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Intoxicated by the World of 'Being' around Me

Molly,

Recently I read about 'The slow death of purposeless walking'. This article from the BBC News
Magazine <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27186709> was referred by my friend TKT. I
found it very interesting. The article was about some famous people, like Charles Dickens, Virginia
Woolfe, Henry David Thoreau and George Orwell, who found 'creativity' through 'purposeless
walking'. And the point about 'purposelessness' or aimless walking is very true! Actually, it has
nothing to do strictly with walking per se. You can achieve the same thing if you are continually
shifting 'statics'; that is if you are sitting at a different park or at a different pavement cafeteria, as
and when at your personal fickle or fancy, and simply 'letting go' of 'Ego''Self' and watching the
world go by.

It is all to do with being like a 'fly on the wall', un-judgmental and, with equanimity, simply
nonchalantly watching the changing hues and colours of the 'busyness', scenery, vista, happenings
or goings-on around you.

If you are very good at it, and you will definitely soon become adept with constant and regular
practice, you can even just stay at the same favourite spot or 'kopitiam' or walk and traverse the
same thoroughfares, avenues or by-ways. For some reason, when you are very good at it, the
apparently same mundane scenery somehow metamophosises into different shades and
characters and configurations, changing its personality or temperament for that moment, like a
kaleidoscope.

What is the 'it' that you must you very good at, 'inherently' speaking? In this sense
'purposelessness' means having a 'mind' that is vacuous, always 'empty' waiting, ready and
longing to be 'refill' anew and afresh, like a new blank canvas 'begging' to given a chance to 'live' a
life of expression and meaning, by being painted by the master-craftsman that is the artist in the
'passion' in your luminous 'mind'. It goes without saying therefore that you need to have an innate
creativity to 'draw' or 'write' or 'pose' or 'sing' or 'invent'.

The 'potpourri' of the scenery and virtual reality and fantasy before you and your heartfelt
interaction with and experience of it, sensually and beyond expression, and otherwise, are like the
ingredients you put into a cooking pot to come up with a new magnifique Michelin 4 stars culinary
delight and sensation.

When you are really very good at it, when you get to the Dutch Master Vincent Van Gogh's
transcendental level, as in comparison with the more worldly and own to earth French Master
Monet?, you can just stare blankly inside your mind's vivid imaginations! That is when you get to
the 'qi' or 'chi' level as in mental 'qi-gong'.

I am beginning to be amazed by the 'qi' or 'chi' of all things, which is the real secret behind the
'Tao' of all things. How shall I say it? The 'Tao' is the 'Way'. But the secret or essence of the Way
is the 'qi' of all things or that factor which is inherent in all things, like the 'spirit' essence of all
things. I shall write more on what I am slowly discovering about 'qi-gong' in the future. Just a hint -
the 'qi' is all in the 'mind'! There is no physical muscular exertion of any kind at all! Just take
standing, for instance. You just stand there, not exerting any physical energy. But in your
'standing', your 'mind' must 'think' that the earth is somehow erupting and pushing you up, and
therefore your mind is exerting mentally to the hilt to push the earth from rising up! You have to
work on the 'perceived' reality that is going on in your 'mind'! Take another posture or position, that
of the laughing Buddha with both hands upraised, as if just stretching to wake up from his slumber.
Imagine however that your arms are instead like Atlas supporting the world, but here rather that
you are holding up the sky from falling! Anyway, I am diverting a bit. All I am trying to say is that
'creativity' is a form of 'qi'! 'Anything' coming from 'nothing' is like 'qi'!

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I am also enjoying just 'staring into space'! But not at that 'transcendental' level of Vincent Van
Gogh's. I say 'staring into space' in that I just stare at the sky and the drifting white clouds or the
stately estate greenery of the park or the 7 foot high brick wall fence, that separates me from my
back neighbour, treating it like the 'Wailing Wall', not thinking of anything, just keeping my mind
still, and surprisingly I am very good at it, for when I wake up from my 'space' or 'thoughtless'
reverie', half an hour or more has gone past. It is vey pleasantly peaceful, like in quiet repose. I
am beginning to enjoy the peacefulness of retirement, not a care in the world, just quiet
contentment. I am truly glad that I have reach a stage in meditation where my mind just 'is' - you
cannot say that it is thinking and yet you cannot say that it is not thinking, maybe it is thinking about
not thinking! I am just intoxicated by the world of 'being' around me!

Vince
13/5/14