Saturday, December 21, 2013

Succeeding in Life by Being Mindfully Aware

Many years ago, Mr  D , an associate of ours, spent time learning the Wudang martial arts system from a Mr. Li.    (From our understanding, Mr. Li has now retired somewhere in Northern California.)

About 17 years ago, Mr D took the time to teach some of us the many interesting Wudang traditions and exercises that would assist any budding strategists in the practice of mindful awareness. During the session, he offered an efficient but pragmatic perspective of those fundamentals


Modernization of the Practices
We recently had a long discussion on these traditions and decided to document these unique practices.  During the session, 
we also integrated some other unique practices that were quite effective in chaotic times and create the following listing of those practices:
  • Climbing a steep hill during the rainy season;
  • Take one quiet weekend during the winter season to re-read a set of classics (The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, Dao Dejing, Zhuang Zi, etc.) while standing;
  • Reciting the technical principles of Baguazhang quietly during one's internal martial art training session; 
  • Humming Bach's "The Art of Fugue" in a moderately low tone while performing Baguazhang's circular walking exercise in a fixed frame mode;
  • Reciting specific principles from the Art of War essay while analyzing a situation;
  • Reflecting on a critical situation in a warm, fireplace-lighted room while listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations (The Goldberg Variations piece is great for calming those who need some time and space to contemplate and cogitate.);
  • "Fasting" for an unknown number of hours before making a grand decision;
  • Re-fueling one's tea collection before the end of the winter season.
  • Maintaining the daily habit of scripting.
  • Practicing Taijiquan on a hot day before drinking Oolong tea; 
  • Walk 10,000 steps a day.
Our friends at Cook Ding's Kitchen are big fans of this category of pragmatic practices.


The Next to Final Comments
As mentioned before. the objective of this unique list is to develop an efficient state of mindful centering and awareness.  You do know how to do that.  Do you?

"Psychology is Strategy" is our first clue to understanding the other grand meaning behind this unique listing of practices. 

Comments From The Compass Desk
One could only succeed in their endeavors  if he/she is mindfully aware of the Big Tangible Picture of the situation and know how to strategize effectively.  You do know what is in your Big Tangible Picture!?  . . .  Do you?

One could stay ahead of the curve by being mindfully aware of the Dao of the situation.  We will include details behind this unique view and the specific psychological reasoning behind each of those mentioned practices in a future post. 

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