Natural order | ||
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What is
natural order?
Natural order is the Way things are when nobody interferes.
Before human society developed, the universe existed.
When humans are long gone, the universe will continue.
There is a harmony to existence, and
humans are yet to live in balance with everything else.
Is
it natural?
Taoism is concerned with living in a natural way.
In harmony with the natural world and our own natures.
When faced with various lifestyle
choices a tai chi person will ask themselves whether or not the
activity/food/product is natural...
The world has music
for those who listen.
(William Shakespeare)
Food & drink
A natural
diet is fairly easy to follow.
There are many books and free on-line resources providing useful
information.
Commonly avoided: additives, preservatives, flavourings, colouring, GM,
pesticides, growth hormone, oestrogen, processed, bleached.
Actions
Many of the things we do with our bodies are unnatural.
Bad physical habits commence with school; hunching over a desk for hours at
a time, staying still rather than moving around.
Many everyday actions involve unnatural and potentially deleterious body
use, for example:
Driving a car
Sitting at a desk
Using a mobile phone
Using a computer
Watching TV
Reading electronic books
Hunched over a drop handle bike
Gardening
Doing household chores
Using a videogame controller
Sport
Running
Lifting weights
Operating machinery
Using tools
It is not necessary to
avoid every unnatural activity but we do need to be
mindful of how we use our bodies.
Skin care
Parabens, sodium laureth sulphate, silicone, parfum, petroleum based
ingredients. alcohol, mineral oil are commonly avoided by people seeking
a natural skincare regime.
Environment
Lighting, plastic, fumes, chemicals, noise pollution, toxins, paint,
cleaning products, detergents can all contribute to an unnatural working
situation.
Sitting or standing for long periods of time is not natural, not is staring
at a TV screen or monitor.
In the Western world, we seek the answers to life with our rational minds,
using science and technology to gather information
and to adapt the environment so that it suits us.
The other creatures of the world are at one with nature.
Instead of seeking to adapt the universe to suit them,
they live in harmony with their surroundings.
(John Lash)
Balancing
Balancing is the process of moving in accord with
how things are.
Tai chi is all about balancing oneself.
Rather than change the world to suit your idea of it, you change how
you think so that you can really see.
Tai chi
Tai chi aims to return the human body to state of natural
suppleness and mobility
we started life with.
Through careful exercise and an increased degree of
awareness, students learn to
move in a new way.
They cease to be clumsy.
Awkward positions such as hunching over
feel to be unpleasant and 'wrong'.
Natural body use
Humans have long, powerful legs and weak arms and shoulders.
This is because we are bipeds, not monkeys.
Many people pump up their arms and shoulders in order to gain a strong,
manly-looking physique.
Usually the motive is vanity and as such goes
against nature.
We must work mainly on our buttocks and legs, not our arms and shoulders.
Wu tze
'Wu tze' means to be 'without law and yet orderly'.
It is how the Taoist sages regarded nature.
In his book 'Taoism: Way beyond
seeing', Alan Watts speaks of how Western culture has adopted a mechanised
approach to the perception of nature.
Nature cannot be understood and explained using a particular way, method or
perspective.
It just is.
Leaderless
In Taoism, a person seeks to return to their natural
state.
Animals in nature do not need to be managed and organised.
Similarly, people have an innate resistance to authority and feel more
comfortable being their own boss.
No politics
Taoists are opposed to the idea that power and
domination are necessary.
They advocate more co-operative, anti-hierarchical approaches to situations.
In Taoism, control is seen as the opposite of
anarchy.
An unbalanced object will settle without intervention, it does not need to
be instructed or assisted.
What is chaos?
Chaos simply means that a pattern cannot be determined.
Cloud formations as an example of this.
Humans apply meaning and measurement to all things
in an attempt to understand the
world.
Can you measure love?
Understanding must be expressed in terms of what you already know.
Existence is unknowable, so how can it be expressed?
Taoism and natural order
Tai chi students have no interest in politics or control.
The world and reality itself are recognised as being incomprehensible to the
human brain.
No person can understand every aspect of reality
- people, animals, water, land, energy, gases, space, thoughts,
opinions, ideas...
There are innumerable relationships between everyone and everything.
It is too vast to be said, too enormous to be thought.
Taoism teaches a person to let each thing go its natural way, to settle of
its own accord.
We have been
interfering with a complex system of relationships which we do not
understand,
and the more we study its details,
the more it eludes us by revealing still more details to study.
As we try to comprehend and control the world it runs away from us.
(Alan
Watts)
Page created 2 March 1995
Last updated
16 June 2023
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