Didi Lalita, Special Guest Teacher at Lotus and Leadership Groups

Both the Lotus Groups (every other Wednesday and Saturday) and the Leadership meeting are enjoying the teachings of Didi Lalita from Ananda Dhiira, Center for Spirituality and Well Being.

In the Wednesday Lotus Group, Didi is leading the Tao Te Ching discussions. She reads a chapter in Mandarin and the scholars often echo the chapter back to her in English from one of the many translations and versions that we have discovered.  The text that Shih Fu Eileen prefers is by Jane English and Gia Fu Feng. We have also delved into Stephen Mitchell's version.

Didi is adept at drawing out our personal understandings of the text.  It is a joy to hear her read in Mandarin. Hearing the chapters in their original language seems to preserve the poetry in a special way.

At a previous meeting, Didi shared with us a bit about her own story.  She and other "sisters" are restoring their property on Kentucky Creek near Bridgeport Crossing on the South Yuba River. Ananda Dhiira is home to regular yoga and meditation retreats, as well as permaculture and nature workshops.

There will be some upcoming workdays where you can roll up your sleeves and pitch in to continue with Ananda Dhiira's award-winning conservation and restoration of the land.  They were named "Conservationist of the Year 2007" for Nevada County. If you are interested to learn more, please call 530 432 3618 or send an email to info-at-anandadhiira.net and one of the didis will get back to you!

Perhaps someone from the Saturday Lotus Group can comment on what's happening at those meetings!

Wednesday April 27th, please bring your Tao Te Ching writing to share with the group.

Didi Lalita returns on May 4th. Come prepared with your responses to Chapters 37 and 41.

PS, At last week's Wednesday Lotus Meeting, Didi Lalita recommended this movie:


Life After Life
The LIFE AFTER LIFE film is the result of an ongoing labor of love in the most literal sense as its timeless message is of God's Infinite Compassion. The amazing collection of real-life testimonials were selected from thousands of cases, and are the culmination of years of research, publications, books and specialized media-training by a broad spectrum of contributors. Here you can watch some behind-the-scene glimpses of what eventually culminated in the film version of LIFE AFTER LIFE.

News From China

The following email arrived last night from Summer and Shih Fu:
Ni Hao Ma
We are happy healthy and full bellied.
The food is delicious and we are being well cared for.
We start training at 6:00am every morning and do not get back until 7 or 8pm.
So we hit the pillow.......there has been no resting since the moment that we arrived.

Across the Sky,
through the gateway
we have entered
another world
Our hearts wide open
our souls remembering
sacred teachings
Omi Tofu
(Buddah Bless you)
Love, Summer

While Shih Fu is Away

Shih Fu, Summer and Kiala are well on their way to China. Probably working on the jet lag about now.  I've promised them that everything will be well in their absence, that all of us at Body Balance will uphold our practices, refine the forms and await their return.

This feeling of the responsibility of holding steady harkens back to the early days of Body Balance, when there was just one teacher and all of us students were doing our best to learn as fast as we could.  When Shih Fu took a trip away, we sometimes met in the park and tried to help each other remember as best we could.

Now that there are dozens of students who have completed the Long Form, a good handful who are working their way through the Tai Chi Straight Sword Form and a few of us who have been here for so many years that we finally have the rhythm of practice in our bones, there should be no worry that the school is in good hands.

Continue to practice with all your heart. Come to class with your questions about refinement. Chris Hooley, Anya Devi, Tina Heck, David Parry-Jones and Shih Fu Catherine (along with Jean Kono and Chandra on the Kung Fu side of the school) are ready to assist you and create stress-free class sessions with your optimal learning in mind.

Enjoy the variety of teachers and approaches to this ancient art.  All classes will continue as scheduled, including Leadership and Lotus Meetings.

Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask one of us. We are here at your service.

One final note, be ready to receive transmissions directly from Shih Fu and Summer as they travel and practice with the Shaolin Monks in the temples near Tung Ming City. You many be surprised to find quite a bit of chi streaming your way.  And please keep them in your meditations, sending chi their way to buoy their journey.

Xie, xie.

EnneaThought for the Day

I'm a skeptic.  A loyal skeptic according to my Type. Which is Six. (This is Shih Fu Catherine, btw, not Shih Fu Eileen, a Two.)

Trying to wrap my head around the Enneagram as a tool for understanding this human personality.  Because Shih Fu subscribes to the idea, I have tried to remain open to the possibilities.  In the Lotus Group I see a number of reactions to it: from whole-hearted embrace to a healthy skepticism.  I won't say who exhibits each response or exactly where on the continuum we all fall.

As a possible, probable, OK, I'm a Six, I though it wise to try out a daily email suggested by one of our members--the EnneaThought for the Day--before I recommended it here on the blog. If you are savvy to the Enneagram, I know you are laughing at how "six" this is...

I've been receiving these daily emails for a few weeks now. Confess that I've even read them occasionally.

Monday I got:

Healthy Sixes are endowed with tremendous endurance and achieve their objectives through steady and persistent efforts. They believe in the adage "Success is 10 per cent inspiration and 90 per cent perspiration." How can you express a healthy persistence today?

Saturday this resonated:

Growth does not come from either obeying or disobeying rules, from either doing as you are told or rebelling against it. Growth comes from allowing your ego's story to drop away.

For now, as I become more familiar with the tool, I treat these like a horoscope; intriguing, perhaps insightful.  Read 'em.  Sit with 'em for a minute. Then cheerfully put the email in the trash. Sometimes the message taps me on the shoulder later in the day to give me a wry smile or a thoughtful moment.

As my practice deepens, I welcome these opportunities for growth. Whether I rebel or obey, sometimes a message connects deeply to something beyond my ego.  And isn't that what many of us are looking for? Here's their spiel:

"There are 365 EnneaThoughts^sm for each type—all different, all insightful, and all right to the point for helping you work with the Enneagram to become more self-observant, present, and balanced. The EnneaThoughts^sm also reflect the rhythms and seasons of the year, to help you deal with the emotional challenges the year may bring.
Use the daily EnneaThought^sm to further your Inner Work and as an awareness practice throughout the day."

If you are interested, just be aware that these daily emails come with a lot of packaging--links to the main website, ads for workshops, online quizzes and more (Much More!).  You have to register for the site, but it's free. Here's where to subscribe: http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/members/enneathought.asp

Thought for the Day: Slip Out of Your Thoughts

"....time began for human beings when we slipped out of the present infinite moment, when we went into shame, rage, remorse, grief, sadness, anger, jealousy, greed, and we slipped into the future through our fear, projecting into something that it has not occurred yet. Everything but being here present now. And our minds function in such a way as to pull us away from ourselves. The thoughts do only that.

So, in my dream, we will recover the aspect of the real human being, where we are all infinitely present and that consciousness is what guides us to put together whatever the new is. And that will require, as one of the first steps, to slip out of thought. I know this is possible because by age six, I could sit for hours with no thought coming through my head, but still have awareness. In fact, in Aleut country, we consider thoughts as dumbing us down. And the words that come from these thoughts dumb us down. The true intelligence of the real human being is the entire embodiment of the human being with thoughts not interfering but supporting that which comes from that awareness. And that, I know, we are going to do."

This quote comes from Aleut community leader Larry Merculieff.  He was the first Alaska Native person to serve as Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Commerce and Economic Development. He chaired the Indigenous Knowledge sessions of the Global Summit of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change. Co-author of Aleut Wisdom: Stories of an Aleut, Merculieff is a Senior Advisor to the World Wilderness Congress.