Best defense? Don’t be there

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Lincoln

“What’s the best defense? Don’t be there.” It’s a mantra my martial arts teacher repeats frequently. We practice side steps combined with soft blocks over and over until the movements are reflexive. When someone kicks or punches, you have three options: get hit (OUCH), use a hard block (bam!), or get out of the way. You use the hard block when you’re too slow to move. You get hit when you’re too slow to throw a hard block.

Life’s the same way. Maybe they’re not punching you, but you get attacked a lot. Maybe it’s an abusive comment. Maybe it’s a bold lie, or just someone being disingenuous. Maybe it’s an attack on a relationship, your career, or your identity. You get to choose how you respond.

When you’re mindful and in control of yourself, you can move out of the way. Then you can decide how best to respond to defuse the attack. If you don’t have the habit of moving established, maybe you deflect it with sarcasm (a verbal “hard block”). If you don’t move at all, you get hit with the full weight of it and it cripples you.

It’s like this every time you respond to (or moderate!) a discussion or blog post, too. How you move in response to the energy will define everything about your interaction with a community. Do you have the reflex established to move, or does every blow land, making you angry? Every time you’re attacked is a new opportunity to change your habits.

A fellow student is attacked

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Lincoln

Last night, a fellow student at my dojo told a story. It’s rare for Sifu to invite a student to speak at length during a normal class, so the air filled with tension as he came forward and sat in seiza before us.

The student is one of our most senior students and has practiced over a decade. He is very intense, very dedicated to practice, and is incredibly challenging to work with (in a good way). He comes across as extremely hard to beginners, and when I was new I dreaded when he was teaching a class. After a bit of time, you realize he’s actually a very warm person who is simply pushing you harder than you thought you could go. He’s certainly one of my favorites.

As he sat, he apologized and wondered if he would make it thru what he had to say. He was straining to hold back the emotion welling up in his eyes.

A few nights prior, he entered the stairwell of a parking garage near his office. It wasn’t late. He heard footsteps approaching behind him which struck him as odd because the stairwell had been empty when he entered. As he turned, an attacker thrust a knife at him. He pivoted, and grabbed the arm. They struggled back and forth, onto the ground, then back up again. Finally he broke the attacker’s arm, and the attacker fled, dropping his knife. He picked up the knife and a second attacker appeared, saw the knife, and likewise fled. He ran to his car. It probably lasted less than 60 seconds.

He called his wife, then found Sifu to work thru what had happened. He still wasn’t exactly sure, but walked us thru what he believe occurred during the struggle. Clearly, the muscle memory of practice had saved his life in a moment when there was no time to think.

Several things struck me about this.

After practicing martial arts for several years, you start to have some confidence in your abilities. You think, if it came down to it, you’d be OK if you got attacked. Stories like this are a wakeup call from that sort of complacency. It would not be OK. This was a highly trained, dedicated martial artist who can run circles around me in the dojo and he came so close to getting stabbed there was a hole in his fitted shirt afterward and his ribs were bruised by the attacker’s knuckles.

It also struck me that there was no revenge. He broke the attacker’s arm, yes, but then he let him go. He didn’t go after the second attacker at all. He ran. He gave the knife to Sifu. He went home and held his child. This is why we practice meditation of course, but it was still powerful to see it work.

Self-defense is not enough reason to practice the art for decades, but the effectiveness of the training saved the life of one of my favorite people, a husband and a father. Maybe it saved the attacker’s life too.

Beginner Buddhist’s resources

Posted on February 25, 2009 by Lincoln

What are the best resources you’ve found to explain the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Five Precepts to new Buddhists? Let’s assemble a few and discuss them, and then I’ll link some of the best ones here.

How to make ‘Tibetan Butter tea’ with Ghee

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Lincoln

Federica shares her recipe.

Apologies to any hard-line traditionalists, but Yak butter is unfortunately impossible to find in Europe and most other places, I presume, so I’m afraid this is a poor substitute. I am unfortunately unable to vouch for how authentic the flavour is, but I’m informed by a good friend who has visited Nepal that it’s actually not too bad!

Continue reading →

Willpower?

Posted on April 24, 2008 by Lincoln

The irony of willpower is that it requires willpower to develop more of the same. The most obvious case in point is that meditation is an exercise of willpower that requires willpower. Willpower is what I’m missing most and it’s the thing I have the hardest time working on.

The most damning part is that willpower is something for which you can’t get a personal trainer, and which all the inspirational words in the world won’t change.

Step one is acceptance, right?

My first morning meditation

Posted on April 4, 2008 by Lincoln

I’ve been practicing Kung Fu since October. My sifu is a bit rare, as I understand it, in that he absolutely insists that meditation be part of our practice, holds 5-minute meditations before every class, and has weekly 20-minute meditations on Thursday nights following a talk.

Out of my six months of practicing Kung Fu, I’d say I’ve actually done four months. Twice I allowed myself to become tied up with life and excuses and didn’t make it to the dojo for almost a month. This sort of behaviour is one of my stated reasons for starting to practice in the first place – I get ginned up for things and taper off; rinse and repeat.

Last week at meditation class, the topic was regularity and loyalty to practice. I felt the talk was directed at me specifically (30 or more people attend every week, so this is unlikely) and it started to dig at the root of my problem, I think.

This week I was thinking about how to start mediating on my own successfully. I’ve been a regular at the meditation class (when I’ve been active), but I’ve been wholly unsuccessful at meditating on my own. I’ve made half-hearted gambits, trying 3-minute meditations and such, but I could never continue with them. I’d do it once, then forget for several days or “not have time”, then take another stab, and then give up. I was preparing to go in this weekend and ask one of Sifu’s assistants for a really low-ball target that I could hit for meditation. Something just enough to get me started without giving up.

Then, last night, I once again felt like he had prepared a talk to address directly at me. The topic was meditation itself, which, oddly, isn’t much discussed during meditation class. He spent the duration talking about what a meditation schedule should consist of: short (3-5 min.), medium (20-30 min), and long (45+ min) meditations. Medium, he said, are the “bread and butter”: at least once a day EVERY DAY, preferably two; morning is the best time if you can only do one. The short ones are for interspersing throughout your day, maybe three times, at moments when you need it: closing your eyes while waiting in line, sitting in a back room at work, or even locking yourself in a restroom stall. The long meditations are for once a quarter, once a month, or once a week; whatever you can do.

And he was absolutely serious. Dead serious. A “I better not ask for a low-ball from anyone this weekend because holy crap he just told me what’s up” serious. And he drove home the idea of the long meditations being an endurance test for your will power. Of course, I knew that just a “medium” meditation would be such a test for me.

I was up too late last night; I had put off a trip to the grocery store and went to the 24-hour store around 11:30pm, when I should’ve been heading for bed. I knew I would have trouble getting up, but I got it in my head I was going to meditate in the morning. This morning, I sat up with the first noise of my alarm clock and was ready. As someone who typically hits the snooze 5 times, that was a novelty.

I reset the alarm for 20 minutes, and sat.

And sat.

Then I was too warm.

My sleeves were uncomfortable.

I was too warm again.

My legs were in a bad position.

Back wasn’t straight.

Back started getting really tired.

Then I wanted to jump up and run from the room. I wanted to stop SO BADLY. I had things to do. I WANTED TO YELL and jump up and say “good enough”. I was positively bursting to get up. BURSTING. My mind was screaming to let it go. Screaming. This never happens during a group meditation, but I’m surprised it took even this long to happen on my own – usually I can’t make 5 minutes!

But this time I sat some more. I refused to get up.

Then my legs started to go to sleep so I moved them.

Then I could barely keep my back straight it was so tired, so I quietly scooted back a few inches to the wall.

My mind calmed a little.

And then the alarm went off. I opened my eyes and wanted to hit the snooze alarm so I could meditate longer, but I had to get ready for work!

I find this to be a pattern: if I can stick with it long enough, suddenly it becomes a positive thing. I found myself wishing on Thursday night that I hadn’t missed my opportunity to go to class on Wednesday because now I just plain missed it. Sifu said that’s when you know you’re doing something right: you stop having to meditate and start wanting to meditate. I’m almost there for Kung Fu, but I’m nowhere near it for meditation. I hope I can make it there, though.

When I decided to meditate in the morning, I knew it I needed to do it the next day too. And the next. And keep going… forever. Forever is a long time, but I think that’s the decision I need to keep in mind. I’m not doing it “tomorrow”. I’m doing it. Maybe that’s where I’ve been falling short.

How to make Tsampa (or roasted barley flour)

Posted on March 30, 2008 by Lincoln

Federica tells us how to make Tsampa, a staple of Tibetan diet.

Here’s what you’ll need to make it:

250g/8oz of good-quality, organic pearl barley
Water
Good thick-based non-stick frying pan (skillet)
Coffee grinder, or spice grinder

Place pearl barley in a bowl. Cover with cold water (at least a good inch over the barley) and leave overnight to absorb as much water as possible. In the morning, it will have swelled to twice its original size, and be quite white and opaque. Drain the barley thoroughly, and spread out onto a clean teacloth. Roll the cloth up to soak up as much water as possible, squeezing the “sausage” lightly to assist the process. Unroll, and ‘brush’ the barley into the middle of the cloth, with your fingers.

In the meantime, heat the pan or skillet over a medium heat. When it’s good and hot, scoop a handful or two of the barley, into the pan. Stir with a wooden fork, to prevent the grains from sticking together. They’ll become translucent, then opaque again, as they begin to dry roast. Keep stirring, until the grains turn a pleasing nut-brown. They’ll be quite dry and “gravelly” in the pan.

Transfer to a large tray, and spread out to allow to cool. Repeat the process until all the barley is roasted. It will be cooked and ready to use.

You can either keep it whole, and add it to stews and casseroles ten minutes before cooking time is up, or grind a quantity in a coffee, or spice grinder, until it is the consistency of flour.

I use a little in the bottom of my teacup to soak up the remaining butter from my Tibetan butter tea!

(Note: the recipe in the Wikipedia tsampa article is the one I added. The article also tells you how to use tsampa in other ways.)

Tending our garden

Posted on March 25, 2008 by Lincoln

Brian has a pretty big backyard for metropolitan Detroit. The previous owner was a big-time gardenig fanatic, so Brian inherited an elaborate landscaping setup that no mere mortal can maintain, even with an industrious roommate (me). The flowerbeds are huge and haven’t been tended to properly in about five years. Nature, of course, is tending to itself instead and has created its own chaos. It was a reasonably warm 45 degrees (Fahrenheit) today and the snow is finally gone, so I decided to get out there and survey the how a particularly nasty winter compounded the situation back there. Click any picture to see it larger.

The trashcans are in a muddy mess; possible rats’ nest nearby. The palettes against the bushes are a ghetto fix for the dog having figured out he can hop the fence behind them. The back was a huge bed for the entire width of the yard that is now completely fallow, save for a few shrubs that were planted there as a mini-nursery by the previous owner.

A white statue is a mini-monument to what was. The beds in the back corner of the yard are beyond help too.

The reeds all have to get cut down so they can grow back in. The boards on the bridge buckled during winter.

The bush in front of my bedroom window has outgrown its britches.

A stream flows into the pond once the thaw is permanent and the pump is switched back on.

This is shaping up to be quite a project for the spring. My goal is to get the entire mess under control and salvage what is possible. I started tonight by cutting down the reeds, trimming the bush outside my window, and starting to untangle the humongous, overpowering vines from the bushes all along the back of the yard. I think we’re going to have to call 70% of the beds totaled and just tear them out and plant grass.

Do any of the gardeners among you have any helpful suggestions? I’m especially sensitive to cost; I have the time, but not much money. Do any of you have your own gardening projects for spring?

How to make your own Ghee

Posted on March 24, 2008 by Lincoln

Federica shares her process:

This ghee is great whenever you need butter in cooking, for anything, but particularly for Indian dishes.

First, find the best quality unsalted butter you can. I use goat’s butter, but ordinary dairy butter will do.

Use a large pan, (make sure it will fit in your fridge) and put your butter in (I use three 250g or 8oz packs). Add about 2 inches of water, and put on very low heat. Keep an eye on it; when the butter is all melted, turn off the heat, and allow the melted butter to cool completely. This separates the pure butter oil from any impurities and additives in the butter.

When cold, carefully put it into the fridge, and allow it to go good and hard, and solid. Leave it overnight.

The next day, poke a hole in the very edge, between the ghee and the pan. Then poke another hole somewhere in the middle. This releases the vacuum. Shake the pan a little bit to stir up the water, then pour the water off, and discard. You’ll find it’s milky, with impurities.

Repeat the process. Add some more water, and again, place on a very low flame. Melt the butter, and then allow to cool again. Put into the fridge for 4 hours or so, depending on when you do it, or overnight. Drain off the water as before. If it’s not quite clear, do it once more.

When the water is as clear as when you first put it in, then the ghee is ready. Drain thoroughly, but leave the ghee in the pan. You now need to eliminate any traces of water.

Reheat the ghee through until it’s melted, then let it become quite hot, and permit any remaining traces of water to boil through the ghee and evaporate away. Once this is done, let the ghee cool, and while still liquid, pour into clean sterilized glass jars. Put on the lids whilst the ghee is still warm. This will create a vacuum as it cools. Store in the fridge. It lasts for absolute ages!

A fresh beginning, a Spartan layout

Posted on March 22, 2008 by Lincoln

I guess two years was long enough to stare at a lifeless main page that was a monument to my inactivity. Tonight I wiped it out and installed WordPress, and tied it to the forum. Staff members have been given permission to post whatever they like, whenever they like. At least it works, now! And, it’s tied into the forum so our wonderful community can comment on posts as we go along.

I’ll be working on a suitable design in the coming weeks and tie this page together with the forum gracefully. For now, please pardon the sterile white appearance.

This little site is amazing – like a garden that cares for itself, it continues to grow without any intervention and blooms. I hope that, with a little tending, the blossoms will grow larger still. Many thanks for your patience and continued presence. This truly is a special place.