Showers Tears Dew Grace - Polarity

Having been sick for more than 3 weeks and going back to the gym today was like a blessing. Sitting and sleeping at home aches the body believe it or not. Movement actually makes one lighter and more agile.

An additional benefit of going to the gym is I can enjoy the shower to its fullest extent. Mine at home is the old electric storage kind so it's always a pity for a person like me whom likes to shower so much. So I took my time and enjoy my shower today at the gym. It was lovely and relaxing and refreshing.

Well as this feeling grows on me, it reminds me of a. the hot spring during the Kailash Pilgrimage and b. the scene in City of Angels when the fallen angel shows Seth how he cannot enjoy the brush of waves over a naked body when the Angels were gathered at sunrise and sunset at the beach to hear music. The water of the showers were like tears when we are emotionally at its peak, and the showers and the tears are like dew falling from the sky that is like a grace.

A revelation suddenly comes to me. I mean for a spiritual practitioner, we always want to go back to Oneness and it just didn't seem fair and cannot seem to understand how we humans got to be in this suffering world. Well well well. Humans are in a bipolar world where things and concepts exist in opposites. There is good and evil, light and dark, hot and cold, bitter and sweet, life and death, masculine and feminine. Seem unfair. But come to think of it, Angels cannot feel the difference between hot water and cold water pouring on their faces. We can, and we need this distinction for Survival to be able to live in this world, this dimension - To exist! Consciousness need the contrast and polarity to be able to understand things in this dimension.

On the way coming back from the gym, I went past a gallery where there is an oil painting on display with the title "Extremities 極". Awesome!

Rotten Tree

Have started going to a free course on couselling in preparation for the Hospice Work. The instructor is an experienced worker, and I like the course especially for the fact that he has added a Buddhist perspective to it. He is knowlegable, funny and experienced.

Last Friday was the fourth week into the course and there were like six to seven of us remaining. He told us a story. At the beginning when he started to offer this course, he would get upset at times seeing the number of students getting smaller and smaller as the course got further along. Then a sculptor friend of his told him what happened on a piece of sculpture. When he got the piece of wood in, he would not think of what he would carve immediately. He would just leave the piece of wood outside and let it sit and rot. After a few days, surely the wood will rot, will dry up, will have the un-needed pieces shaken off and the essence of it would remain. Then without his active wanting of the piece of wood into any form, the piece of wood would naturally call for its shape and form to be carved out.

A nice story. Also reminds me of the Dark Mother that I am currently working with in my own psychospiritual journey. She sure does have a way to shake out the un-needed part for the good part to remain for assimilation. Like the immune and the digestive systems in our body, she protects and nourishes in her sacred ways.

自我孰誰、天地自開

身體繼續感冒，想可能是清洗行動。正在閱讀中是 Edward Edinger 的 The Mysterium Lectures – A Journey through C.G. Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis。是一本多麼豐富的書，把心靈（psyche）盡現。一方面身體是知道的，正準備去迎接（所以有清洗），另方面自我（ego）卻感到沮喪、乏力，尤其現在正處書的尾部，談到 3 stages of coniunctio。好深呀！

心情上，再次覺得空虛，懷疑，撫心在問自己正在做什麼。覺得好疲乏。

午睡醒來，不知身在何處，只想躺着不動。思緒卻在飄呀飄，突然想到之前發過的 beggar dream，想起那種自由自在的感覺，猛然有一念頭在心中升起：「其實我真是自己的，我可以做任何事情！」

這種行動，不只是日常（unconscious）的行動，是一種有意識 （conscious）、有自由（freedom）、有選擇（choice）的行動。是清晰的，好像是在地上實行一樣。是神聖的，religious，as if it is a sacrifice，something to make sacred。這包括任何行動，所有的行動，不論是任何的行動。 It does not matter what one do！ Now that Action seemed to carry a whole different meaning！

我可以做任何行動，但行動背後的力量不再是自我，而是歸納入於大道，Self，本我。The Power Center is moved to the Self, away from the Ego — no wonder the Ego is fighting。 But the Ego carries a different role now。It is there to witness，to analyze， to differentiate， to become the eyes and ears of God， 「去實行在地上」。

無名無姓、無牽無掛
自我孰誰、天地自開

色，戒 Lust Caution

My first time ever I felt such patriotic emotions oozing up in my heart when they march and say "China Shall Stand!"

And the range and depth of emotions that was touched in the movie... Oh my gosh!!!

Patriotic
Father Daughter
First Love
Peer Love
Sex Love
Husband Wife
Woman Woman
Man Man
Survival Love
Sex Death and Violence

Not the sex
Not the diamond
Not the pill

But the one thing that comes out of the three as the fourth - Love.

The scenes keep lingering on in my mind and I just have to see it one more time to really chew on the many scenes that speaks so much.

The story line is simple enough and it is definitely due to Ang Lee that makes a fine and superb representation of the layers of emotions involved. It grasps you 5 mins you are in up until the end.

(And I cannot believe the review that I saw on the NY Times. Such a trasher that shows me how ignorant the writer is. She dares to complain about the armpit hair that is showing in the sex scenes. I wonder how attentive and draw she is to the movie in the first place and how little she knows about the Chinese woman - we don't usually shave our underarm hair. Period.)