Courage, Language and Daoist Literature

I've recently watched two movies for "old souls":  Logan, and, Arrival.

For those of you who haven't watched the films, here's a brief synopsis---spoilers follow, if you care about such things.

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A cosplayer representing the Wolverine,
photo c/o the Wiki Commons

Logan is set in the Marvel X-Men universe, and the Logan of the title is Logan Howlett:  the Wolverine. The twist is that this is a dystopian version of that universe, one in which private corporations have released a genetically engineered virus into the environment to stop any new "mutants" from occurring naturally. This allows them to use their stockpile of samples from the existing mutants to create their own altered human beings to use for experiments to create "super soldiers".

At the same time, Charles Xavier ("Professor X") has developed a debilitating form of brain disease that manifests itself in occasional seizures that affect the people around him because of his psychic abilities.  In the past one of these seizures killed off most of the remaining mutants.  This leaves only Wolverine and Caliban---who have to keep him doped-up on heavy meds to prevent future seizures---to take care of him in an isolated, abandoned metal recycling facility in Mexico.  Logan supports this crappy lifestyle by working as a limo driver for bored, rich teens in the USA.

For those of you who have never read Marvel comics (I suppose some of you still exist), the Wolverine has the ability to heal almost instantly from any wound. He is also very, very strong. The ability to heal has kept him from aging, which means that he is at least a couple of hundred years old. Through most of that time, he was used by the government in one way or another. During both world wars, for example, the Canadian government used him as a soldier. When the American government learned of his abilities, they performed experiments on him to learn how to control him, and replaced his bones (and claws) with a special super-metal called "adamantium" (which only exists in fiction.) This made him into a weapon that is impervious to almost anything. It was Charles, "Doctor X", who saved him from this life.

Unfortunately, the adamantium is also poisonous. And at the time of this movie, it is finally over-whelming Logan's innate healing ability. It is making him an old man, and, it is killing him. Logan is in constant pain, which he tries to deal with by almost constant drinking. He also limps.  And coughs, almost constantly.

A plot and drama ensued, but that's really not what I'm interested in.

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I said that this is a movie for "old souls".  What I meant was that I can really identify with Logan. I am in significant pain at times, which I do self-medicate with by alcohol. I also limp. And I also cough, a lot.

One other thing that matters in the movie is the relationship between Logan and Professor X. Charles Xavier (played the incomparable Patrick Stewart), is a paraplegic and confined to a wheel chair. Underneath the gruff, macho exterior it is very obvious that The Wolverine loves this man very deeply. He works at a job he loathes to provide for him. And no matter what happens in the movie, the first thing he does is look out for Xavier's needs. When Xavier is eventually murdered by one of the super-soldiers (who looks just like a young version of Logan), he collapses emotionally. At this point, he ends up being taken care of my a young girl who was also created to be a super soldier, but who managed to escape due to help by nurses at the research facility.

The old macho guy who's always had to fight turned into a nurse maid for a beloved father figure. And who also ends up being nurtured by a young girl. Like I said, a story for old souls.

Eventually, Logan dies. And in the process the girl he's the genetic father of, and who he's saved, is crying at his side---calling him "daddy". His last words are "so this is what it feels like".  When I heard the words I knew that on one level the script was referring to dying. But my immediate response was to think that this is what it feels like to be vulnerable, to care about others to the point of  making yourself vulnerable to extreme, horrible emotional pain, and, to accept that others can feel the same way about you.

As I said, a movie for old souls.

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For those of you who haven't seen Arrival, it deals with a linguistics professor who's been asked to help the government learn how to communicate with an alien species that has just arrived on the planet (called the "Heptapods"---for their seven tentacles.) Unlike most science fiction shows that gloss over the difficulty of learning the language of a totally different intelligent species, this movie bears down on that issue and comes up with an innovative answer.

Basically, the movie is based on two premises.

The first one is that learning a language involves changing the way our brains are "wired". To understand this idea, consider the fact that English only really has one word for "love", where as Greek has a great many ("eros", "agape", "philia", "storge", etc.) What this means is that when an ancient Greek philosopher was talking about "love", he could do it a lot more accurately than a modern English speaker. To understand the point, consider this sentence that an obnoxious child might make to another: "If you love pancakes so much, why don't you marry them!"  This wouldn't make any sense at all to Plato, because he wouldn't use the same word for "liking a lot in the sense of enjoying the taste" and "wanting to spend the rest of your life living with because of a deep interpersonal bond".

The argument is that the complexity and precision of your vocabulary has an impact on how we see the world around us. A better example beyond the word "love" comes from the history of chemistry. At one time people tried to explain the nature of material objects by referring to the four states of matter:  solid, liquid, gas, and, fire. This really doesn't work very well to explain a broad range of events, so we now accept that the atomic theory works much better and most folks would probably have a hard time trying to figure out how you could use the states system to understand much of anything.

The second idea that the movie is based upon is that it is possible to create a totally non-sequential language. Western languages like English are based on the sounds that our spoken language makes. We start out sounding out the letters that make up the words, and then connect a certain sequence with specific words. But some other written langues don't work like that. Chinese, for example, is not "sounded out" from letters. Instead individual characters represent specific ideas. It is true that some characters are composed of different simpler characters and added together, but these too are representative of ideas instead of sounds. Having said that, however, Chinese characters are written sequentially one after another.

But Arrival posits that the aliens don't have a sequential sentence structure, but a holistic one.

A heptapod "sentence"
taken under "fair use" copyright rules from the Internet

As you can see, the writing looks like a coffee ring stain. But the different "splotches" aren't random, but convey a specific meaning. The issue that the movie hinges on is that there is no beginning or end to a circle, so the only way to really understand it is to just grasp the meaning all at once.

This is an important issue, because it talks about the limits of ordinary human consciousness. As this was explained to me when I was at university, Professor Amstutz (my old teacher) explained that studies have shown that there appears to be a limit to how much a person can grasp holistically. He explained this using an example from English common law. A pub used to have a cup with a bunch of wooden matches in it that people could use to light their pipes or cigars. They added a sign that said "take some home with you, if you like". An individual---what we would now call a "street person"---took advantage of this to take a lot of matches that he then used to sell for a half-penny a piece on the street to people who wanted to light a pipe or cigar, but didn't have any matches on them at the time. The pub owner called a bobby to stop this person from doing this, but the individual in question told the magistrate that the sign said he could do it.

The judge did some research in the literature and found out that when people look at a random pile of objects, on average, the most a person can count at a glance (ie:  without having to consciously mentally separate into different groupings and add together) are seven. So the judge ruled that under English Common Law "some" (as in "take some home with you") means seven or less.

This is important to the movie Arrival because it suggests that this isn't an intrinsic property of the human brain, but instead the result of how our language has "wired" it. In other words, the judge identified an issue of "software" instead of "hardware". If our brains simply have to work sequentially for more than seven items, then we will never be able to learn the heptapod language. But if this is instead an artifact of our language, it might be possible to learn the language---but in doing so it might radically change the way we perceive the world around us.

The people who made the movie didn't stop at the circle sentences. Towards the end, the heroine says that she understands their language and asks them to tell her more. So they present her with what I can only surmise is their equivalent of a book. (Actually, this image is only the same sentence repeated over an over again---but assume that the coffee rings are all different and you get the notion.)

Heptapod Book,
Fair Use Copyright, blah, blah, blah.

The important thing to understand is that the sentences aren't in any order---they are thrown all over and the reader has to understand them all holistically---just like the sentences.

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The movie is filled with flashbacks, but ones that aren't identified or labeled. At some point, the linguist (Louise) had a child, who died of an incurable illness. She also had a husband that she dearly loved, but left her. At first, I assumed that she had had all of this heart-break before the arrival of the aliens. But as the movie progresses and she learns the language, you begin to realize that this is the future. The man she falls in love with and marries is her colleague working with the aliens, and, the child is their soon-to-be conceived daughter. Learning the alien language has rewired her brain to the point where she no longer experiences her life sequentially, but rather as a holistic unity. (Presumably she started having dreams and memories before she met the aliens because the process reveals that causality works backwards in time as well as forward---how about that for an alien concept?)

This would be a really, really scary prospect for most people. Would you marry someone and have a child with them if you really knew in your guts---from direct experience---that both would end in extreme heart-break? Louise believes that she has the choice of not choosing to marry and conceive, but she does anyway because she doesn't want to lose the experience of having a man and child that she loves dearly. And you also see in the flashbacks that knowing how it will all end means that she never misses an opportunity to be as "real" and "there" as she possibly can for these two people. She really does savour every sweet drop from the cup of life---even though she knows that at the end there will be nothing but bitter dregs.

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How does any of this fit into Daoism?

What is it we do when we read books of wisdom and meditate? We are trying to deepen and expand our theoretical understanding of the world around us. We are fighting against the illusions that bind us to the here and now. We start out in life like the Wolverine---believing that we can live forever and if we get hurt, healing will come fast. But learning from others teaches us that this isn't the case, we do get old and die. Not only this, but the people we love die too. And that hurts, a lot.

Daoism offers to help people with this problem through many different mechanisms.

For one thing, it offers us stories that help us understand the most practical, best way to navigate life. Consider the story from both Zhuangzi and Liezi where Confucius meets an elderly man who has learned to swim across raging cataracts by only swimming a few strokes when the river is pushing him where he wants to go and not fighting when it pulls him away. This is how one survives in a chaotic, violent world according to Daoist wisdom.

It also helps us by offering us practices like "holding onto the One" that teach us to not get too caught up in the moment-by-moment activity around us. Instead, we learn to remind ourselves that we need to always try to understand the Dao (or "One") and how it is operating both in the processes that govern our mental activity and the world around us. If we are able to do this, for example, sometimes we are able to remember that the other person we are dealing with may be being grumpy towards us not because they hate us, but rather because they may be sick, be worried about a loved one, etc. We might also remember that giving that person a smile, or asking a personal question that shows you care, etc, may totally transform their interaction towards you into something more useful and pleasant.

It also helps us by reminding us to remember "the big picture" when we feel especially sad, angry, or, perplexed. When Zhangzi's wife dies, for example, he is very sad. But when he realizes that she herself has ceased to feel any pain at all, and has instead merely returned to the undifferentiated Dao that she emerged from when she was born, he can realize that he is really sad for himself because he knows he will miss her. And at that point, he realizes that he can choose to dwell on missing her, or, simply move on in life and find something or someone else to love. Much pain is caused by delusion, and the cure for delusion is a better understanding of how things really are.

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In a very real sense, studying Daoism is like when Louise starts having those memories of her child. I am not the old man swimming in the cataract or Zhuangzi banging on a pot and singing after the death of his wife. But those events are the memories of men who have died long, long, ago in a distant land. And by integrating their insights and experiences into my life, I am just like Louise having memories of the death of a child she hasn't had yet. I know that I too will find myself beset by awful, painful problems---just like swimming the cataract. And I too will find myself deeply hurt by the pain or even death of a loved one.

We aren't heptapods who experience our personal lives holistically. But we are eusocial animals who live our lives mediated by culture. And culture does exist holistically, and we can experience it as such. Zhuangzi and Confucius are long dead---and yet they are still alive every time we wrestle with the ideas that they have passed onto us through their writings and the traditions that they founded.

I got thinking about this because I was worried about whether my wife was entering into a psychotic episode. She is going through a stressful time right now as she has decided to sell her house and apply to be an immigrant to Canada. But in the interim, she is in St. Louis and I am living and working a thousand miles away. There is almost nothing I can do to make her life better right other than offer some words of encouragement. And when she enters into an episode, she simply disappears off my radar. She has no support network (she does live in the USA, of course), so all I can do is accept that she's "gone away" for a month or two, and just wait for her to come back.

At times like this all I can do is remember how much I love her and remember that I wouldn't trade the good times in exchange for not having the bad. I also try to remember that, like Zhuangzi and his wife, we are all part of a larger process and that ultimately we come from and end up in the same place. I also try to hold onto the One and do what helps me cope with my feelings of helplessness and sadness. Writing this blog is one of those things. 

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I put out my begging bowl and ask for support from people not just because I want money. I'm also trying to remind people that nothing comes for free in life, and we need to support others when they do something of value for the community. Many of us don't have enough money to be able to shoot off a few bucks to people writing obscure blogs on the Internet---no matter how much they enjoy them. I get that. But I also understand that lots of people who do have money would rather spend it on things like trips overseas, video games, eating out, etc.

For them I'd offer this piece of my life history. I used to do a lot of free lance writing for newspapers. There came a time when papers just got cheaper and cheaper towards people like me. That was because they knew that we see writing as a vocation and more than anything else just want to see our ideas in print. The result was no one wanted to pay me anything for what I wrote.

I accepted this as something that was happening and couldn't be avoided. Then I realized that reporters---with families to support and mortgages to pay---were being replaced by the free copy that people like me were giving the papers. And at the same time, purveyors of "junk bonds" were looting the newspapers that I was getting published in. The money was there, but I was just helping guys like Ken Thomson and Conrad Black get rich. At that point I stopped writing for the paper press.

Since then, I've been blogging. But you know what? The same problem exists on the Internet. People have gotten used to paying nothing for content, and writers everywhere are expected to work for nothing at all. As a result, the content being provided is being twisted into "click bait" and "dumbed down" so writers can pump out quantity instead of quality. This is because that's what the advertisers want. The only mechanism I can think of to push back against this problem is through getting people to pay for what they like to read through "tip jars" and Patreon subscriptions. That's why I always put these ads in my blog posts---it's so I don't go back to the bad old days of taking the food out of the mouths of people with families and mortgages.

In effect, I'm trying to help people realize that if you want to have a better Internet---free from fake news, alt-right propaganda, and other crap---you are going to have to get used to paying for it. If you refuse to pay for anything that isn't behind a paywall, you are "doing your bit" to ensure that the Internet becomes a plaything for wealthy corporations and not a meeting place for intellectuals and artists.

So, the question becomes "what do you want?"

What is a Hermit?

KMO from C-Realm Podcast

I've been thinking a lot about politics and society lately. I did an interview with a Vermont radio station as part of my feeble attempts to promote my recent book, and in the conversation the idea of success came up. In terms of radio shows and podcasts, as well as blogging and book publishing, the important issue is how many "subscribers" or "readers" you have. By that metric, both my interviewer (KMO fromthe C-Realm Podcast) and myself are abject failures. He has spent long periods of his life interviewing people for his podcasts and only has a relatively small number of subscribers (including myself.)  And I have spent many years writing---first for newspapers, then blogs, and, now books and have a very small number of followers too.

Bodhidharma, by Yoshitoshi, 1887.
c/o Wiki Commons

I answered this question by suggesting that this obscurity is why I call myself a "hermit". People often get hung up on the idea that I am a hermit by pointing out that I have a job, friends, a wife, live in the city, etc. To their way of thinking, to be a hermit exclusively means living in a cave on some remote mountain top. Well, most people only see the surface of things and not the core, so I generally ignore this opinion when it gets raised.

What a word, phrase, or, idea "means" is a very slippery thing---especially if it has any sort of depth to it. The famous book Zen Flesh, Zen Bones gets it's title from a story told about Bodhidharma (the supposed first "patriarch" who "brought" Zen from India to China.) According to the story, after nine years of teaching, he wanted to go home. So he tested his disciples to find out about their understanding of the "Void".

Dofuku said :  "In my opinion, truth is beyond affirmation or negation, for this is the way it moves."
Bodhidharma replied:  "You have my skin."
The nun Soji said:  "In my view, it is like Ananda's sight of the Buddha-land---seen once and for ever."
Bodhidharma answered:  "You have my flesh."
Doiku said:  "The four elements of light, airiness, fluidity, and solidity are empty [i.e. inclusive] and the five skandhas are no-things. In my opinion, no-thing [i.e., spirit] is reality."
Bodhidharma commented:  "You have my bones."
Finally, Eka bowed before the master---and remained silent.
Bodhidharma said:  "You have my marrow". 

I'm not directly interested in what the "Void" is in this post. Instead, I'm concerned about what it society makes of someone who is interested in it in the first place. This is important to Daoists, because the things that make Zen Buddhism "Zen" are elements that it has borrowed from Daoism.

The "skin" of the Void is the idea that there are truths that step outside of conventional dichotomies such as "Left" and "Right", or, "Moral" and "Immoral". The "flesh" of the Void is the idea that once you get a glimpse of this different way of looking at the world, it changes how you see everything. The "bones" is the idea that once you understand that the unconventional truths exist, and, having seen them use them to reassess how you view everything, your evaluation of what is or is not important changes. And the "marrow" suggests that when this re-evaluation takes place, your behaviour changes profoundly---especially how you interact with the rest of society.

Understanding this point, a hermit isn't just someone who lives in remote physical locations. It can also mean someone who lives in a remote ethical, spiritual, or, metaphysical space. If someone lives in the middle of a bustling city, there is still the question of how much she is engaged with the world that surrounds her. Doe she see it as being inherently valueless? Irrelevant to her life project? Does she think that there is any future to it? If not, then I would say that she is a hermit.

Confucius has a saying that has a one-dimensional take on this issue. But since that one dimension was crucial to him, I think it is apropos of the same point that Bodhidharma and I are making.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

Confucius, Anonymous, 1770,
c/o Wiki Commons

So I would suggest that being "not successful" is not something to be ashamed about. It may be caused by many things, but in some cases it is simply the result of having a deeper insight into how our society---if not the very universe---operates. In those cases I would suggest that it means that someone has a "hermit's soul".

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Having said the above. I still have bills to pay and a family to support. I've added a Patreon button and a tip jar. Both of which remain very empty. OK. If that is too much to ask, there is another thing that would help. Turn off your "ad-blocker" for my site and click on the adverts---even if you instantly close the window. This has a significant impact on how much money I make from my "Ad Sense" account, which helps me support my family---even while it costs you nothing at all.

A Request for Some Feed Back: Daoism As A Practical Philosophy

It's been a while since I posted something on this blog. Instead, I've been working on a new book, which I've tentatively titled "Daoism as a Practical Philosophy". It's not a diary about my life, like this blog, but more of an introduction to the key elements of Daoism.

I'm not just writing for my own edification, as I will soon be retiring and I think it would be nice if I could augment my pension through a little extra income. To that end, I won't just be offering it for free like my other writing projects. I'm new to publishing, however, so I thought it might be a good idea to ask my readers what they think. I'm going to give a sample of the book plus a couple questions. I'd like responses, either in the comments on the blog or through direct email to "thecloudwalkingowl@gmail.com". 

My first question is "Do you think it would be a better idea to self-publish an ebook through SmashWords and an on-demand publisher like Lulu, or, should I try to find a press that would print and sell it for me?  If anyone reading this is associated with publishing and would like to talk to me about this, I would be open to any inquiries. 

My second question is "If you do think that I should self-publish as an  e-book, what do you think would be an fair price?" I'm not interested in giving it away for free, as I think that the subject is a lot more popular than my earlier book about environmental issues. But I really don't have a clue about what people think is a fair price anymore. 

So here's some of the work I've been doing already. It should give people an idea about what the book is about. 

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Practical Philosophy

In modern times “philosophy” has become a purely academic pursuit. Professors at universities write papers for each other where they discuss very abstract concepts. I'm not going to say that this is a totally worthless pursuit, as some of the ideas that they develop end up becoming extremely important for science, literature, politics, and so on. Human society cannot evolve without creating new ways of thinking about the world, and to do this someone has to create new ways of looking at the world.

But philosophy used to also be about how ordinary people learned how to live a life of meaning and purpose. In the late Roman Empire there were schools of philosophy that helped people learn how to live better lives. The most famous were Stoicism, Cynicism, and Skepticism. Each of these were systemic ways of looking at and living in the world. They allowed followers to find meaning and coherence in turbulent times. Unfortunately, they were suppressed by the Christian church once it became the official---and exclusive---religion of the Roman Empire. Philosophy continued in academic settings, but it was never again allowed to escape into the lives of ordinary citizens.

At roughly the same time, philosophy also arose in India and China. India's most famous examples are Yoga and Buddhism. In China, some examples were Confucianism, Moism, Daoism, and Legalism. In India its practical philosophies became overlaid by religious thinking to the point where for most people their original teachings pretty much disappeared. In China this also happened to Daoism. Confucianism did the same as Western philosophy and disappeared into something of an Ivory Tower---but because China lacked universities, this tended to instead be the Imperial bureaucracy. Moism (a socialist/utilitarian/scientific worldview) was effectively exterminated after its followers lost a literal war with Legalism (at totalitarian worldview based on rigid rule of law.) Legalism's success at founding the first Chinese Empire proved a Pyrrhic victory, because it's extremely harsh treatment of ordinary people resulted in rebellions that quickly destroyed that dynasty and it's governing philosophy.

(Of course, this is all a grotesque over-simplification, but people have to start somewhere and this book is not an academic, historical treatise.)

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OK. There was this thing in the past. Why should anyone care today?

When I was a child one of my teachers used to write sayings on the blackboard every morning. One that stuck out in my mind was “Be a live wire and you won't get stepped on!”. At the time, I thought that it meant that people shouldn't be afraid of standing up for their rights, asserting their interests, or, showing off their abilities. It struck me as an advertisement in favour of the value of being “pushy”. As a child, I thought that this was a bit odd, as my family had always taught me that that was being rude.

Why did that teacher write it on the black board?

Totally unconsciously, she was promoting a “practical philosophy”. In particular, she was promoting a sort of optimistic, liberal, 20th century view of “individual progress”. Contrast that with this similar piece of folk wisdom:  “The nail that sticks out shall be hammered down.” That is a Japanese proverb that seems to suggest that it is dangerous to be a “live wire”. Not only will being “live” not keep you from being “stepped on”---it will positively ensure that you will be.

Which one is right?

Well, that's an important question. One that requires the right answer because depending on how you choose, you will live your life in a particular way and suffer the consequences. The practical philosophies that I mentioned above---Greek, Indian, and, Chinese---are all coherent collections of ideas about how you should live your life. They all suggest that it is better to follow a internally consistent series of maxims instead of simply bouncing through life following whatever random ideas your culture (eg my elementary school teacher) chooses to insert into your consciousness. This book is an attempt to expose the reader to one of those schools of practical philosophy:  Daoism. My hope is that some of you will see the great wisdom that I have found that it brought to my life, and how it helps me navigate the day-to-day problems that I face.

And in the case of that woman in the classroom, a Daoist would probably have written “Be like water”. That is, find effective “work arounds” for problems instead of either fighting against them or just doing what everyone else does.

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The Different Frames Used to Study Daoism

One of the problems I often see when looking at Daoism is the “frame” that people use to look at it. That is to say, people approach it from a specific viewpoint based on their particular interest or area of expertise. Unfortunately, these folks often have zero appreciatioin of people who come to the subject from a different point of view. The result is often like the parable of the blind men and the elephant:  everyone touches a very different part and comes up with very different ideas about the beast.

For example, people with personal experience as with an individual sect sometimes make very definitive statements about Daoism in general. This is because they don't know anything about other sects (and there are a great many), or, the consensus amongst the scholarly community about its history and literature.

Also, some academics who focus on the culture of Daoism believe that only someone who is fluent in Chinese and who has spent a long time assimilating into traditional Chinese culture can have any affinity to Daoism. Moreover, long study in Daoist Temples under Chinese Daoist masters is essential. Anyone who studies books in translation and follows specific disciplines is merely fooling themselves if they believe that they are really “Daoists”. The problem with this point of view is that it would seem to suggest that there is no objective “trans-cultural” core of Daoist philosophy or value in things like Daoist meditation techniques. It has mere aesthetic interest, but no more ultimate value than an ethnic cuisine or style of dress.

Other folks seem to see Daoism as primarily a mechanism for personal expression. One example of this are the folks who take it upon themselves to write “versions” of the Dao De Jing without educating themselves about the meaning of the original text. Another example are the guys who teach taijiquan as a “artistic dance” without trying to understand it as a martial art and holistic exercise system.

I don't really have much of a problem with any of these approaches as long as they aren't assumed to be the only one that has any legitimacy. Unfortunately, too many folks tend to assume that whoever isn't with them is---by definition---against them. I can see some merit in each of those frames. But in my own case I am approaching Daoism through the frame of philosophy. That is to say, I am looking for the ideas in the entire tradition that have merit and how I can apply them to my everyday life.

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Hard Versus Soft, or, Keeping Your Spirit “Whole”

At one point in my taijiquan training I was taught how to take a punch. What I had to do was stand in a particular stance and another student hit me as hard as he could on the chest. If I flinched or tightened up the result was a horrible bruise that would last for weeks. But I learned that if I kept totally relaxed the force of the punch would flow through my rib cage, into my spine, and through my legs and feet into the floor. This isn't a metaphor. I could feel the force flow like an electric current through my body---leaving me totally unharmed.

The soft overcame the hard.

This wasn't the result of some occult power. It was just that the inherent resilience of my bodily structure is enough to avoid injury as long as I don't “freeze” it by tensing my muscles. It's exactly the same principle that a high school chemistry teacher shows when he dips a rubber ball in liquid nitrogen and the shatters it like glass by trying to bounce it off the floor.

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Zhuangzi relates that Confucius was once watching a huge cataract:  “No tortoise, alligator, fish or turtle could swim there.” Yet he was surprised to see an old man swimming in the middle of the rapids. Thinking that he had fallen in, Confucius sent his disciples out along the river to try to save him. After a while, this fellow came out of the water on his own, which amazed the sage.

Confucious followed after the man and inquired of him, saying, 

“I thought you were a ghost, but when I looked more closely I saw that you are a man. May I ask if you have a special way for treading the water?
“No, I have no special way. I began with what was innate, grew up with my nature, and completed my destiny. I enter the very centre of the whirlpools and emerge as a companion of the torrent. I follow along with the way of the water and do not impose myself on it. That's how I do my treading.”
“What do you mean by 'began with what was innate, grew up with your nature, and completed your destiny'?” asked Confucious.
“I was born among these hills and feel secure among them---that's what's innate. I grew up in the water and feel secure in it---that's my nature. I do not know why I am like this, yet that's how I am---that's my destiny.”

(Zhuangzi, “Outer Chapters”, “Understanding Life”, Section Eight, Victor Mair trans.)

Instead of fighting against the current, the old man flowed with it. When the current pushed him away from his destination, he let himself go with it. When it pushed him towards it, he added a few strokes. Before long, he arrived where he wanted to go.

Being soft is not the same thing as being weak. Instead, it about being “non-resisting”.

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And non-resisting is not about just deciding to be non-resistant. Tensing up before the fist hits you is not a voluntary response---it is instinctive. So being “soft” requires more than just a conscious decision, it requires a revolution in your being. Zhuangzi talks about this at length. He has Liezi (a master of the Dao) ask another sage (Director Yin) about what is required.

“The ultimate man can walk under water without drowning, can tread upon fire without feeling hot, and can soar above the myriad things without fear. May I ask how he achieves this?”
“It's because he guards the purity of his vital breath,” said Director Yin, “it's not a demonstration of his expertise or daring.
He goes on to give a revealing example.
“If a drunk falls from a carriage, even if it is going very fast, he will not die. His bones and joints are the same as those of other people, but the injuries he receives are different. It's because his spirit is whole. He was not aware of getting into the carriage, nor was he aware of falling out of it. Life and death, alarm and fear do not enter his breast. Therefore, he confronts things without apprehension. If someone who has gotten his wholeness from wine is like this, how much more so would one be who gets his wholeness from heaven! The sage hides within his heavenly qualities, thus nothing can harm him...”

(Zhuangzi, “Understanding Life”, Part Two, Mair trans)

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Yet another example comes from a boatman.

Yen Yűan inquired of Confucius,saying,
”When I was crossing the gulf of Goblet Deep, the ferryman handled the boat like a spirit. I asked him about it, saying, 'Can handling a boat be learned?' 'Yes', said he, 'good swimmers can learn quickly. As for divers, they can handle a boat right away without ever having seen one.' I asked him why this was so, but he didn't tell me. I venture to ask what you think he meant.”
“A good swimmer can learn quickly because he forgets about the water,” said Confucius. “As for a diver being able to handle a boat right away without ever having seen one, it's because he regards the watery depths as if they were a mound and the capsizing of a boat as if it were the rolling back of a carriage. Capsizing and rolling back could unfold a myriad times before him without affecting his heart, so he is relaxed wherever he goes.”

Confucius then goes on and gives another example that stresses the importance of keeping your “spirit whole”

“He who competes for a piece of tile displays all of his skill;  he competes for a belt buckle gets nervous;  he who competes for gold gets flustered. His skill is still the same, but there is something that distracts him and causes him to focus on externals. Whoever focuses on externals will be clumsy inside.”

(Zhuangzi, “Understanding Life”, Part Three, Mair trans)

The archer who is competing for a prize is not afraid of drowning or getting nasty bruises. But his mind is distracted from the act of shooting his bow by considering what he would do with his prize. This is the point of the following apocryphal story:

A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, “I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it.”
The teacher’s reply was casual, “Ten years.” Impatiently, the student answered, “But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?”
The teacher thought for a moment, “20 years.”

...........

Being “soft” instead of “hard” is a relatively easy concept to understand. But how one becomes truly “soft” is not. “Hardness” involves separating yourself from the universe (or Dao) around you. That punching exercise that I introduced this section was not called “taking a punch” in my school, but rather “exchanging energy”. It was not considered a skill that was to be developed to protect you in a fight, but a way of helping one another to develop a deeper understanding of the Dao.

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So I'd like some help here on my book.  Should I try to sell it to a publisher? Or should I self-publish? And if I do self-publish, what do you think would be a fair price for an e-book?  Make a comment on the blog or email me at thecloudwalkingowl@gmail.com .