Leveraged Intelligence

Stop Wobbling, Dammit

Lin Chi Zen Master once said, "When walking, just walk. When sitting, just sit. But above all don’t wobble!"

Now, let’s look at the two boys from our recent drama:

Just walking.

Just sitting.

Hmmm… not enough.

Ahhhh…. Zen Mastery.

Perfect Practice Makes Perfect…

Great Practice Makes Great…

Good Practice Makes Good…

Mundane Practice Makes Mundane…

Bad Practice Makes Bad

My undergrad mentor once came up with the term eupraxis.  I don’t know whether that is a term he made up or a term he found – but when you get to be an expert in your field, the language is your playground.  It meant “good practice.”  In part, it was his translation of Zen into Western terms.

What might it mean in the West?  Well, when I was in high school, I was always out for some kind of a sport and in the summer, that sport was baseball.  We used to play catch for hours and after awhile, the practice of throwing and catching became second nature.  Somebody threw a set of keys to you, there wasn’t any of this two-handed basket catch stuff.  You could see and track every key, pick which one or ones you wanted, “give” just the proper amount with your hand … and, on a good day, jump straight into the car and put the key immediately in the ignition.

Throw me a set of keys now and I might or might not catch them, may miss them entirely and let them hit the ground or the car or just put my hands over my head for protection!  Sure, I blame it on these progressive lenses I’m wearing.  I blame a lot of stuff on them.  But, the truth is that I don’t practice anymore.  There is no one who wants to play catch with me.

 But, practice alone isn’t enough.  I have noticed Ramana musing about handicaps and mentioning his handicap in golf.  For those readers unacquainted with golf, the handicap is the score you are allowed to subtract from your total when competing with someone else who has a registered handicap, to even the playing field so to speak.  Unfortunately, the numbers don’t actually go high enough to account for the average amount that I shoot over par, so that doesn’t quite do it for me.  My use of the word is more properly the common usage of the term, indicating some kind of disability.  My handicap is my swing!

This was true even when I practiced a lot, shortly after moving out here at the age of 30.  Why, with all this practice, was I so bad?  Because I didn’t know the proper way to play and thus practiced doing pretty bad things over and over until I had bad mastered.  On the golf course, I OWN bad!  However, as you can tell by my smile – that is an actual photo of me playing – you can tell that I practice having fun.  Our Cheerful Monk, Jean, has Happiness as a Spiritual Practice.

My questions, dear readers are these:

1. 1. What do you practice well?
2. 2. What do you practice poorly?
3. 3. And, what do you no longer practice at all?

Zen Plumber Going Green

That’s my boy in the picture above.  Big sucker.  Good looking, even if he is mostly ink now.  And he’s a Union Plumber.

I’ve always liked what he has chosen to do.  It’s really hard to outsource it and high tech can’t replace a pipe.  Besides, he has provided me with the best perspective on plumbing I’ve ever had:

• Dad, to you it’s crap; to me it’s money!

He has another take on green, though, and that is gray!  Let me explain:

A year or so ago, the boy was taking a plumbing class where the assignment was to develop a gray water recycling system.  This is a system whereby you reuse water that isn’t too contaminated for things like the lawn, plants, etc. This is REALLY being emphasized to all plumbers, now!  Several of his classmates really got carried away with drawings and plans, great complications.  Unfortunately, Clay ran out of time to do any of it.  You know what they say about life being what happens when you are planning something else.  He had things come up with his daughter.  He had to work overtime.  You know how those weeks go.

Anyway, he gets to class with nothing.  Nada. Zilch.  So, as he’s walking in the door, he grabs a big plastic trash can he sees in the hallway and walks in with it.  When it is his turn, he gets up in front of the class, explains that all you need to do is take your washer water outlet hose, run it into the trash can and then take it out and dump it on the lawn.

Silence.  No drawings.  Nothing but a trashcan and a simple plan.

So, the teacher – a guy who actually IS a plumber – gets up, walks over to him, puts his hand on Clay’s shoulder and says to him, “That’s the best solution anyone has ever come up with for this question.  A+.”  Then he just turns and smiles at the class.

That’s good Zen, man!

Where has your Zen path ever led?