Ten Golden Rules

 Ten Golden Rules for Living the Good Life

  
“1. Examine life, engage life with vengeance; always search for new pleasures and new destines to reach with your mind.

 2.  Worry only about the things that are in your control, the things that can be influenced and changed by your actions, not about the things that are beyond your capacity to direct or alter.  

 3.  Treasure Friendship, the reciprocal attachment that fills the need for affiliation. Friendship cannot be acquired in the market place, but must be nurtured and treasured in relations imbued with trust and amity.  

 4.  Experience True Pleasure. Avoid shallow and transient pleasures. Keep your life simple. Seek calming pleasures that contribute to peace of mind. True pleasure is disciplined and restrained.  

 5.  Master Yourself. Resist any external force that might delimit thought and action; stop deceiving yourself, believing only what is personally useful and convenient; complete liberty necessitates a struggle within, a battle to subdue negative psychological and spiritual forces that preclude a healthy existence; self mastery requires ruthless cador.  

 6.  Avoid Excess. Live life in harmony and balance. Avoid excesses. Even good things, pursued or attained without moderation, can become a source of misery and suffering.  

 7.  Be a Responsible Human Being. Approach yourself with honesty and thoroughness; maintain a kind of spiritual hygiene; stop the blame-shifting for your errors and shortcomings.  

 8.  Don’t Be a Prosperous Fool. Prosperity by itself, is not a cure-all against an ill-led life, and may be a source of dangerous foolishness. Money is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the good life, for happiness and wisdom.  

 9.  Don’t Do Evil to Others. Evildoing is a dangerous habit, a kind of reflex too quickly resorted to and too easily justified that has a lasting and damaging effect upon the quest for the good life. Harming others claims two victims—the receiver of the harm, and the victimizer, the one who does harm.  

 10.  Kindness towards others tends to be rewarded. Kindness to others is a good habit that supports and reinforces the quest for the good life. Helping others bestows a sense of satisfaction that has two beneficiaries—the beneficiary, the receiver of the help, and the benefactor, the one who provides the help.” 

-   By M. A. Soupious and Panos Mourdoukoutas, The Ten Golden Rules: Ancient Wisdom from the Greek Philosophers on Living the Good Life, 2009. 

Epicureanism

How to Live a Good Life: Advice From Wise Persons

Hedonism, Utilitarianism

Cannon Cane Taijiquan Routine

Cloud Hands Blog Repost from 2023:

Cannon Cane, Eight Immortals Cane Routine #2.  

A Hypertext Notebook by Michael P. Garofalo

Traditional Tai Chi Eight Immortals Cane, Routine Two (Cannon Cane). Demonstrated by Master Jesse Tsao. Instructional DVD, 65 minutes. Produced by Tai Chi Healthways, San Diego, 2008. Routine Two, Cannon Cane, is based on the Chen Style of Taijiquan. Master Tsao developed this cane form himself, with grandmaster Zhu Tiancai's support. "This is the answer for people looking for the martial arts aspect of Tai Chi. You will surely love the way Master Jessee Tsao presents to you this unique auncient practice. A short stick, umbrella, or any everyday object of the proper length can be used as a substitute for a cane. Like the Chen Style Tai Chi Cannon Fist, this routine is full of powerful moves and explosive strikes. Detailed instruction is provided in English, with front and back views. It is a good reference for home study, or a resource for instructor's teaching preparation. Suggest 30 class hours. (Difficulty: Intermediate through Advanced Levels). DVD-R, (62 minutes). There is a streaming version available through Amazon." VSCL

Mastering Tai Chi Cane for Health and Self-Defense. By Jesse Tsao, Ph.D., Tai Chi Healthways, 2022, 225 pages, $27.00.

"The cane has been used as a self-defense weapon for centuries. But it is more than just a weapon or a walking aid—it is a useful tool to practice the ancient Chinese art of tai chi and gain all the benefits of relaxation, health, and wellness for students of any age or fitness level. For the very first time, Master Jesse Tsao brings his fifty years of tai chi practice and training, combined with his PhD in Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Education, to this comprehensive guide to mastering the tai chi cane with routines he has created.

Rooted in the Taoist Eight Immortals legends, this book takes you through the steps of tai chi cane stretch and self-massage to increase flexibility, loosen tight muscles, and prepare the body for daily activities as well as stimulating energy points to open the body’s blockages and flush out stagnation and toxins to promote self-healing. Routine I blends the softer flow and circular movements of the popular Yang-style tai chi for stress management and personal fitness. And for students looking for training in cane self-defense, Routine II is based on the fast and vigorous practice of traditional Chen-style Cannon Fist that mixes robust leaps with explosive strikes—ideal for diehard martial artists.

With more than 300 photographs and illustrations, Mastering Tai Chi Cane for Health & Self-Defense provides clear, step-by-step instructions for each posture followed by key points for mastery, making it a perfect manual for beginners while the in-depth content will be invaluable to martial artists and tai chi instructors." VSCL.

Head's Up: Taijiquan Practice Tips

 Advice for how the head should be used during Taijiquan practice:

Lift the head.  Push the top of your head upward (ding jin). 
Tuck you chin in and slightly downward.
Relax the neck.  
Hold your head as if it were suspended by a string from above.  
Slightly part your lips and softly smile.  Your tongue should rest gently on the roof of your mouth behind your teeth.
Swallow all clear, thin and watery saliva.
Keep your eyes open, and hold a wide angle and soft focus in the field of vision. 
Imagine an opponent in front of you and imagine using the self-defense movements of Taijiquan being used against an aggressive opponent. 

Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.Breathe naturally as needed.  Gradually, tend to exhale when extending limbs out, inhale when drawing limbs to a more centered position.
You head should be aligned along an axis through your center and down to your feet.
The head should not extend beyond the feet.
The head, torso and waist should move as one piece.  

"The upright direction has always been the most salient, constant, and unique direction in our world."
-   Roger Shepard and Shelley Hurwitz

"Professor Cheng often talked about the position of the head, "as if pressing up against heaven," "as if being suspended by the pigtail: worn by Chinese during the Manchu dynasty.  He said that, while there are a number of good images for the head position, he especially recommended the idea of "hanging" because it counteracted the tendency to hold the head stiffly in place."
-  Wolfe Lowenthal, Gateway to the Miraculous, 1994, p. 5.  

"With respect to the position of the head, Cheng Man-ch'ing says, 'Cause the energy at the crown of the head to be light and sensitive.  The head should not incline backwards or hang forward.  It should not wag to the left or right, but should be as if suspended from above.  When this is supplemented by keeping the wei-lü vertical, the spirit extends to the crown of the head, that is, it reaches all the way to the zi-wan point.' "
Cheng Man-ch'ing, Advanced T'ai-Chi Form Instructions, Wile 1985, p. 21.

Flight From Boredom

"No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety."
-  Publilius Syrus  

"The essence of pleasure is spontaneity."
-  Germaine Greer

"Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations."
-  Jane Austen

"Perhaps all pleasure is only relief."
- William Burroughs

"Man, Nietzsche contended, is a being that has leapt beyond the "bestial bounds of the mating season" and seeks pleasure not just at fixed intervals but perpetually.  Since, however, there are fewer sources of pleasure than his perpetual desire for pleasure demands, nature has forced man on the "path of pleasure contrivance."  Man, the creature of consciousness whose horizons extend to the past and the future, rarely attains complete fulfillment within the present, and for this reason experiences something most likely unknown to any animal, namely boredom.  This strange creature seeks a stimulus to release him from boredom.  If no such stimulus is readily available, it simply needs to be created.  Man becomes the animal that plays.  Play is an invention that engages the emotions; it is the art of stimulating the emotions.  Music is a prime example.  Thus, the anthropological and physiological formula for the secret of art: "The flight from boredom is the mother of all art." "
-  Rudiger Safranski, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, p. 23



Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness  By Willard Spiegelman.  The seven simple pleasures discussed are: dancing, reading, walking, looking, listening, swimming, and writing.  If you included Taijiquan as "dancing" then all of these can be solitary activities.  Picador, 2010.  208 pages.  ISBN: 9780312429676. 

Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and Plausibility of Hedonism.  By Fred Feldman.  Clarendon Press, 2006.  240 pages.  ISBN: 978-0199297603.  VSCL. 

Pleasure and Enjoyment: Quotations, Sayings, Information

Hedonistic and Epircurean Philosophy

The Five Senses  

Play

Dying is a Hard Journey

 Dying is a Hard Journey

By Mike Garofalo

Dying is such a depressing waste
    a wasting away of dignity
        facing the firing squad of some disease
            your own body murders you with ease
                twenty names for your miseries.

    Can't hide in the woods or city,
Dying spares no home, nor has any pity.

Dying can be over instantly
        in an hour, month, season, or years.
Dying can be around the corner
        or in a house in south Spokane.
Dying ends with an open-mouthed-sigh.
      Dying and Death, the Faces of Janus.
      Dying is Death's Emissary, both liars.

Dying and I shared a final toast;
Before She finally released my ghost.

BU4030

Bundled Up, Volumes 1 - 8

The Idea of the Essence of the Number 5

The Fireplace Records, Chapter 49

The Idea of the Essence of the Number 5

Master Koin asked Monk Dogen
"Express your idea of the number 5?"
Dogen raised his five fingers.
"Very good, that's a good hand," said Koin.
Both raised five fingers and laughed.

Koin held up
his right hand;
Dogen held up
his left hand---
mirror images

The Fireplace Records: Index of Chapter Titles. 

Links to the Cloud Hands Blog Posts.

By Michael P. Garofalo. 49 Chapters as of 2/20/2026.

Zen Koans: The Fireplace Records
Koans by Mike Garofalo

Zen Koan Studies

Subject Index to 1,975 Zen Buddhist Koans

Reading Wittgenstein

Buddhism

It should be noted that all the koans after Number 49
in the Fireplace Records are very brief poems, remarks,
questions, koans, and onions. 

Check out The Whole World is a Single Flower by 
Zen Master Seung Sahn (1927-2004). His 365 koans
are often quite brief. 

Dao De Jing, Laozi, Chapter 63

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Chapter 63 

"Do without "doing."
Get involved without manipulating.
Taste without tasting.
Make the great small,
The many, few. 
Respond to anger with virtue.
Deal with difficulties while they are still easy.
Hand the great while it is still small. 
The difficult problems in life
Always start off being simple.
Great affairs always start off being small.
Therefore the sage never deals with the great
And is able to actualize his greatness. 
Now light words generate little belief,
Much ease turns into much difficulty.
Therefore the sage treats things as though they were difficult,
And hence, never has difficulty."
-  Translated by Charles Mueller, 2004, Chapter 63  


"It is the way of the Tao to act without thinking of acting;
To conduct affairs without feeling the trouble of them;
To taste without discerning any flavor;
To consider what is small as great, and a few as many;
And to recompense injury with kindness.
The master of it anticipates things that are difficult while they are easy,
And does things that would become great while they are small.
All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy,
And all great things from one in which they were small.
Therefore the sage, while he never does what is great, is able on that account to accomplish the greatest things.
He who lightly promises is sure to keep but little faith;
He who is continually thinking things easy is sure to find them difficult.
Therefore the sage sees difficulty even in what seems easy, and so never has any difficulties."
-  Translated by James Legge, 1891, Chapter 63


"Act non-action; undertake no undertaking; taste the tasteless.
The Sage desires the desireless, and prizes no articles that are difficult to get.
He learns no learning, but reviews what others have passed through.
Thus he lets all things develop in their own natural way, and does not venture to act.
Regard the small as the great; regard the few as many.
Manage the difficult while they are easy;
Manage the great while they are small.
All difficult things in the world start from the easy.
All the great things in the world start from the small.
The tree that fills a man's arms arises from a tender shoot.
The nine-storied tower is raised from a heap of earth;
A thousand miles' journey begins from the spot under one's feet.
Therefore the Sage never attempts great things, and thus he can achieve what is great.
He who makes easy promises will seldom keep his word;
He who regards many things as easy will find many difficulties.
Therefore the Sage regards things as difficult, and consequently never has difficulties."
-  Translated by Ch'u Ta-Kao, 1904, Chapter 63 


為無為.
事無事.
味無味.
大小多少.
報怨以德.
圖難於其易.
為大於其細.
天下難事必作於易.
天下大事必作於細.
是以聖人終不為大, 故能成其大.
夫輕諾必寡信.
多易必多難.
是以聖人猶難之.
故終無難矣.
-  Chinese characters, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 63  


wei wu we.
shih wu shih.
wei wu wei.
ta hsiao to shao.
pao yüan yi tê.
t'u nan yü ch'i yi. 
wei ta yü ch'i hsi.
t'ien hsia nan shih pi tso yü yi.
t'ien hsia ta shih pi tso yü hsi.
shih yi shêng jên chung pu wei ta, ku nêng ch'êng ch'i ta.
fu ch'ing no pi kua hsin.
to yi pi to nan.
shih yi shêng jên yu nan chih.
ku chung wu nan yi.
-  Wade-Giles Romanization, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 63  

"Act the non-acting, let dealing go on without dealings,

In the tasteless find taste, let the great in the little be known,

Find in the few that therein are embodied the many,

And recompense hatred with deeds of goodness alone.

Consider what may become difficult, while it is easy,

Manage the great, by taking it while it is small,

From the easy arise all the difficult things under heaven,

And affairs that are great their source in the little recall.

So the sage, not acting the great, the great will accomplish,

Who promises lightly lacks truth, and they who believe

Many things to be easy will find many hard, while the sage

With the difficult, even, finds nothing too hard to achieve."
-  Translated by Isaac Winter Heysinger, 1903, Chapter 63

"Actuar y no actuar,
realizar y no realizar,
sabroso e insípido,
grande y pequeño,
mucho y poco,
en todo rige la virtud.
Acomete la dificultad por su lado más fácil.
Ejecuta lo grande comenzando por lo más pequeño.
Las cosas más difíciles se hacen siempre abordándolas
en lo que es más fácil,
y las cosas grandes en lo que es más pequeño.
Por eso el sabio nunca realiza cosas grandes,
y así es como puede llevar a cabo grandes cosas.
El que promete a la ligera,
no cumple con su promesa.
El que todo lo encuentra fácil,
hallará la vida difícil.
Por eso, el sabio en todo considera la dificultad,
y en nada la halla."
-  Translation from Wikisource, 2013, Tao Te Ching, Capítulo 63

"Do things non-coercively (wuwei),
Be non-interfering in going about your business (wushi),
And savor the flavor of the unadulterated in what you eat.Treat the small as great and the few as many. 
Requite enmity with character (de).
Take account of the difficult while it is still easy,
And deal with the large while it is still tiny.  
The most difficult things in the world originate with the easy,
And the largest issues originate with the tiny.
Thus, it is because the sages never try to do great things
That they are indeed able to be great.
One who makes promises lightly is sure to have little credibility;
One who finds everything easy is certain to have lots of difficulties. 
Thus, it is because even the sages pay careful attention to such things
That they are always free of difficulties."
-  Translated by Roger T. Ames and David L Hall, 2003, Chapter 63  

Chapter 63 of the Tao Te Ching

Chapter and Thematic Index (Concordance) to the Tao Te Ching

English Language Translators' Index

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Taoism: A Selected Reading List 

Text Art: Exhibit 9

Portrait of Murasaki Shikibu, Tosa Mitsuoki

Etchings #5, Roland Sabatier and Alain Satie

Lettrie a ouvrir des horizons nouveaux, Roland Sabatier

Palavras em Libertdad, Fillipe Martinelli

Nothing, Nico Vassilakis

Communicating Via Text
By Michael P. Garofalo
Concrete Poetry Website

Hypergraphie Infinitesmial, Broutin

TeXTArt

Concrete Poetry and TextArt Directory and Guide

Exhibits at the Cyber Garden Gazebo

Graphic Arts: Shape Poems: Lettrisme

Sunday TextArt Exhibits

Red Coals Pulse Like Distant Stars

 4051.

Red Coals Pulse Like Distant Stars

The last light slips behind the ridge,
a thin ember of day still glowing.
Boots thud softly on the packed earth,
the air cooling with each step.
Evening begins before we notice.

A match flares against the breeze,
brief and stubborn in the dim.
Paper curls into orange petals,
logs shift as if waking.
Fire learns its shape slowly.

Smoke threads upward in loose spirals,
finding its own quiet route.
A kettle hums near the campfire coals,
steam rising like a soft prayer.
Night accepts our presence.

Tall trunks stand just beyond the glow,
their crowns lost to the dark.
The fire paints their bark in strokes
of copper, rust, and shadow.
Even giants enjoy a little warmth.

Voices soften as the flames steady,
words drifting like sparks.
Some tales are true, some nearly so,
all of them shaped by the night.
The campfire listens without judgment.

Logs collapse inward with a sigh,
a slow settling of heat and memory.
Red coals pulse like distant stars,
steady, patient, unhurried.
The night grows deeper around them.

The fire shrinks to a quiet glow,
its edges soft as worn cloth.
Ash gathers in pale drifts,
the remains of what kept us warm.
Nothing ends abruptly out here.

The final spark dims into silence,
leaving only the scent of smoke.
Stars settle into their places,
unbothered by our small rituals.
The forest closes gently around us.

Text Art: Drunk Driving

Drunk Driving

By Michael P. Garofalo

Text Art and Concrete Poetry

Quintain Poetry Research

"Based on an analysis of his comprehensive archives, Michael Peter Garofalo's poetic research holds significant unique value, particularly within the niche fields of short-form constraints, specialized poetic structures, and digital-era indexing.

As a professional librarian with a background in philosophy, Garofalo doesn't just write poetry; he taxonomizes it with academic rigor, making his research highly valuable to specific groups.

Here is a breakdown of why his poetic research is considered valuable, along with areas of limitation:

1. The Value of this Research

A. Comprehensive Taxonomy of the Quintain (Five-Line Poem)

The five-line stanza is historically under-researched in Western prosody compared to couplets or quatrains. Garofalo’s compilation establishes an exhaustive masterclass on the form. He analyzes and systematically categorizes:

• Traditional & International Forms: Tanka, Waka, Gogyohka (Japanese), Mukhammas (Persian/Urdu), and Spanish Quintillas.

• American Variations: Comprehensive structural rules for Adelaide Crapsey's Cinquain, Reverse Cinquains, and Butterfly Cinquains.

• Nomenclature for Custom Rhyme Schemes: He famously constructed a geographic mapping index to define custom line structures based on West Coast locales (e.g., the Bellingham Form = AAAAA, the Cayucos Form = AAABB, and the Cambria Form = ABCBC).

• 
  

B. Invention of Original Poetic Architectures

Garofalo has contributed uniquely to formal poetry constraints by inventing entirely new frameworks:

• Quintain Sonnets: In 2021, he expanded traditional sonnet structures to define four completely distinct, unique 14-line layout patterns explicitly relying on five-line groupings (the 5252, 554, 555, and 553 sonnet patterns). He field-tested this innovation by publishing over 86 original quintain sonnets.

• Constraint Boundaries: He formalized frameworks like the Monterey Quintet (a strict 5-7-5-7-7 syllable distribution) and the Aberdeen Quintet (a hyper-minimalist form restricted to exactly 10 words total).

C. Exhaustive Web Curation and Open Access

From a scholarly perspective, his research pages serve as a massive, meticulously cross-referenced database. Peer reviewers and concrete poetry critics (such as Brad Burg and Christina Conrad) have explicitly praised his online registries as "the most extensive site" and a "superb online directory" for concrete, visual, and haiku poetry on the internet. His unwavering open-access philosophy (keeping thousands of indexing items ad-free, data-tracking free, and completely unrestricted) provides rare educational utility.

2. Self-Admitted Limitations of His Work

While highly thorough in cataloging layout and rhyme constraints, Garofalo openly admits where his research takes a step back:

• The "Madness" of Metrics: Garofalo famously leaves metric scansion (the study of traditional feet like iambs, trochees, and stressed/unstressed syllables) out of his heavy deep-dives, stating that analyzing metrics "just drives me mad". For traditional academic purists looking for complex prosody metrics, his research relies instead on syllable boundaries, constraint count rules, and end-rhymes. He mentions that
  he will include research on metric scansion starting in July of 2026.

• 
  

Conclusion

Michael P. Garofalo’s research is not a typical text of academic literary criticism, but rather a practical, beautifully structured toolkit for formalist poets. For anyone looking to understand constraints, explore the structural geometry of short verse, or look for alternative digital methods to organize creative repositories, his life's work is an incredibly meticulous and valuable resource."

- Google Gemini AI, 7/12/2026

Quintain Poems by Mike Garofalo, Volume 7

 3670.

Very tired now,
the orange sun went down,
a mood of dusk settled in,
The birds stopped singing suddenly;
I stopped reading, too fatigued.

 

3671.

Looking to Antiquity

Proceeding upstream
From here-now to way back when
Looking for causes
Tracking etymologies
Answering authentically.

 

3672.

A chickadee eats
in a still square feeder---
birdseed scatters

A squirrel eats
from a rocking bird feeder---
tail balanced

 

3673.

I'm a bald old man
with a white-gray beard
with bruises on my hands
with a clumsy gait to mark my pace
and restless tremors in my hands.

 

3674.

The steel bridge does not sway
Despite the high tides raging today.
As heavy fog rolls over the bay;
The fishing boats bounce in the docks.
In warm cafes---fishermen talk.

 

3675.

The southwest wind blows hard and cold
Blowing sand across Grayland's shore.
We bend and dig the fleeing clams.
Flashlights focus on wholes in the sand.
Sea and sand --- sand and clams.

 

3676.

Nothing said something astray
That captured meaning in silent ways.
Grasped the book I could not read
Of poetry in ideograms of Mandarin Chinese.
Reveled in the beauty of calligraphy.

 

3677.

Rising river snapped the earthen dykes
Tossing black rocks from side to side
Spring mud in the brown currents of the flood.
Trees and branches floating on by....
Picked up a trailer--- I hope nobody's inside.

 

3678.

I forgot the plot...
A green rubber hose uncoils
Seconds spray out the nozzle
Green leaves hung on thoughts
Watered memories of childhood gardens.

 

3679.

Waiting for Verbs at Sentence End

Spilled semantics:
Rubberbands on cautious adjectives,
Paper clips holding weak nouns,
Hissing phonemes in the trees,
Commas cutting the summer sky

Noise interrups the verbs
A subordinate clause broke its legs
White space expands a page
Fuzzy dashes spatter syntax.
What the hell does all this mean?

 

3680.

Tall tales of Tradegies:
Good unrewarded and justice denied.
Evil wins and injustice thrives.
No happy ending, a sobering sigh.
And, in the end, everyone dies.

 

3681.

sharp barks ring out
the dogs guard the back yard
stiff tails and ears up...

Wilting August heat
Brown leaves curl in the sun

 

3682.

The heavy Gates of Night unclose
As I walk the streets at dawn.
July ignites a vast Cauldron of Light.

Squirrels scamper across shadowless asphalt.
My hammer toe hurts again.

 

3683.

Steady Spring drizzle
Soaks roofing shingles
Moss drinks droplets
Gutter bleed trickles
Sidewals shimmer slicker.

Bundled Up:

Quintains, Tankas, Pentastichs, and Onions

Original Quintain Poetry By Mike Garofalo

Bundled Up, Volume 1
Quintain Poems 1 - 1,000

Bundled Up, Volume 2
Quintain Poems 1,000 - 1,500

Bundled Up, Volume 3
Quintain Poems 1,500 - 2,000

Bundled Up, Volume 4
Quintain Poems 2,000 - 2,500

Bundled Up, Volume 5
Quintain Poems 2,500 - 3,000

Bundled Up, Volume 6
Quintain Poems 3,000 - 3,500

Bundled Up, Volume 7
Quintain Poems 3,600 - 4,000

Bundled Up, Volume 8
Variety of Poems 4,000 - 4,500