIGGER. 

It's in Chicago.  That's in Illinois.  That's in the United States. Keep going. North America.  Western Hemisphere. Earth. Solar System. Orion Arm of the Milky Way, in our galaxy, in the Universe. 

Right. Got it. Where exactly, is the Universe? 

You don't know. I don't either. 

Now let's try the time.  2:37am.  In comparison to what? Greenwich Mean Time, sure. Based on what?  Sure, there was a date and time we all agreed to use that as a standard, but that's not what I'm talking about. You know the date, and the time, and that it's 2000 some odd years since the putative birth of Christ.  But go bigger than that. How old is the universe before THAT supposedly happened?  Close to 14 billion years, apparently.  It's a large enough number to be functionally gibberish to you.  

Short answer: You don't know. 

Me neither. 

So let's try those questions again.  I ask myself these questions all the time. 

Where am I?  I'm here. ​

What time is it? It's now. ​

Here and now are the only definitive where and when I have. ​

Ok, so what?  ​

Well, the big deal about this moment in this place being the only moment and place you have is that it's liberating and empowering. ​

It's liberating because you're the end product of every single thing that's ever happened. All those things happened before you, before now. Invention of the wheel, colonization of North America, new math, and microwave popcorn​ all had to happen so that you could sit here eating corn chips and reading my blog.  

Alan Watts said that each person is a function of the whole universe the way each wave is a function of the whole ocean.  ​

So you don't have to bemoan things that have happened to you, nor celebrate them overmuch either. ​

You can however, be fully present for them. 

That's where the empowerment comes in.  When you are fully present in the moment, you can literally do anything, one thing at a time. If I decide I want to become a Portuguese fisherman, I can totally do it. 

• leave the office
• stop at the bank
• withdraw life savings
• stop at home for passport
• buy one way plane ticket to Portugal
• Get off plane.
• Travel to small fishing village
• Find kindly fisherman, convince him I want to learn from him
• And so on....

Furthermore I'm aware that whatever it is that's happening in this moment, it, like all things will pass.  We have no choice in this matter. We are all methodically and surely creeping toward death. 

Cheery, eh?  Actually, it really is. Nothing makes a sunrise quite so beautiful as knowing you will never see the exact same one again.  Next time you hug someone, or eat a piece of fruit, think about how each one of those is a unique experience that cannot be repeated.  

There's a funny thing that happens to you once you practice this sort of mindfulness.

Anyone that hangs out with me on a regular basis usually gets really frustrated with me because it seems like nothing bothers me. 

That's really not true at all.  I get frustrated, scared, angry, and irritated just as much as anyone else. 

But for the better part of a decade now, I've made a point of asking myself where I am, and what time it is. When I do and realize I don't know, it tends to blunt the sharp ends of those bad feelings. 

#365Gratitude Day 218: My friend Benny

My friend Benny in a word: challenging. 

Benny likes to debate.  He's got a lot to debate about. He's an atheist, a rationalist, a skeptic, a gender politics and social justice crusader, polyamorous, and kinky. 

He's smart.  

He's opinionated.  

He's not afraid to tell you what he thinks. Oh boy, is he not ever afraid of that.  

And you know what? That's FANTASTIC.  We like each other enormously. We agree about a whole bunch of things. We disagree about a whole bunch of things. We get on famously not in spite of that, but because of that.  

He might say that the world would be a more amazing place if more people had friendships like ours.  

I on the other hand, would probably say that the world is already amazing just how it is, and that it's irrelevant to me what humanity does as a whole, because there is no such thing. 

He may read this and argue with me about that. If he does, or doesn't, either way I'm very grateful for his friendship.  

#365Gratitude Day 217: New books

I'm obsessed with the Ex-Heroes series by Peter Clines, specifically the audiobooks. 

They're novels about superheroes trying to help protect an enclave of humans during a zombie apocalypse. 

I know.  When I first heard about them I thought they sounded stupid too. 

They're not. They're witty, smart, and fascinating. The books pay homage to all sorts of geek culture tropes.   

The audiobooks are particularly amazing. The multivoice narration is artfully done. 

I first stumbled across the books as part of a promotional sale. I quickly ate through the first two books, and I'm almost done with the third.  

I'm grateful for the way new books can grab me and enfold me in their world.  

#365Gratitude Day 216: My Supportive Friends

This is quick and simple.  I've been doing a series of book readings this summer, while the podcast is on hiatus.  Since it's inception, I've had the attendance of, and support from a cast of regulars who are just wonderful.

In no particular order, I wan to thank:

• Hiddenpartition, who has ALWAYS attended each reading, and joined me in Skype after, to boot.  They're awesome!
• Zorro, my fellow author and good friend, who promotes the heck out of the readings, and my books.  He's a mightily good friend.
• My little girl Valentalae, who not only works the crowd in the chatroom, but who adds her wit and perspective to the readings.  Everything I do that she helps me with is better for it.  I love her.
• Autieab - If I were a country, autie would be the head of my embassy in Redditland.  He promotes my stuff there wonderfully, and I'm super grateful for it.

I'm grateful for these wonderful people.