8 Secrets of Longevity
It is dualistic to detest the world and to
rejoice in liberation...Liberation
can be found where is bondage, but where
there is ultimately no bondage where is
need for liberation?
Vimalakirti Sutra
What is so good about life? Why do we seek longevity? If you don't find this journey amazing, this game absolutely exquisite, then you are half playing the game of life, so let start changing your traditional common sense of reality, let suppose that life as a superb game, look at your reality as an amazing plot that is unfolded in mysterious ways every day, you are the hero of this amazing tragic- comedy, let see things with a child's eyes. We are not going to take anything for granted, play with me this game of reconsidering every aspect of your life, and ask yourself questions as a new kid in life will do, stop being your age, let have a new heart, become loving again you didn’t know hate or preferences when you were introduced to this world, fallow me in this experiment. Here they are some of the rules to play these eight secrets of longevity’s game with me. Be like un-carved block like unbleached silk.
Rule 1 You already have some preconceptions on other cultures or type of knowledge, if they are negative erase them if you are not sure reconsider them with a new light, imaging the manuscript of your life has not been written yet, if you were born in India or China you will have a different common sense that you have now you will be a different person so let put pride aside and don’t assume that your culture is superior to any other one, if you have not been indoctrinated in that culture and language since the time you were born how can you have that assumption?, How do you know what are the concepts of contentment, progress or purpose they have? what you know on other cultures might be a cliché superficial and distorted. Hopefully, you arrive at the conclusion that you were lucky to be born in your own culture.
Rule 2 Give Transformation a chance, I will not talk about changes that are temporary and usually imposed, but transformation which is awareness growing from within. The manuscript of your life has all the pages empty so you don’t have to change anything if a situation is transformed during the process of digesting this article it will be the result of clarity of mind, awareness or new input. A kid is never afraid to look silly and don’t care much of other people opinions, he is not listening, the ego has not been boosted yet, he is not even aware of other people presence he has guru’s eyes, not fixed on anything they are totally empty looking at the vast cosmos, he is much closer to the origin.
Rule 3 Keep the magic alive, the sense of possibility, kids are fed with a fantasy world but at one point in the growing process this magical world is crashed we were demanded to face reality, what we see in the news and we were taught to be defensive, to protect ourselves. Japanese people have a paradise place called Jodo or the pure land, this concept of paradise is expressed in paintings and gardens a magical and mysterious place, which we deserve, over the hill where we can rest, sip tea and enjoy life.
How do miracles happen? How can some people perform amazing things that define logic? We tend to define divinity with some manifestation of supernatural power, but miracles are happening around us. Some people are still like kids they believe it is possible to perform incredible tasks. Are you really a different person than that kind of people? How can that be? Do they have extra organs? If they have extra skills what stop you from getting them? You are the hero of this reality, you have the magic that needs to be unfolded and you are a healer. You have to have a paradise world. You are not escaping the reality you are returning home, you have to have faith.
Rule 4 Be aware that you are wearing a mask, we all do. We are a persona. This term comes from a mask that Greeks ware in the theaters. It means per-sound, this mask had a device which made possible to amplify the voice’s intensity in the amphitheater. We have a personality; we have certain habits or patterns according to the character we are playing in our lives, which determine how we behave in this world. Don’t assume that you are who you are, who will you be without your mask?
Are you sure you are not wearing a mask? With a situation in front, we might react habitually in certain ways all the time, which can be explained as predisposition, your genetics, your physical constitution, your Dosha, or your inheriting animal in the Chinese zodiac. But we also have an acquired behavior that happens in the process of growing, deciding at one point what kind of person among of the characters available we choose to be, what we settle on, what we could get away with, in this life.
But when we are alone deep in our thoughts trying to untangle the riddle of our lives no matter how educated of enlighten we believe we are, we feel that we don’t know ourselves, that we are paying a heavy tax for the role we play in life and it is impossible to transform that we are trapped. We need to find ourselves, who we really are and what makes us alive and happy.
Rule 5 Have fun. For the Hindu tradition, Brahman (Supreme consciousness) is in this reality because of Lila (To Play). So the reality of this universe is not purposing but playful. The eight secrets of longevity are in the same category of being playful, we don’t practice them just with the only purpose to prolong our lives but in the process of executing our routine, we enjoy what we are doing. Kids are always finding an opportunity to play; they are not playing in order to obtain anything they’re just playing.
Don’t take this article too serious, during all this years teaching Chi –Gong, I have noticed two reasons why people don’t get involved in the practice of oriental arts, first they consider that the Chinese concepts and ideas are very complicated to understand and second they believe that there is behind all those metaphysics some kind of indoctrination, hopefully after this experiment you will see Chinese and Hindu traditions, not as religions but philosophies which can help you as tools to understand your life’s journey.
Rule 6 We as human beings have abundant energy. The entire universe which we are part of is full of energy and waves that is how quantum mechanics define the cosmos. In this game we are not trying to acquire anything, we already have this immense energy. Why then we often feel exhausted in this game of life? Chinese explain that energy is trap in certain areas of our body or organs, we are engaged in the most important war to liberate the energy from our enemies, stress, tension, boredom. In this game you do intelligence first you scan your entire body looking for tension, discomfort, and pain, then through absolute awareness, breathing and relaxation you start liberating this energy, you will have extra energy to circulate through your, organs and functions. Feel like a liberator from chronic physical, emotional and mental entrapment.
You will glow with an auspicious light of wisdom.
Rule 7 Thoughts are powerful. They create our realities, Hindu people believe that our calamities or blessings come from the same door be open or close. Positive thoughts attract positive things. I’m not sure where I read this story, there was a lady who all her life was afraid of being raped, she acts in life very cautiously, avoiding any risk, she walked the streets of New York to get to her car, she always took the same safe walk, but one day she enters an ally for a shortcut, she was not in a hurry there was not reasonably explanation to do this and finally what she feared the most happened, she got rape. The rapist had only one thought in his mind, it was a powerful one, he was focus, he was hoping to get a victim, and the victim was in the same frequency and was attracted by the criminal mind, I don’t mean that this lady was looking or secretly wishing for this event to happen, simply she was not aware of the powerful effect of a negative thought if it is nourished and cultivated for so long that was part of her subconscious mind. Successful people do the contrary of the lady they believe things are going to happen their way and attract the conditions for the thought to become reality.
This concept is hard to swallow, but in oriental traditions thoughts don’t belong to you, they are like clouds have not home, they come and go and they never die. The mind is not an entity, it’s not a thing but a process, the thoughts are guests, but sometimes we believe we own the thoughts and they become the master of the house. The nature of the mind is to have thoughts like the sky have clouds, but they go and new clouds appear, so is not possible to suppress, eliminate or fight the thoughts, set them free.
We want to weed negative thoughts and host positive ones, enjoying their presence like a good guest but don’t be attached to them they are just visiting.
Rule 8 It’s already happening. The past is already past, whatever you read two paragraphs above it’s in the past, the future is just an expectation it is a hoax, we work for the future, the present in many minds is just a continuous preparation for something that we are waiting to happen, a great event which is going to transform our lives, we find ourselves in our fifties and what did we do with our lives?, we are disenchanted with the effects of our mental habits, we were forced to hurry up, to achieve, to get things done for what?
Buddha said we are trap in a rat race Sansara and we need to put new glasses and get liberated to get to Nirvana. This is already happening any breakthrough is breaking this Sansara this ( Maya) illusion.
We cannot escape from the eternal now, even if we try, but why escape let’s embrace it. Some schools of Buddhism say that we need to clean our Karmas from all stains from our previous lives and this is extremely difficult. Other schools embrace the principle that darkness is the absence of light if a room has been in darkness for a hundred years doesn’t matter if you bring a candle the darkness disappeared, so the darkness is the absence of light. Let’s cheer up and open our hearts to let this light that we keep inside to illuminate our present allowing other candles to share our light.
During the practice of the eight secrets of longevity, you are in the laboratory and the subject of study is you, how you behave during the practice is usually how you handle any situation in your life, what do you discover about yourself? we are learning from the wisest book ever writing that is the manuscript of your life that you wrote and you are the only person responsible from the writing and nobody else to blame but every time you practice you have the opportunity to rewrite, you don’t know how this manuscript started and certainly you don’t know how the story is going to end, but what is important is the process of enjoyment while you write, never lose the magic.
People that are half playing are the menace of the world, they usually are a half citizen, parents, brothers, public figures.
But how can you be elated by this world if the majority of the interpretation of this reality is profoundly negative? Even the Vedic tradition believe that we are living at the end of this reality the Kali-yuga, the destruction of the world the apocalypses in the Christian world.
The source of stress in my clients doesn't come from internal sources but external, the situation of the world, are my kids going to have a world as we had? we ultimately must be our own counselors, we must grasp in our own culture believe or religion the meaning of persisting in living, but do we have those answers in our common sense?
For Taoist life has no meaning, all other cultures tell you to find the purpose of your life, during many years I've been trying to find the elusive answer, is it may be to have kids or have a carer and look important but do we need more kids/ do we need more lawyers? Life has no purpose life is like dancing or singing they don't have any other purpose than entertain.
This is a yoga story that a read many years ago in a magazine, is about a hunter who put his rifle on his side while he is resting against a wall with the intention to eat his meal, he is suddenly attacked by a lion, he didn't have time to get his rifle but he has to dive into the well, he grasps a vine and is holding to the vine for his life, while he is precariously holding the vine, he realizes if he loses the grip a snake is waiting for him at the bottom of the well, to make things worse a couple of rats one black and one white are chewing the wine, he is still hungry, he sees a hive in front of him so he grasps the hive to have some honey he is now being stung by the bees, but he can't stop the more he eats the more he suffers.
The hunter is all of us, the lion is old age, the snake represents death, the vine is our life, the rats the years that we have lived and years left, the bees the pleasures in life.
As the hunter we all afraid of old age, especially the transformation of ourselves in the mirror, if our strength is based on how we look we are going to suffer terribly holding into the vine with desperation and do the more ridicules things to hold into it. But can we deny that this world is based on appearance and beauty?
We can learn to make peace with the inevitable change in our bodies.
we want to put our death in the back of our minds but the moment you accept death you accept life, we have insurance over insurance but we are not preparing for this event, I don't mean selecting your coffin or buying your funeral plot. But preparing emotional and mentally for the biggest event of our life, it is good to read the Bardo the Tibetan book of death that guide you in what you need to do at that moment because if you are confused now you will be confused in your next step.
We are not clinging into life because we are afraid of leaving this reality but because we still have things to learn, and we learn more when we are less and less attached to things that were the essence of our existence what we lived for in the early years.
The hunter eating the honey means that not all the pleasant things are good and not all the good things are pleasant, not all the pleasant things in life creates happiness. In Buddhism, the pursuit of Suka ( pleasure) is entrapment to counteract the teaching is, that life is Durka (suffering) until you find the middle way.
We want to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation that is what life is all about.
I always ask at the beginning of my meditation class why are you here? What do you want to obtain at the end of this class? What are you looking for? If everything is working great in your life you don't need to be here you are already in Nirvana. I heard all kind of responses, from relaxation to calm the mind.
Once I was called to help a gentleman to climb the stairs of the meditation room. He was in his eighties and in very bad shape, he had to sit on a regular chair. When I asked the question of the reason of his presence, he answered, I've been meditating for the past 35 years, he'd always been in poor health, he was born with a genetic deficiency, he overheard his mother talking to his doctor before an operation at the age of 5, the doctor said to his mother not to have too much hope, even if the operation was a success, he probably won't live much longer, he said to the class that he knew more about medicine than the doctors, being in and out of the hospitals all those years. Then he said when a meditate I find ecstasy.
At the end of another session a gentleman in his early 30th approached to me and said I heard what you said at the beginning of the class, I've been very successful in life I can retire if I want, I have a beautiful wife three wonderful daughters, my parents and her parents are young and healthy, we travel all over the world, to the most incredible places, but I have to confess I feel a Void inside.
What is the difference between the old man and the successful young man? That the old man had peace of mind, that is the secret of longevity, and I hope you can find the tools to make peace with yourself.
