Rodney J Owen
  • Home
  • Writing
  • Dao
  • Links
  • Blog

The End of The World

5/24/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Following is an excellent essay by Joan Tollifson entitled "The End of The World and What Remains".  This should give us all pause:
​
I open the window and the smell of blossoms wafts in. A friend calls, someone whose intelligence and sensitivity I greatly respect, someone who follows climate science very closely. She tells me that she thinks the human species has perhaps ten years left, twenty at most, and that what’s coming soon is a rapid escalation in both the intensity and the geographic spread of what is already happening in many parts of the world: catastrophic weather events, floods, droughts, water shortages, climate refugees streaming across borders, conflicts, wars, violence, extremism of all kinds, a collapse of basic law and order. According to my friend, even if everyone in the whole world woke up tomorrow and did everything possible to reduce our carbon footprint and our methane output, the science shows that it’s already too late. We’re past the point of no return.
​

The bulk of this is not new information to me, although the time-lines my friend offers are shorter than those I’ve previously heard. And if climate change doesn’t get us first, some kind of nuclear war or catastrophe seems increasingly inevitable. This doomsday scenario has been in the air for as long as I can remember, but suddenly, with this conversation, the apparently looming reality of this devastation captures my attention. It’s scary to imagine living through this collapse and the horrors of it, witnessing it, feeling it, experiencing it. It will involve great pain and suffering. It’s scary at my age to imagine being an old person, older than I am now, increasingly incapacitated and vulnerable, in the midst of this kind of collapse.

Over the next few days and nights after this conversation, I notice that vague feelings of depression and fear are passing through repeatedly like waves on the ocean. I feel heavy, weighted down. I lie awake in bed one night staring into the darkness.


Read More
0 Comments

The Dao of Dao

5/7/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
So we settle on this concept of "Ultimate Reality", otherwise know as Dharmakaya, or Brahman, or  God, or Tao, or Buddha-mind, or whatever.  Then we endow it with mystical qualities, make it ambiguous and basically impossible to grasp.  Well, of course it is.  But then again, it is amongst us.  We live and breathe and die in and as Ultimate Reality.

Further, we do our Qigong and Yoga trying to summon Kundalini and Primordial Energy.  But we are these energies.  Hunyuan is creative, and we and everything else in creation are in a constant state of flux, change, creation.  The flowers in the yard that weren't there yesterday are prime examples of Primordial Energy in your midst.

Maybe what we really want is experience, bliss, that buzz that comes after 45 mins of Taiji.  Well, there's nothing wrong with that.  But let's call it what it is.  It's an infusion of Qi, a jolt of energy, a bath of bliss.  Sure it is Ultimate Reality, Primordial Energy, but so is everything else including the sore toe and the jitters after too much coffee.

There is much to be said for practice, whatever that may mean to the individual.  But it is in our interest to notice the divinity that surrounds us when we aren't practicing.  As far as that goes, we don't need to practice to realize the divinity.  But let's be honest, it certainly helps and feels good in the process.

I'm not one to say that practice and training are unnecessary.  What I am saying is, look around, wake up now.  What are we practicing, what are we training for if not to live this moment to the fullest?

0 Comments

    Author

    Rodney J Owen 

    Categories

    All

    Archives

    June 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    October 2013
    July 2013

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.