Hero's Code

The truth of the quiet box

I wonder if we agree that the truth of things is elusive.  I have taken pride - a mistake I know - in my ability to judge others and yet have found myself in the past with business partners that were on a very different path to me.  We look at out politicians and wonder who we can trust.  It is all to easy to be dazzled by surface appearance and be attracted to the flashy technique or the loud spectacle.  But is there truth here?

The Master said, "Think on this now.  I have here two small wooden boxes of the same size."  Holding up the boxes one at a time he told his students, "Listen. When I knock on this one, a loud sound resonates around the room.  When I knock on this other one, there is hardly any sound at all."

"Now tell me, from our experience of such things, what do we already know about the loud-sounding box?" asked the Master.  The students understood that the box was empty.

"And what do you make of the quiet box?" asked the Master again.  The students recognised that this box was full of something.

Now the Master posed a question.  "Tell me, with human enterprise in mind, do we use the lessons of the wooden boxes?"

A student answered at once, "We certainly do not, Master.  We only take notice of who makes the loudest noise .  We don't pay attention to the quiet one."

A second student spoke up.  "I can see what you are suggesting but in our democracy the majority rules.  What the majority believes is desireable is supported and will grow in influence as a result."

"I agree," replied the Master.  "But keep in mind that the value of an idea or of a belief is is not determined by how many people believe it or choose to follow it."

In times gone by the majority may have believed that the world were flat or that the sun moved around the Earth.  The majority idea it didn't make it a fact.

There may be a deeper law that is separate from the ideas of majority and minority.  If this law exists it will lie within each of us awaiting cultivation .

Strategy

A friend of mine who is relatively new to coaching asked if I could advise him on something that was troubling him.  He had a coaching client who in the course of their meeting had a revelation that simply blew away a problem he had been facing.  My friend was concerned that he felt as if he had done nothing – he had simply been there for his client and in his heart wasn’t sure that he had deserved his fee. 

I found this quite funny because my friend was in the mistaken belief that coaching is necessarily about a state of “doing” – my feeling is that often mastery in coaching or consulting is very much about a state of “being.”  And that is very much worth paying for.

When a coach is thinking too much about what she or he has to do then invariably their focus is in the wrong place.  I want my attention to be totally on the client, providing them with a safe space to step back perhaps and get a new perspective on their issues.  The last thing I should be thinking about is “first I will ask this question and maybe then I will ask that question.”  The most powerful interventions are those where the client’s problems simply go away and the coach gets the blame for it.

As a coach we allow clients to get a different perspective on their issues – they are the ones that should solve their problems.

My Maori friend Hirini Reedy clued me into a neat metaphor for problem solving based on the patterns of the fern frond.  The idea stems from the warrior arts of the Maori people.

Nature has always taught humankind. The Maori are no different. The animals, the trees, the weather patterns, the waters and nature herself were all teachers of the warrior.  In the wananga (school) of life, the sky is the roof, the earth is the floor and all life forms are teachers.

The Zulu peoples used the horns of a buffalo as a strategic pattern to defeat the British army in the 19th Century.  The Maori used the fern frond as a tactical pattern to encircle, envelop and crush their enemies.  It could be used as a tactical maneuver or a weaponry sequence. Look at the fern frond. Watch how it grows and spirals. Examine the fractal, self-similar patterns of the small shoots.  Notice the same patterns emerging.

Apply the fern frond metaphor to a problem you may have.  Encircle it from different directions. Look at it through different eyes. Approach it from different angles. Upside - down. Back to front. Inside-out. Watch a solution sprout from within your consciousness.  If you can do this maybe you won’t need to pay a coach.

Ordinary Mind - Ordinary Moments

As a younger man I worked in a hospital in Canada.  I noted as Christmas approached that some of the younger doctors would have a private bet on a rather unfortunate event.  They would gamble on who would have to give someone the news that they had cancer on the eve of Christmas.  There was no malice in this.  In fact it was a way of changing their perspective on an event that caused a surge of negative emotions. 

At that time in my life I was working with seriously ill children and when my own wife was expecting our first child I held a secret fear that my child too would not be healthy.  After all, my ordinary, normal life was filled with sick children.  It's only as I look back that I realise how much I was allowing my emotions to be swept along by factors that I could never control.  I never knew I had a choice.

Advanced martial artists work to create a state of mental and physical calm that gradually becomes a normal part of their everyday life; this state is known as heijoshin or "ordinary mind."  This state of ordinary mind is one that allows balance and calm at all times - irrespective of the events of the moment.

The secret to achieving an ordinary mind is to treat ordinary moments as special so that then even extreme or special events will seem everyday matters.  As Dan Millman once said, in truth, there are no ordinary moments.  Every moment of life is special from some viewpoint if we choose to adopt it.

Not don't misunderstand - I am not perfect.  We are all climbing up the same mountain and some people are ahead of me and some are behind.  It's just easier for us all to spot the attitudes and behaviours of others from our personal vantage points.

Do you ever really pay attention to the trees and flowers around you; do you notice the colour of the sky or feel the movement of the breeze.  Most of us are so tied to the events and commitments of our daily lives that we notice none of this.  There are hosts of things that we don't stop to notice.  Many people I meet would see my thoughts and views as pointless and then go back to the struggle of their existence.

Another view might be that these simple things are ordinary all right - but if you miss them you are missing the better part of life.

We were given senses to explore our world and the stream of data that bombards us in each moment is so vast and rich that we "delete" most of it.  It never is perceived at a conscious level. We filter it and reject most of it. Without conscious thought. What are we missing?  In one tiny slice of time we miss an infinite range of sensory flow and a universe of life experience.

The person who has come close to dying and survived, learns to revel in the beauty and uniqueness of each ordinary moment.  This person understands that these moments are what life is all about.

You and I can simply wait until it is time for us to die to experience the specialness of each ordinary moment, or we can take hold of this now and enjoy the rest of our lives.

Relax to release your talent

Most of us carry subtle tensions - and do so for so many years that we no longer know what real relaxation feels like.  One of the worst things about tension is that it leaks energy from us and prevents us reaching our potential for achievement with mind or body.

In Dan Millman's book, "Body Mind Mastery - creating success in sport and life," he cites a research study in which the movement abilities of six month old babies were compared with a group of professional football players.

The athletes tried to copy the movement and posture of these babies for ten minutes without stopping.  The perhaps surprising result was that not a single athlete could keep up and they all dropped out exhausted before the ten minutes were up.  The athletes carried so much tension that their movements were inefficient. 

Working with athletes to raise awareness of their body's tension or state of relaxation has many benefits.  Through relaxation strength and speed are enhanced.  Suppleness, stamina and sensitivity soar to new heights.  Its no surprise that athletes devote so much time to building muscular strength and power.  The wise ones understand the importance of relaxation.

I came to study karate at the relatively "old" age of 35.  After many years of powerlifting, wresting and rugby I was strong and I managed to intimidate my fellow beginners.  Nevertheless, as any practitioner will tell you, just like them after a few minutes of free style sparring and I was simply exhausted.  Following the mistakes of millions of beginners before me I didn't know how to relax and I was trying to use too much force.

Onlookers can't understand why it takes a year to learn how to punch properly in karate.  The key is relaxation.  The speed of the punch is ensured only by relaxing the muscles of the arm except for those that accelerate the fist to its target. At the instant of impact all the muscles of the arm and shoulder instantly contract with many muscle fibres recruited at once before relaxing just as quickly.  Disobey this practice and energy drains from you rapidly and your technique remains ineffective.

My sensei constantly reminded me in sparring never to gasp for breath but to relax and calm my breathing even though this seemed counter intuitive.  I realised eventually that gasping caused tension in my chest and diaphram muscles and this tension actually reduced my bodies ability to breath.  As our skills progressed we learned to disguise our breathing from an opponent - whilst timing our attacks to coincide with particular points in our opponents breath cycle.

I have known for many years that the body and mind are linked.  It took me many years to bring these principles fully into my business life.  Relaxation under pressure brings clarity of thought - and keeps us in a situation to respond rather than react.  When we try to use force with ourselves and others we  eventually run out  of energy. 

People have accused me of "pie in the sky" thinking.  Surely, I will get brushed aside by those people who can be ruthless and use force and deception.  But relaxation doesn't mean inaction or weakness in my world....

"The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be..."
Bruce Lee

The Crime of the Peach

Long ago there was a powerful Lord in China who was blessed with an extremly loyal minister.  One day an urgent message arrived to inform the minister that his mother had fallen seriously ill.  The minister rushed to his mother's side in his masters carriage.  Unfortunately, this was actually a serious crime - punishable by having both feet cut off.

However, when the Lord was informed of his ministers actions, he declared, "What a wonderful minister, to be so concerned for the welfare of his mother that he risked losing both feet as the price for using the royal carriage!"

Some time later the minister and his Lord were in the royal gardens.  The minister picked a peach from a tree and upon biting into it, found it so delicious and sweet that he immediately offered it to his lord.

The other ministers were shocked that he had offered a half eaten peach to his lord - but yet again the lord was impressed and immediately praised the minister for his actions.

However, eventually the lord and his faithful minister had a falling out over some minor thing.  The lord all of a sudden recalled the events of the apst in a different light.  "How dare he use my carriage to see his mother and how dare he offer me a half-eaten peach - guards! execute him at once!!"

As this story illustrates, it is as well to remember that our view of the world and it's events is shaped by the attitude we use to perceive it.  Most of us - most of the time - choose to look at the world in a way which will best suit our self centered convenience at that particular moment.  And we mistakenly believe that our view is authentic and the views of another are false.

The Paradox of Effort without Force

You may have experienced this.  I certainly have.   

We struggle long and hard to create something, only to see its fruition move further and further away - then we give up. 

And then - if we are lucky, we might tap into some inner core of wisdom that allows us to "let go," breath deeply once again and relax.

Then surprise, surprise -  what we desire  seems to flow to us, or is it through us, like a gift from heaven.  This is the principle of non-action  at work.

There  is an apparent paradox in life.   When it comes to what we desire to show up in our lives  it is not helpful to struggle or to try to force things.  And yet that doesn't mean we do nothing!  In order to attain mastery or make progress in anything you can't lie back on the beach and expect your desires to materialise from a blue cloud.  We need to make arduous efforts and yet at the same time not force matters.

Non-action is a creative process and involves a type of waiting but in doing so we make ourselves accessible to the flow of energy in our bodies and indeed our lives.

Take writing as an example.  Inspiration is needed but you can't force it to come - it's about letting go.  If a writer can let go of all the fears and hallucinations that lurk in the background to darken the creative present, he or she will experience this flow.  It is as if the writing moves through the person who no longer blocks its passage.

Learning how to relax and let go is truly hard work, requiring trust in oneself and perseverance.