How life isn't one big thing, but rather a flow of ever-changing moments.
“Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river.” - Lao Tzu
Life isn’t one big thing. Life is made up of lots of little moments. Some good moments, some bad moments, and certainly some indifferent ones. But, because these individual moments morph into each other we can never tell when one ends and another begins.
But that’s alright, it's just a flow, and flow is what the Universe is made up of - ever changing energy in motion.
When practising Qi Gong, Tai Chi or Yoga, we want to learn to let go of our rigidity and to flow with the energy inside of us. That energy is always there, trying to flow, but it becomes blocked by our tension, stress, worry and fear. When we use techniques to help us let go of these blockages then energy flows again and our bodies feel better and heal better.
If you put a big rock in the middle of a flowing stream, the water has to work that bit harder to get around the rock, the flow is interrupted. Of course, water and energy will always try to find a way through but if the flow becomes blocked by more and more obstructions then there comes a point when it can no longer do what it wants to do. In this way, in our body, illness and dis-ease can become manifest.
So we would do well to adapt this stream philosophy to our minds and our thinkings. Allowing the flow of thoughts and feelings to arise moment by moment and watch them come and go like the passing water in a stream. Holding on to one moment more than the other, or pushing a moment away, is like placing a rock in the stream.
Take out the rock.
“The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.” - Bruce Lee
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