Zing Tao (The Way of Zing!)

The practice I teach I call Zing Tao.
It is the Way of Zing!

First, we center within the body.
This is called Coming to Earth.
Next, we center outside the body.
This is called Opening to Heaven.

Centering within the body creates calm and clarity.
All movement arises from here.
Centering within the body is also called
Confronting the Lion in His Den.

Centering outside the body is essential.
Is Esse-ntial. Is within and of our Source.
Centering outside the body is also called
Accepting the Empty Circle.

Centering outside the body is
"laying up your treasures in heaven."
Centering outside the body is "dying before you die."

It's the two-step.
(1) Confront the lion within his den.
(2) Accept the empty circle.

First we land, then we take off.
Advanced practice is doing both simultaneously.

Zing Tao Bibliography

Alves, Rubem. The Poet, the Warrior, the Prophet. SCM Press, London: 2002.

Ames, Roger T. and David Hall (Tr.) Dao De Jing. Ballentine, New York: 2003.

Breed, George. Embodying Spirit: The Inner Work of the Warrior. iUniverse, Lincoln: 2004.

Chuen, Lam Chan. The Way of Energy: Mastering the Chinese Art of Internal Strength with Chi Kung Exercises. Simon and Schuster, New York: 1991.

De Caussade, Jean-Pierre. Abandonment to Divine Providence. Tr. by John Beevers. Image, New York: 1975.

Chia, Mantak. Taoist Ways to Transform Stress Into Vitality. Healing Tao Books, Huntington: 1985.

Coelho, Pablo. Warrior of the Light: A Manual. HarperCollins. New York: 2004.

Gleason, William. The Spiritual Foundations of Aikido. Destiny, Rochester: 1995.

Harding, D. E. On Having No Head. Arkana, London: 1987.

Lo, Benjamin Pang Jeng et. al. The Essence of T’ai Chi Ch’uan: The Literary Tradition. Berkeley, North Atlantic Books: 1979.

Merton, Thomas. The Way of Chuang Tzu. New Directions, New York: 1979.

Murphy, Michael. The Future of the Body. Tarcher, Los Angeles: 1992.

Payne, Peter. Martial Arts: The Spiritual Dimension. Crossroad, New York: 1981.

Red Pine (Tr.) Lao-Tzu’s Taoteching. Mercury House, San Francisco: 1996.

Stevens, John. The Secrets of Aikido. Boston, Shambhala: 1995.

Von Durckheim, Karlfried. Hara: The Vital Centre of Man. Unwin, London: 1984.

Wong, Eva. Cultivating the Energy of Life. Boston: Shambhala: 1998.

"We become like our cousins, the trees. We root and ground while spreading our branches to the cosmos. This is a practice of great trust. Like trees, we do not go away with adversity. No matter the weather, we stand and open to life. With continuing adversity, we extend our roots even deeper, thus being able to open and engage even further. As trees `planted by the rivers of water,' we maintain the symmetry of our roots with our branches. The deeper and more firmly based our roots in the Source of our being, the more successfully we engage the wound of this world." --George Breed, Embodying Spirit: The Inner Work of the Warrior

no one dancing in the streets

The universe is embodying as us!

Jesus called it I-and-my-father-are-one!

Teilhard de Chardin, that wild-man Jesuit priest, paleontologist, chemist, physicist, botanist, zoologist, geologist, and theologian-philosopher called it a cosmic process of personalization.

Raimundo Panikkar calls it cosmotheandric.

I call it embodying Spirit.

Our part in this is to provide this I-Father-oneness, this cosmic process of personalization, his cosmotheandrism, this embodying of Spirit with room, ditching our self-made bounds.

Why this is not front-page news and on every blog and facebook and tweeting twitter I do not know. Nor is it taught in kindergarten or universities.

The universe is embodying as us!

We are the universe embodying!

The Source is embodying as us! We are the Source embodying!

We don't get it, do we?
Sighhhh....
Do you know why I know we don't get it?
I see no one dancing in the streets.

"Too many human beings are too well adjusted; they accept the world exactly as they find it and their act of living is an act of mimimum adjustment. They feel no interest in the possibilities of the universe." -- Colin Wilson, Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs

exorcism of back-biting and vital-gnawing

In order to live as a free flowing emanation of the Supreme Intellect, one is not to judge. In the act of judging, of pronouncing judgment on others (or on self), one is setting oneself up as God, or as a god. Being a god is hell.

This is not to say that one releases all discernment, that one becomes a blind fool. Far from it. It is to say that hardening into judgment on self and others is an act of willful separation, of setting oneself up as the ruler over all. It is hell partly because one winds up biting one's own back, gnawing at one's own vitals. Judging others is an act of self-destruction. One becomes a victim of one's own judgment.

Judging others (placing blame) is a habit, an addiction. A judgment junkie may look all sweety-weety on the outside but inside is a miserable snarly despairing harsh self-condemning beast. Exorcism is required. Judging one's internal judger only accentuates the condition. Love the beast. Do not pity it. Love it. In doing so, one becomes the love.

the unfolding of the cosmos

Each of us plays a part in the unfolding of the Cosmos. Each of us is a radiant sphere of energy, a vibrational field extending outward in all directions.

The quality of the energetic field, the vibrational sphere that we are, depends upon whether, at any given moment, we are centering or off-center. When off-center, we radiate influences of despair and confusion. When centering, we vibrate coherently with the Cosmos and the process of its evolutionary unfolding.

Just as a cell in the body cannot quite grasp the enormity of the consequences of its resonance or dissonance in its functioning, nor quite grasp a vision of the body it is helping produce, neither can we grasp the enormity and the magnificence of the cosmic unfolding in which we are blessed to play a part.

As we go, so goes the Cosmos. Our Source is mysterious in the birthing of Itself and we are both midwives and that which is being born.

earth walking

We go to our churches, we go to our malls, we go to our restaurants, we travel in our cars and planes, we live in our towns, we live in our cities, and we forget about Earth. We forget. We forget we are Earth. We forget we spring from Earth. We forget we are Earth walking.

I do not speak here of recycling or ecology or us eating the Earth with our large gaping maws.

I speak of our souls, of our knowing who we are. We are Earth walking. A synvergence of Ocean and Air and Dirt and Fire walking.

From Earth we are born and to Earth we shall return. It is then true recycling will occur.

We are Earth. We are Earth walking.

condensationing

We are condensations of a living universe. More accurately, condensationings, since the process is ongoing. This is not a belief. This is an experience, an experiencing.

As such, we are not separate from that which births us and is birthing us. We are ongoing condensings of a living universe. We are citizens of the cosmos.

What more do you want? Life insurance?

harakido

In Japan, the arts are called do, the Japanese version of tao, or way. An art that one follows is not just a class that one takes, but is regarded as a way, a path, an opening to the mysteries of life. (Do is pronounced "dough.")

Each do is not something you do, as if it is somewhat removed from the "real" you, but is a way of life. What one learns in the dojo (training hall), one applies in all realms of life, in daily existence.

Though I have trained in some of the martial do's (primarily karatedo and judo) and follow the way of the warrior (budo), my primary practice has been and is harakido. Hara (centering). Ki (universal energy). Do (way or path).

Hara-ki-do: the way of centering while opening to universal energy. Condensing while expanding. At all times. Everywhere. No matter where. No matter what. Centering while opening. All of life is one's training hall.

This practice automatically makes one a cosmic citizen. Sensitive and aware while unmoved. Moving while immovable. Highly energized while calm. The inner infinity and the outer infinity are one.

This is the art I practice. This is my do, my path, my way. Harakido.