Meetings: Nine.

The wise man meets everyone, 
as if for the first time.

When we meet someone for the first time,
we probably know nothing about them.
So we are likely to accord them a degree of respect
that may be omitted when meeting someone we know.

If there have been problems with people we know,
we may react to those problems as if they are current.
This has the effect of bringing the past into the present.
The problem continues, or becomes a bigger problem.

Imagining that one "knows" a person,
may be very far from the truth.
People can change unexpectedly,
for better, or for worse.

Meet everyone without expectations.
Offer the benefit of the doubt.
Extend your own goodwill.
While being ready, willing, and able
to defend yourself, should it be necessary.

Nothingness: Eight.

The Shaman is content with nothingness.
Nothingness is what he works with.
Collecting the unseen and entering into it,
until he, himself, is nothingness.

The Shaman, the Medicine Man, the Master:
they all begin as men.
Noticing the nature of nothing,
they are drawn to it, and are engaged by it.

Calmness. Silence. Emptiness. Space.
The absence of form, awaiting creation.
A linen canvas before that first brush-stroke.
The eternal silence preceding the tick of time.

Anything is possible.
Anything.

Six: Compassion.

In dealing with anger, have compassion.
Confronted by force, employ calm.
In facing argument, offer serenity.
Present no target and you will never be fired upon.

Like arranging flowers: defense is an art.
The surest defense is knowing how never to need it.
Anger is everywhere. In you and outside you.
You cannot change the world: but you can change yourself .

Compassion for yourself lessens your proneness to anger.
Becoming less angry, you will have more compassion for others.
Anger added to anger brings disaster.
Compassion added to anger, brings peace.

Remain calm, in the face of unreason.
Like any storm, it will pass.
Serenity is all that remains.

Move deftly aside from the approaching storm; do not resist it.
Be elsewhere, without moving.
Attack always needs a target:
By not being the target, what can harm you?

Ai-Ki-Do is the perfect defense.
Irresistible.
Having the ability to defend yourself against attack,
teaches the unlikeliness of needing to use it.

Wisdom: Seven.

Wisdom may be offered, never forced. 
Wisdom may be misunderstood, or rejected. 
Wisdom may be wisdom, or not. 
Wisdom remains wisdom, if it is wisdom. 

The wise man knows what the unwise do not.
That is what makes him wise.
The unwise can not see what they can not see.
The wise man may only offer a vision of the unseen.
The unwise man may accept this, or not.

Being unable to see a thing,
does not cause the unseen thing to not exist.
Refusing to accept that it may exist,
in no way removes it from existing.

What is, is.
What is not, is not.
Free will allows a man, wise, or unwise, to choose
what may or may not exist in his life.

Wisdom is folly, and folly is wisdom,
depending upon the use to which he puts his free will.
He chooses what is wise, and what is not.
The wise man offers what he knows, because he knows it.

Not to cause others to think him wise.

Control: Six.

The Master knows he controls nothing. 
Thus he never exerts control. 
How could he exert something he does not have? 
Not having control, he can never lose it.

What do people fear the most of all?
It might well be: losing control.
Why this could be so terrifying, has never been very clear to me,
but I have heard, again and again, that the very thought scares people.

Losing control, or being out of control,
seems to be the worst case scenario,
for individuals, animals, organizations, even governments.
And yet: control itself is no more than an illusion.

A champion athlete may exhibit superb control.
But he does not own it.
At any moment, an asteroid may fall on him.
The world may explode.
He may have an epileptic seizure.
The police may come and arrest him...
All these things, and everything else that might happen,
are completely beyond his control.

Why would anyone imagine they are ever in control?
Why would anyone be so afraid of being out of control?

Calm is the closest state humans may achieve to control.
Clear focus, and attentiveness to the present moment.
When this focus is lost, as it sometimes is, disaster rarely ensues.
Calm, given a chance, will reassert itself, soon enough.
Control leads to unreasonable fear.
Calm leads to calm.

Five: Patience.

The master has nothing to say. 
If you can wait for him 
to have something to say, 
then you have learned patience. 


If you can have patience, 
you will have something to say. 


When you do not need to say it, 
you have become the master.



The master says little. When we are able to be comfortable
with this lack of saying (or doing), a pleasant peace fills us.
Impatience is only discomfort at the absence of action.
To simply be without doing - or saying - anything,
is a great achievement, and not to be taken lightly.
Few people are patient, although when you become patient,
one more person will have become so...

Patience brings its own rewards:
In no hurry to ramble, your words will contain more substance.
Each one will carry the weight of a hundred.
Finding you do not feel the need to say anything,
you find yourself already across the uncrossable barrier
between un-knowing and Knowing.

Reaching this state,
you find the master you have admired,
will, in fact, have become you...

Four: Breathing.

What is Tao?
Tao is like air.
Without it, we die;
little, by little.


When we do not breathe,
we dishonor Tao.
By dishonoring Tao,
we dishonor ourselves.

When we breathe,
Tao fills us with life.
When we breathe consciously,
we become conscious.
When we become conscious,
Tao breathes us.


What is Tao?
It cannot be defined by words.
As children, we are not aware of breathing a mixture of oxygen,
nitrogen and carbon dioxide, yet still we breathe it.
Only after we learn about respiration
do we become aware of what is going on.
We all make use of Tao - in our limited way - without knowing of it.
When we learn about what is actually going on,
we move into another realm of knowing.

Breathing is the Way To God.
Incorrect breathing is the way to death.
Knowing, or unknowing.
Breath is what makes the two different.
Correct breathing begins the process of perfect health,
which frees us from the pain of the world and opens us to knowing.
By not breathing correctly, we miss all meaning,
and end our days hardly having lived at all.

Becoming aware of our breathing,
we become aware that something is breathing us.
This something is Tao.
Awareness of this moves us from the realm of the physical
into the realm of the Spiritual.
Tao.

Ego: Five.

What is you ?
What is You? 
You is what you are when you do not see yourself.
You is what you are when you see nothing but yourself.

Ego does not know you and so must manufacture You.
The manufactured You compares everything to its non-existent self.
It knows nothing of itself, and knowing nothing, is a fool.
Ego stands apart, and judges all it sees.

You are aware of your own divinity,
and knowing this, have no need to be anything but what you are.
You compare nothing to yourself, knowing you are what you are .
You know you are part-of.

Disappear into your experience, leaving no trace of yourself.
Become entirely what you are a part of.
Let there be no distance between what you are and what it is.