Live in the Dao - Practice Everything, Nurture Life, and Savor the Now

Zhuangzi

The Tale of Cook Ding 

Cook Ding was carving an ox carcass for Lord Wenhui. With each touch of his hand, heave of his shoulder, step of his feet, thrust of his knee – whop! whish! – he wielded his knife with a whoosh, and every move was in rhythm. It was as though he were performing the Dance of the Mulberry  Grove or keeping to the beat of the Constant Source music.

“Ah, marvelous!” said Lord Wenhui. “Surely this is the acme of skill!” Cook Ding laid down his knife and replied, “What your servant loves, my lord, is the Dao,  and that is a step beyond skill."

“At the beginning, when I first began carving up oxen, all I could see was the whole carcass.  After three years I could no longer see the carcass whole, and now I meet it with my spirit and don’t  look with my eyes. Perception and understanding cease and spirit moves as it will. I follow the  natural form: slicing the major joints I guide the knife through the big hollows, and by conforming to the inherent contours, no vessels or tendons or tangles of sinews – much less the big bones – block my blade in the least."

“A good cook changes his knife once a year, but this is mere slicing. An ordinary cook  changes his knife once a month, because he hacks. I’ve been using this knife now for nineteen years;  it has carved thousands of oxen, yet the blade is as sharp as one fresh off the grindstone. You see,  there are gaps between these joints, but the blade edge has no thickness. If a knife with no thickness  moves into a gap, then it’s wide as need be and the blade wanders freely with plenty of leeway.  That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is as sharp as one fresh off the grindstone."

“But nevertheless, whenever a tangled knot lies ahead, I spot the challenge and on the alert I  focus my sight and slow down my hand – then I flick the blade with the slightest of moves, and before you know it the carcass has fallen apart like earth crumbling to the ground. I stand with knife  raised and face all four directions in turn, prancing in place with complete satisfaction. Then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

“How fine!” said Lord Wenhui. “Listening to the words of Cook Ding, I have learned how
to nurture life!”

~ Zhuangzi: The Inner Chapters - 3.2 The Tale of Cook Ding

Download full PDF book courtesy of Indiana State University 

http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Zhuangzi.pdf

Honesty, Zen, Social Media, and Creativity

Recently I started to self publish my stuff to social media. I used all the social accounts I already used like Facebook and LinkedIn and even started to use some I never have before like Twitter and Instagram.

Today I am baffled by having to open up all my social media pages and seeing each of my different crowds and their likes or comments.

My Zen started to fade as I realized how much work it would take to interact with all my audiences honestly and with real human interest. I also saw Instagram is plagued with bots so you will get far more likes than views.  If you don't believe me upload a video with #hashtags. You also see ridiculous comments obviously misplaced and making no sense whatsoever, but will undoubtedly have a link to someones website in it.

I had never used Twitter before and found it far more mentally stimulating and have replaced my daily Facebook habit with it completely. There are people playing follow unfollow as well, trying to claw their way to the top of the social peak, but it is easily managed with one scroll through who you follow.

So I am going to add a bit of Zen to my life again.  I am going to reduce the number of social profiles to what I can honestly manage with real human interaction. This will both help me become more honest with my viewers, myself, and in fact provide me more time to be creative without worrying who likes it or not.

I will keep my blog.  I really like Blogger.  You can write whatever you wish (countries may vary), be as creative as you want, and post it without having to force it down someones social windpipe. They can search for it when they want to see it, and it doesn't bother them when they don't.

My new social presence...
+ Blogger (pathozen.com)
+ Twitter (curiously interesting)
+ LinkedIn (Resume)
+ YouTube (Video projects)
+ Google+ (never use it, but it bothers me none, and comes with my Gmail.

I am wasting my time with...
- Instagram (too many bots, hard to manage, must update with phone)
- Facebook (politically engaged, closed and private circles.) I might have kept this, but now somehow I can not post my tweets to it because of a technical glitch that they report but do not fix. Perhaps I will reactivate after awhile, it is not personal ;)
- Buffer (interesting tool for managing all social accounts.  Gets views, but increasingly expensive and trial is now more limited.)

I may make more changes.  On the path of Zen our time engaged in ego driving activities must be identified and checked. It is contradictory to a Zen life to have to much or little ego.  It is to live life honestly as you are. Give real human interaction, unless you want to be famous, create an illusion bubble that will pop.  It is your path. It is your choice.

As for me.. if you must have updates follow me on twitter.  I follow back, and only mute you if you post incessantly or disrupt my Zen. Cheers!

Propaganda Awareness Propaganda

Conspiracy is not the problem. Propaganda is.

Zen Dragon takes a look into the wacky mindset of flat earthers and other conspiracy groups, revealing why so many people fall for this parlor trick. Unfortunately many do not understand what is happening when they watch long propaganda videos.

The Fearless Monk - Ep. 5

Courage and victory are not the same.

Chakra and Associated Elements

Click on the image for a better quality version. 

When you are focused on balancing your chakras it is helpful to know what triggers each of them. Every sense has a vibration that corresponds to that location. Planets associated with these chakras still escape my understanding for I have not explored the astrological study yet. Please feel free to contact me if you understand this correlation.

Jealousy.. The Green Dragon of Envy

What's the difference between a slut and a lady? One will tell you she cheated, the other won't tell you that.

To suggest that someone is lying would be the very accusation of deceitful intent where jealousy is born. Is it so bad that someone get attention from more than just you? This feeling and word has no room in our quest for happiness. To say someone cheated and to judge them for such behavior is to cause suffering for yourself and everyone by proxy.

Can't you see how feeling jealous will cause someone not to want to be around you? Then someone bee-bops on in with a smile and makes your love happy. This irritates you because instead of being happy with your love, you somehow managed to screw up the last reminiscence of whatever made you happy with them long ago.

Perhaps the person you are with causes you to be jealous.  If you can not figure out why you are jealous chances are the problem belongs within you, not your partner. The problem has nothing to do with the trustworthiness of your partner.  The problem started with you being jealous.  When you harbor unresolved jealousies, you cause relationship problems. You are raising this dragon by yourself. Your insecurities will not be attractive to your partner, and they will begin to look elsewhere as you insist you are not worthy with your accusations and turmoil.

People can align with jealousy for power. If you are jealous in all your relationships then you must look inside yourself.  If it is, however, aroused in you by a particular individual you must be very cautious. Everyone gets lonely at times.  It is in these lonely times that it can be an exhilarating rush to have others competing for your attention.  You will find men and women alike that discuss using jealousy to arouse passion in their relationship. This is a desperate, and very dangerous way to receive attention. The dragon of jealousy does not show restraint with it's passion.

Furthermore those that succumb to the power of jealousy will continue to do so until they learn better. You will find that by arousing jealousy you will scare away those that are cautious of it and attract those that align with it. This causes chaos.  Dragons like to defeat other dragons and they all get hurt. 

Jealousy is a timid small sweet creature when it is young. Like children, it brings a bond between those that care about it. Its promises to keep your love lasting in its youth. You should never feed jealousy, and like gremlins there's something about midnight. Jealousy grows up quickly, and soon your chasing this dragon around your bedroom in the middle of the night flailing your arms around like an idiot. Nobody gets any sleep, and the safety of your home grows dim like the grey walls of a prison cell. Threatening the safety of yourself, home, children, or pets will certainly be the death of love.

Nobody cheats, nobody owns you. Stop thinking you can control others' hearts because you can't.  Resistance to what is - only causes you suffering. You can promise loyalty and dedication to someone, but if you promise your heart will never change or love another you are starting to lie. Once jealousy grows its wings it takes couples together in pairs, with both claws to its lair. This dragon does not want to destroy you. This dragon wants to keep you both near. It slays your love under the pretense of keeping it alive. This dragon loves you to death, poisoned by its venomous presence. The selfish nature of this dragon brings a bitter taste with ramifications that scar forever. We ought to discourage those that want to keep these dragons as pets. 

If anyone should recognize this dragon it is green with envy, real only to those that find it in the cracks of a relationship, and remains hidden to everyone else. If you ever see this dragon you must face fearing it. When you open your eyes it will have no power. Most of what you worried about never happened. They fly away easily when they are young. Enjoy the increased time in a happy relationship without the bondage to this dragon. 

The cheated and cheaters are the names given to the victims of jealousy. Let jealousy scurry off to other dragons to live happily when it's young. That's the best for everyone. Try to raise one of these and it will try to hatch you like an egg. Also, I do not know any dragon slayers with credible experience.

BTW..   The dragons biggest trick is convincing you, you are not him.

Updated.. The absolutely best blogging system.

For three years now I have been using Blogger.  I have no reason to go elsewhere.  Since Google has taken ownership there have been no problems as far as I can tell.

As a developer I always had a reason for testing new software and ringing the newest bells.  The one mistake I always made before was mixing my writing with my playground. While I was updating the newest blog software, or messing around in my database, and updating my plugins, my writings have repeatedly succumbed to tragic loss.

Then I went to Blogger and left the programming to the professionals.  Now I could concentrate on my writing.  The time I have had available to write has more than doubled. If you are still interested in my technical analysis, that article can be found here.

My advice was sound though.  Keeping it simple has allowed me to concentrate on what blogging is good for. It is like a car.  If you like taking it apart all the time, you won't have time to go anywhere.

Instead of getting good at installing blog software.  Stick with one and start blogging.