Stratovolcano, 14,411 Feet (4,392M)
Cascades Mountain Range, Western Washington
Due East of Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and Puget Sound
Karen and I have traveled all around this immense and dramatic mountain many times since 2010.
Stratovolcano, 14,411 Feet (4,392M)
Cascades Mountain Range, Western Washington
Due East of Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and Puget Sound
Karen and I have traveled all around this immense and dramatic mountain many times since 2010.
Stratovolcano, 12,281 Feet (3,743 M)
Cascade Mountain Range, Southwestern WA
Near Yakima, Packwood, Klickitat, and Goldendale WA
Karen and I have traveled all around this immense and dramatic mountain many times since 2016.
Stratovolcano, 11,240 Feet (3,425 M)
East of Portland, Vancouver, Gresham, Troutdale, Sandy OR
Cascades Mountain Range, Northwestern Oregon
We can view Mt. Hood from many locations in Vancouver and Portland, Washington.
Karen and I have traveled all around this dramatic mountain many times since 2001.
"Looking and seeing are two different things. In tai chi we see without looking. When we look, we focus our gaze on some point. As we do that, there are subtle changes in our facial muscles which affect all our muscles. We see what we're looking at but miss the rest. Imagine having to deal with multiple opponents. The ideal is to see as if you're looking from behind your head so that your vision broadens. An easy way to understand it is by holding your arms at your side as if making a cross with your body. Can you see your hands with your peripheral vision? If you can, that's what your seeing should feel like. As you do that, you will notice that things get quieter and softer, more relaxed, and seem to slow down."
- Joe Eber, Facebook Post
Vision, Seeking, Sensations, Perceptions, Looking By Michael P. Garofalo
han de zhi hou.
bi yu chi zi.
du chong hui she bu shi.
meng shou bu ju.
jue niao bu bo.
gu ruo jin rou er wo gu.
wei zhi pin mu zhi he er zui zuo.
jing zhi zhi ye.
zhong ri hao er bu sha.S
he zhi zhi ye.
zhi he yue chang.
zhi chang yue ming.
yi sheng yue xiang,
xin shi qi yue qiang.
wu zhuang ze lao.
wei zhi bu dao.
bu dao zao yi.
- Pinyin Romanization, Daodejing, Chapter 55
"Research in the relatively new discipline of neuro-cardiology has confirmed that the heart is a sensory organ and acts as a sophisticated information encoding and processing center that enables it to learn, remember, and make independent functional decisions that do not involve the cerebral cortex. Additionally, numerous studies have demonstrated that patterns of cardiac signals to the brain affect autonomic regulatory centers and higher brain centers involved in perception and emotional processing.\."
- Thomas R. Verny, M.D., The Embodied Mind, Pegasus Books, 2021, p. 125.
"Common Heart Expressions
Follow your heart.
He had a big heart.
If you find it in your heart.
My heartfelt sympathies on you loss.
Wear one's heart on one's sleeve.
He died of a broken heart.
His heart is in the right place.
Eat your heart out.
She was a lighthearted person.
She had a change of heart.
Her heart was not in it.
He has a heart of gold.
He was a heartless villain.
A bleeding heart.
A faint heart.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
With an aching heart.
She is all heart.
Open one's heart to.
Pour open's heart out to.
With a heavy heart."
- Thomas R. Verny, M.D., The Embodied Mind, Pegasus Books, 2021, p. 116, and Mike Garofalo.
"Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success."
- Swami Sivananda
"Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout."
- Morihei Ueshiba
"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge."
Thomas Carlyle
Tai Chi Chuan, Chi Kung, Nei Gung, and Yoga Masters all mention the role of our hearts and lungs in our brief lives.
Chinese medical theorists and martial artists (Heart-Mind Boxing) point to the Heart or Middle Dantian or Hsing-Ming (Heart-Mind) as a locus for energy and consciousness. Breathing techniques involving the lungs is also a constant point of emphasis.
"The nearest equivalent to the English term for mind in the classical period is xin 心, which originated as a picture of the heart in human beings and animals and directs body’s behavior. Since ethical guidance in Chinese thought arises from both the cognitive function of the mind and the affective states attributed to the heart, xin is frequently translated as “heart-mind”. This translation will be used here. The xin is credited with thinking si 思, understanding míng 明, knowing zhi 知, intention zhi 志, felt moods and/or emotions qing 情, and desire yu 欲. Xin plays a central role in Chinese ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics; and philosophical disputes often turn on how different schools or Masters portray the role of xin. How it arrives at ethical guidance is a central point of contention between those who treat the guidance as internal (Mengzi) to those who treat xin as navigating an external normative structure and those who advocate emptying or ignoring the xin and taking guidance from some other organ or authority."
Mind (Heart-Mind) in Chinese Philosophy
I have more doubts about the efficacy of the Lower Dan Tien, and its role as an energy source, reservoir, and generator. See my post titled:
Dantian: A Baffling Legacy. The area below and behind our belly button is primarily used for digestion, elimination, the female reproductive organs (womb), and some big muscles involved with leg movement and balancing. Digestion is critical for life and has its own biochemistry and automatic functioning. However, A TCM "Dantian" is invisible and undetectable to modern medical anatomy.
I've never heard any Chi Kung or Tai Chi Chuan teacher talk about sending Chi energy from the heart and lungs out to the arms, hand, legs, feet, or brain; or Chi energy circulation to and from the Middle Dantian or Heart area. This seems remiss to me.
I have heard both taijiquan and qigong teachers talk about their large bellies as the Dantian source of their power and a chi resovoir. Men don't have a womb for reproduction, but I guess they envy a woman's power. People who eat too much and don't exercise, as they age, accumulate fat: men morso in the abdomen and women in the hips. Since the lower Dantian is invisible and non-existent, people can still imagine what they want to imagine about "It" as with other supernatural entities.
Heart and vascular diseases are the highest cause of death in the world. Far fewer die of kidney or bowel or excretory diseases. If your heart or lungs fail you die quickly. If your lower intestine is diseased you die far less quickly. The heart and lungs never rest; but, you can live a week without water and a month without food. Which is more important to immediate good health and life?
Yoga masters and Indian doctors speak about the Heart Charkra (Anhata) in a similar way. Yoga practitioners practice a variety of breathing exercises (Pranayama).
"The middle dantian is located at the center of the chest and is most closely related to the heart chakra, or Anahata. It’s associated with the thymus gland and is considered to be the seat of qi. “Qi is more subtle and less dense of an energy than jing, and as you elevate through the dantians, you also evolve through the purity of consciousness and subtlety of energy, just like you would in looking at the chakras,” says Soffer. “Qi, like prana, is as ubiquitous in the body as it is in nature. It’s the basis of form and function for universal energy.” According to practitioners, the middle dantian is the spark of all living things. The energy in this dantian is considered unique when compared with the other two. “The energy here is created from the food and fluids we consume and the air we breathe, and is appropriately located around the upper abdomen, where we consume, digest, and distribute energy throughout the body,” explains Ali Vander Baan, a licensed acupuncturist and founder of Yintuition Wellness in Boston. According to Soffer, when a person’s essence (jing) is properly cultivated, their life force rises to support the middle dantian and the opening of the heart. “This is a common occurrence on the path of enlightenment, to become open-hearted, loving, compassionate, and a source of good for the world around you,” explains Soffer."
- What are Dantian
When I teach Tai Chi Chuan, Qigong, Nei Gong, and Yoga I place much more emphasis on strengthening the heart, improving the functioning of the heart, using the emotional-mental aspects of the heart, having the heart and desire for training, having a big and kind heart, and heartfelt understanding; and proper breathing methods and exercises. Sending energy from the heart and lungs to all parts of our body via blood and the circulatory system is my focus. Blood and nerves transmissions seem a more understandable anatomical and physiological concept to me. I place little or no emphasis upon the Lower Dantian except for centering and balance in the lower back and hip areas.
The "Four Horsemen"
Of Contemporary Free Thought
Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris
The "Four Horsemen" of Free Thought in 2009
I have enjoyed and benefitted from reading three books by the fine writer, humanist, and scholar: Sarah Bakewell.
How to Live, or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer.
At the Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails.
This week, I have enjoyed reading her newest book:
Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry and Hope. Penguin Press, 2023, 454 pages. VSCL.
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.
My wife, Karen, is scheduled today, 11/19/23, for urological/gynecological surgery today at Legacy Hospital in Vancouver. We check in at 5:30 am this morning. Surgery around 9 am. She and all of us are very concerned and hope for the best outcome. She will stay at the hospital overnight.
I had a cardio-conversion procedure done at Peace Health Hospital in Vancouver on 11/22/23. Thus far, my serious and scary symptoms of atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter have abated; and, I feel fine and can walk and exercise again.
We are both over 75 years of age. We try to face and adjust to our medical problems in a positive, constructive, and practical manner. We don't complain at lot, and try to laugh off some of our nagging problems of old age. On the whole, we are happy and grateful people.
The Three Treasures
My Body
Feelings, Emotions, Body-Self, Past-Present, Id-Ego,
Physical Health, Unconscious Dimensions, Breathing,
Eating, Moving, Sleeping, Digesting, DNA, Sexuality,
Drinking, Vitality, Brain, Immediate Environment.
My Mind
Thoughts, Emotions, Experiences-Reflections, Ego, Goals
Past-Present-Future, Language Culture, Heart-Mind, Attitudes,
Beliefs, Opinions, Histories, Will, Hope, Memories, Spirit,
Brain-Body interactions with mundane environment.
My Actions
What I Do Today. My Behaviors and Character.
Family Life. Social and Community Interactions.
Purposeful activity towards the Future. Moral-Ethical Acts.
Practices, Exercises, Play. My employment or work.
The Three Treasures are intertwined, integrated, interconnected, involved, and interwoven in some way all the time; all to the benefit of well-being and good health. They can become disconnected and conflicting which produces poor bodily health, mental confusion, and useless, evil, or self-destructive acts. Balance, clear purpose, and reflection are some essentials.
We can separate these aspects of Being-In-The-World intellectually when reflecting; when Acting and Doing they are integrated.
The Living Body is the foundation of Mind and the means of flourishing Actions. Consciousness requires a Living Body.
I don't find it scientifically plausible to accept notions of our having consciousness after death, having an invisible immortal soul, being ghostly beings, having immortal supernatural lives in fanciful heavens or hells, or other imaginary religious memes about our "after-lives."
Qigong routines are intended to nourish, refresh, rejuvenate, and reenergize our Living Bodies. Seeking immortality, spiritual rebirth, or special magical super-powers via Qigong, ascetism, or prayers do not seem reasonable to me. Seeking and cultivating good health and longevity - Yes!
- By Michael P. Garofalo, 9/2022
Cultivating Longevity (Yang Sheng Gong)
The Longevity Plan. By John D. Jay and Jane Ann Day, wth Matthew LaPlante. 2018, 304 pages. 1. Eat good food. 2. Master your mind-set. 3. Build your place in a positive community. 4. Be in motion. 5. Find your rhythm. 6. Make the most of your environment. 7. Proceed with purpose. John D. Jay, M.D., Cardiologist, Electro-physiologist.
Books by Tom Bisio Books by Eva Wong Books by Livia Kohn
Books by Ken Cohen Books by Yang Jwing-Ming
"In long-established Chinese traditions, the "Three Treasures" are the essential energies sustaining human life:
This jing-qi-shen ordering is more commonly used than the variants qi-jing-shen and shen-qi-jing.
The Three Treasures or Three Jewels (Chinese: 三寶; pinyin: sānbǎo; Wade–Giles: san-pao) are theoretical cornerstones in traditional Chinese medicine and practices such as neidan, qigong, and tai chi. They are also known as jing, qi, and shen (Chinese: 精氣神; pinyin: jīng-qì-shén; Wade–Giles: ching ch'i shen; "essence, breath, and spirit")."
"The Three Treasures or Three Jewels (Chinese: 三寶; pinyin: sānbǎo; Wade–Giles: san-pao) are basic virtues in Taoism. Although the Tao Te Ching originally used sanbao to mean "compassion", "frugality", and "humility", the term was later used to translate the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha) in Chinese Buddhism, and to mean the Three Treasures (jing, qi, and shen) in Traditional Chinese Medicine."
- Three Treasures in Taoism
Guarding the Three Treasures. By Daniel P. Reid. Simon, 1993, 484 pages.
The Three Treasures. By Jong Kook Baik. 2019, 397 pages.