The seed for this eerie episode had unwittingly been planted a few hours earlier. That afternoon I was in my little round earth hut surrounded by Chiang Dao’s two big mountains: Doi Luang and Doi Nang. I’d been reading In the Wake of the Jomon, Jon Turk’s account of his epic kayak voyage from Asia to Alaska. As I followed his saga naturally a craving for adventure stirred within me. Now, I’m not talking about something Turk-ish like kayaking a couple thousand miles through isolated and treacherous waters. Still, back in the day it wasn’t unheard of for me to head into the mountains for a month or two at a time. These days though, with a young family, a business to run and classes to teach, even minor expeditions are hard to swing.

I put my book down and I turned a scan of the curving lime and mud plastered walls of my hut. I gazed out through simple wooden windows over the tree-lined field and the hazy brown and green mountains beyond. I mused over what fruit trees, vegetables, herbs and cereals to plant when the rainy season begins. I eyed the ridges and gulleys for future hikes. Images from my short residence in Chiang Dao – sunsets, snakes, mist and stars – came back to me. “For now, this corner of the planet is where I’ll find my adventure.” I said to myself. It was a nice thought, a comforting thought.

A column of white smoke rising up the face of Doi Nang caught my eye. Knowing that the burning season was underway did put a damper on my mood, but in that sunny day I couldn’t see any portent of real darkness. And soon I was too distracted to give adventure any more thought for the time being. That day, in our quiet corner of Thailand, a music, arts & natural living festival run by a bunch of expat Japanese hippies was kicking off. I jumped on my bike to meet some friends there and check it out. We spent the evening eating, drinking and listening to blues and bizarre Australo-Japanese trance/fusion. The Shambala In Your Heart festival seemed a happy, goofy, carefree expression of togetherness & creativity. But when the party was over and I left that tiny circle of warmth for the ride home, the night I met was cold, raw and haunting.

As soon as I turned my bike up the dirt road towards the mountain I spotted that bright sickle of flame casting its horrible pall over the black valley. It was absurdly big, seeming to stretch from peak to peak. In that still landscape with an icy, glittering canopy of stars above, the fire seemed so wrong. It was more than just a destructive natural phenomenon, its smile was a sneering desecration of my sacred space. Shoulders hunched tight against looming dread and biting cold, I rode through black fields right towards the flaming, mocking maw. That was the way home.

When I pulled through my gate half the blaze was blocked from view by a nearby foothill. Standing in front of my little hut I could see individual fires, dancing yellow tongues strung in an arcing line from low on the right all the way up to the ridge on the left. At this angle the fire looked less like a demonic smile and more like a candle-lit procession of giants solemnly ascending to the heights. It still was awe-ful, though not in a dark, ominous way. I felt like I’d stumbled on-stage into a grand drama in which I had no part and, even more, might get trampled on unawares by the mighty actors. (And no I hadn’t been smoking anything at the Japanese hippie fest, much to my disappointment).

I brought my palms together in a show of respect for the forces on the prowl that night and made a hasty retreat into my round little hobbit home. A couple of candles gave only enough light to emphasize the surrounding darkness. Inside the air of dread eased but I still suffered a kind of spooky solitude. I huddled up in all my warm clothes, sat down with my mobile phone and rode a stream of apps and emails back to the comfortable universe of electronic diversion.

Down off the mountain and back in the city, I now look back at that evening and wish I had the chance to be there again, in the shadow of gods and giants. Just hours earlier my heart had longed for a sense of the great, the bizarre, the powerful and the mysterious out there in the wild world that my day-to-day life seemed disconnected from. I’d even had the sense that it was in that very valley between Doi Luang and Doi Nang that such an experience was to be found. I hardly expected though that it would come the way it did, with Kali’s flame-dripped lips hanging over me. I’d been caught unawares. I am so tempted to blame the freaks at the Shambala festival for distracting me. But that wouldn’t be right, and they were so damned nice anyway. It was my own carelessness. I forgot that in my heart I’d called on the wild gods of the mountains. I’d asked them to smile on me. And then I wasn’t ready for the time and manner of the reply. But I did receive a lesson about mindfulness and expectations. I guess this was one of those times I got what I needed more than what I wanted.

Then I began to reflect. My peripheral vision was convinced that a series of cyclists were riding by. Even though my “superior” direct vision had “disproved” it at least twice already, the mind habitually made the same leap. This process and its implications were interesting enough to consider, but prodded by a recent reading of Yogananda, I took it a step further: Perhaps my direct vision is also misleading. My eyes & mind tell me “dragonfly” with certainty, but should I simply accept that? Is there a “higher” vision that could offer a clearer, truer perception? And could there another even beyond that?

It’s all a matter of place. One of the things holding me back in life, and I’d venture to say this is probably true for many of us, is that all too often I’ve got a monkey mind (impulsive, undisciplined, unreflecting, tribal) paired with a human body (weak, inflexible, hobbled by chronic injuries and diseases largely resulting from the so-called “conveniences” of modern civilization – processed foods, sitting at desks, etc.). In other words, I’ve got it precisely backwards. How much better off would I be with a more human mind (self-aware, deliberative, sympathetic) and paired with a monkey body (strong, flexible, adaptable, resilient, naturally at ease)?

Monkeys don’t do well in cages. They thrive in their natural surroundings when they’re free to make use of all their abilities. When we wrap up, coddle, neglect and otherwise stifle our physical natures, we invite trouble. The opposite holds true with regard to our minds. When we give free reign to our fantasies, desires and idle speculations, we find ourselves scattered and unsatisfied. Flexibility of thought is certainly good, but direction and discipline are key to a healthy mind.

So how do we make the necessary correction? An important first step is re-connecting body & mind, so that the different energies have a pathway to flow & balance out. Personally I’m a big fan of martial arts, yoga, chi kung and sports but athleticism isn’t the point here.  Connecting with and cultivating the body can be as simple as going for a mindful walk. Swing your arms, move from your hips, try going barefoot. Be conscious of how you move, how you hold your body. Ask yourself “why?” And ask yourself “Am I at ease? What could I do to be more at ease?” With awareness all your artificial, unhealthy habits will show themselves. In this way the mind helps the body.

The body too can help the mind. Sit still and watch your breath. Or focus on simple body awareness practices like in mahasati meditation. The body gives you an anchor for your mind. The mind will drift, that is natural, but the anchor helps you see when the drift occurs, it helps you identify the currents that pull at the mind. And when you can see these currents, you can make conscious choices out of what were previously unthinking responses.

There are deeper benefits to the man-monkey relationship down the road, but for now it’s enough to recognize and make peace with the monkey. Peace comes not through caging or restraining him. Embrace your monkey and let him thrive in his proper place. He will help you in return.

I’ve always had skinny legs and I’ve always been a runner. As a kid, sprinting was my thing and I was often the fastest kid on the track or on the soccer field. Running all out was a rush, pure joy. As I got older and my jets cooled I made an easy transition to distance running. Here the joy was more subtle. The rhythm, the chance to quiet myself and enjoy the scenery, the satisfaction at chewing up the miles, these were the attractions running now held. I set longer and longer goals and ended up finishing some serious events – the Imogene Pass Run, a few triathlons. But as the distances increased I kept running into one problem – my bird legs.

I know, great distance runners have skinny legs. But as the old saying goes, it’s not the size that counts but what you do with it. I must have been doing something wrong because every time I trained for a big race I got injured. Through some combination of rest and pushing through the pain, I could usually end up accomplishing my goals, but the joy factor took a hit. I tinkered with things like different shoes, new stretches, diet and supplements. At times I thought I was onto something. Then my bird legs would squawk again in painful protest. It got pretty frustrating.

As loyal readers here will know, through martial arts I’ve recently been focusing a lot of attention on weight distribution in my feet and this has been helping me strengthen my skinny calves. I’ve also come across new stretches that both stretch and strengthen my legs at the same time (check out elasticsteel.com). And then recently I read an eye-opening book that added a whole new dimension to my approach to my legs.

Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall is not your typical running book. It’s not about running for health, fitness, weight loss, competition or anything like that. The runners in the book and their personalities are extreme – barefoot ultra-marathoners, hermits, fanatics and healthy hedonists not to mention remote and reticent native tribesmen. What ties them all together is their eccentricity, their cooperative approach to competition, and most importantly their intuitive sense that running is at the primal heart of our existence – we are designed and built to run. And these extreme runners tell us that when we connect with this defining characteristic, it opens up wells of joy and fulfillment that no other activity can do. I’m tempted to believe them, I mean what else could get people to run for 50, 75 or 100 miles through the wilderness?

It was a fun and thought-provoking read in many ways, but the main reason I found Born to Run so believable and inspiring mostly because it confirmed things I already knew or suspected.

• Running, or any exercise, should be a joy in itself. If you’re doing it out of guilt, vanity or any kind of desire for separate gain, you’re missing the greatest benefit.
• More than that, when done correctly running itself should be therapeutic.
• Shoes are a crutch and they often do more harm than good.
• Natural technique is the best, but often we have to unlearn our artificial, harmful habits in order to reconnect with our true nature.

It all seems so reasonable and so intuitively correct, and I’ve got inspiration to dive back into running with a new approach. As I age, the push to “train harder” is yielding to a push to “train smarter”, and barefoot running fits this perfectly. But it’s about more than just running.

For me, barefoot running provides another angle on what is a fundamental but widely ignored aspect of all our lives – our relationship with gravity. So many of our physical pains and limitations come from a dysfunctional relationship with gravity. Our bodies are designed to work efficiently with gravity, but drunk with our own inventiveness we’ve stuck things in between – shoes and chairs especially – that end up skewing that basic relationship. It’s not that shoes and chairs are necessarily evil, it’s just that we’ve become careless and lazy with regard to them. We think about aesthetics and not kinetics, we aim to please the eyes and the ego and ignore the needs of our whole bodies. But there’s good news. Changing this dynamic is very simple and natural. We need less equipment, not more. And there’s even better news – this process of re-connecting with gravity, with how we are built to live, is anything but a chore.

“Know Yourself” was the dictum hanging over the entrance to the temple at Delphi. Many of us take that in either a philosophical sense or in a pschyo-analytical sense. Those approaches are fine, but to the Delphic command I’d add the words inscribed over Plato’s Academy: “Let none but geometers enter here.” In other words, an important and often neglected component of self-knowledge is the knowledge of one’s own geometry. Martial arts masters have long known that the body is a machine. This is not to say that it is just a machine, but the musculo-skeletal system basically functions as an engineered collection of levers and pulleys. And from ancient times the real masters discovered that developing intimate knowledge of the body’s workings leads not only to physical skill but to enhanced awareness, spiritual development and a healthier, simpler life. Barefoot runners, it would seem, are onto the same thing. Reconnect with gravity. Know your geometry. You end up knowing much more and needing much less. Like shoes, for starters.

I saw and trained with a lot of skilled martial artists while I was in Japan, but of all the great performances I saw, something about Fujimoto Sensei’s stance stuck with me. So I decided to try a new practice: Forget about moving like a master, I just want to see if I can stand like one. Nowadays when I’m standing waiting for anything – the next karate drill, the next available teller at the bank – I try to assume Fujimoto’s posture, not just imitating how it looks from the outside but trying to internalize the sense of ease, stability and readiness it radiates. Already I’ve learned so much.

On a purely physical level, when I adopt the Fujimoto stance I find my hips rolling slightly forward. This flattens my back, makes my center more solid and brings my weight more forward onto the balls of my feet, where it belongs if I want to move with speed, balance and ease. My shoulders relax and my chest is neither stuck out nor caved in. And when I adjust to this stable and energizing stance, I see clearly how old habits have unbalanced my body. I feel tension in my calves and hip flexors, chronically shortened by habitually weak posture. And I also see clearly how I can correct these problems, which will allow me to improve my balance, fluidity and flexibility in general.

These physical lessons are fascinating and valuable but through this stance training I’m learning something deeper and more beautiful. In martial arts training, we all begin with learning the basics of stances and how to hold our bodies. Over time we add more and more techniques of increasing complexity. But the more I travel down this path I realize that it’s not the gross body movements that make for real skill in movement. It’s the subtle things that are crucial factors, things invisible to all but the most trained eye, like just where on your foot you are keeping your weight, or to what degree your hips are tucked in. In these cases millimeters make all the difference, and when you dive in deep into your art you find yourself paying more attention to the most basic things – exactly how you stand, step, breathe. The process becomes elemental, more one of careful whittling away than of adding.

This becomes clear when you see that in my style of karate the highest level tests, for 8^th degree black belt, consist of only a few basic techniques, techniques that you learn in your first year of training. Quality rules over quantity, and the ultimate point of training is not to learn a thousand ways to hurt someone, but to refine your own awareness and movement down to the finest levels, to achieve purity and perfection in the most simple techniques. In one sense you cycle back and end up where you began, only now the techniques unfold naturally, spontaneously, flawlessly and without thought.

Something similar happens with Buddhist meditation, at least the way I practice. At the beginning we have a method, following the breath for example. We sit and apply the method, but it takes effort and we find as we sit we notice so many other things – pain from sitting, noises in the environment, memories and thoughts passing through our minds. As we continue practicing, we develop the physical ability to sit still and comfortable, internally we achieve a level of concentration or mental quiet, we may have powerful visions or supra-normal sensations. In other words, we are expanding the inventory of our skill. With dedicated practice, subtle and profound states of consciousness can follow. But eventually it comes back to the basics. The truest sign of real cultivation is not in the proliferation of spiritual acrobatics, but in the finest, most natural development of the simplest technique. We only sit and observe various experiences as they arise, if they arise. But now it happens completely naturally, without judgment or identification. There is no “I”, only the practice.

Pablo Picasso is said to have remarked, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” I think the cycling back to the beginning holds true in the deep pursuit of any art. The trick is, you have to take the whole journey in order to truly know the beginning. For me, this phase of the long journey started not with a single step, but with standing still.

Scenes from Wat Tam Wua, where I did a recent meditation retreat. I’ve stayed at several temples in Thailand and this is easily one of the most beautiful, clean and welcoming. You don’t need prior experience with Buddhism or meditation, and you can drop in and stay for as long as you like. The abbot is very friendly and speaks English. They have a website with information and more pictures at http://www.althaiman.ru/thai%20htm/Province/wattamwua.htm

May all beings be happy!

I was about 20 yards deep into weeding 2 acres of black beans when I entertained these thoughts. It was exactly that urgency that got me out there and I was up for it. The beans were doing well, almost knee high and just starting to bud. But fast growing clumps of tall grasses were doing even better. They had already once colonized the field and this time I wanted to catch them before they grew into spiky green behemoths.

Like I said though, I didn’t mind. It was the first semi-sunny, dryish day in months, nothing else was really pressing and I felt like I needed to do some honest physical work. For the first quarter hour or so I was flush with newbie farmer enthusiasm. “This is what it’s about! Working the field with my own hands.” It was hot. Before long I was sweating like a cold beer at a summer picnic (the image of which, incidentally, was the other thing floating through my mind at the time). But I didn’t mind.

Until I did. The pendulum began to swing from my satisfying, abstract musings when I stood up to stretch my back and survey my work. Not bad. Then I looked over the 95% of the field I’d yet to cover. Hmm. I bent back down to continue but discomfort, frustration and doubt sprouted in my mind and spread quickly. My enthusiasm wilted. Before long I’d slid a long way down the slope from “Yes!” to “Shit! This’ll take forever to finish.” Actually, it was the speed of the descent that made me stop and think.

In the circumstances, I did what any normal American would do – I cast my mind back through the centuries to ancient India, to the Kurukshetra Plain where Krishna and Arjuna conferred on the eve of an epic battle. For the thousandth time I recalled Krishna’s invaluable advice. “Give yourself to your work, but let go of the results.” With the taste of frustration still burning on my lips, it was easy to see the wisdom in these words. I breathed deeply and bent back to my work, one clump at a time.

A new world opened up. First I explored my weeding technique: what exact posture was best for getting my weight behind my efforts & keeping my back happy; how could I grab the stalks of the weeds so that the clumps would naturally break apart as I pulled? Once I’d dialed in my weed fu I turned my focus outwards to the field. I began to catalog the other, smaller weeds that glazed green the ground. Which ones grew in atop clods of earth & which in the furrows? Another catalog ran simultaneously, this one marking all the beetles, worms, lizards and other creepers & crawlers that lurked under just about every leaf. Everywhere I looked there was something to new to notice, to ponder, to learn. I can’t say I totally lost myself in the work – it was still hot & a serious thirst was building – but I was at ease and back to enjoying the process, and this time through direct engagement rather than conceptualization. Eventually I wandered back towards my house for shade and water.

Soaking with sweat, hands stained brown from the weeds, I looked a strange sight to my Thai workers who’d been working away on the house in relative comfort. Sin, my foreman, sat down next to me and lit up a cheroot. After a suitable interval of small talk, carefully calculated I’m sure, he broached the subject.

“You know, I could get some villagers to come do the weeding for you,” he said. We both looked out over the field. “About three of them should do the trick. They could finish the whole field in a day.” I was mulling over the idea when he added, “It’s best if I find some women to do this job for you.”

I turned to him. “Why’s that?”

He laughed. “Men are hot headed. They think too much about finishing and get annoyed. Women are more calm. They’ll be happy to keep their heads down and just work.”

I laughed in return. “Good idea.” So the question of the weeds was then settled, but as often seems to happen, Sin had given me good food for thought. He returned to work and I sat there thinking. I recognized the hothead in myself for sure, the “man” who was overly focused on the “purpose” of my work. But I also saw how I’d moved beyond that. From Sin’s point of view you could say that I used occasion to get in touch with the “woman” in me, who was much more present and, crucially, patient.

I liked this thought and so decided to play with it further. If I wanted to use the magic number three as a template, what then was the missing element? Masculine, feminine and… what? It didn’t take me long to come up with a good answer: childlike.

Before I go any further let me say: I am aware of but don’t here want to get into questions of gender versus biological sex and nature versus nurture with regard to children’s or adults’ behavior. Please cut me some slack. My goal is not to prescribe any roles or define norms but to describe facets of experience using a common, if flawed, shorthand.

So then the next step was this: If purpose is a defining masculine quality and patience a defining feminine one, what is the corresponding childlike quality? Again, an answer wasn’t long in coming: play. Now, by play I don’t mean frivolous messing around, or even necessarily a sense of enjoyment. It’s more an attitude of exploration, of taking up something and turning it over, looking at it with fresh eyes to see what it does & how it responds to pokings and proddings. Something like my 18 month old daughter’s approach to just about anything she can get her hands on.

So back to the big picture. Following the theme of “triple harmony”, you could say that in any person there are 3 primal capacities or natures that contribute to our actions: they are purpose, patience, and play. I call them “Inner P’s” for short and I came to them through the concepts of masculine, feminine and childlike, but I don’t think you need hold to the correspondences. The balance of inner P’s can and should change depending on the task at hand and the stage in life. Purpose, patience and play are like the adjustable legs of a tripod, and in right measure they provide a strong, sustainable basis for any work as the ground changes beneath you.

The house was designed to be a small, simple construction. No electricity, minimal plumbing, only 1 room plus an open-air bathroom, you get the idea. All I had to do was stuff some bags with rice hulls, lay them like bricks and slap some mud/lime plaster on the walls. With enough workers it’d take just a few months, right? I began to get the “finished yet?” question only weeks after I’d begun, with the naked walls about waist high and at the time I could laugh it off with a “there’s still lots to do.” As the walls grew and we started to plaster, I was still optimistic about my time frame and when asked if it was finished my answer drifted towards a hopeful “almost”.

Things weren’t so simple. Getting the plaster mix and application technique right took time. Workers came and went, and the new ones had to be trained. The roof went up, and it nearly had to come down again (that’s a whole story in itself). And the rains came, slowing everything down.  Progress ground to a crawl it seemed, but my answer refused to yield. “Is the house finished yet?” they kept asking and I’d grit my teeth. “Almost”.

Months began to add up. Work and family kept me in the city more often. Weeds sprung up like crazy on my patch of mountain land and demanded attention. The window and door frames were taking way too long to finish. Suddenly the house seemed to be going nowhere. I told myself I didn’t have to worry, I could take as much time as I needed. But in truth I really wanted to see something like a finished product and that question kept coming. “Is the house finished yet?” My shoulders slumped slightly. “No. Not yet.”

The wheel spins round though. In a concerted push at the end of July we managed to get the bathroom, ceiling, curtains and window screens done. I planted beans as green/manure and as a groundcover to keep the weeds down, and it actually worked. In my answer to the constant question I started to tilt back towards the optimistic. I flirted with that old flame “almost”. But despite the recent progress I can’t deny the reality that a whole lot remains undone. The front door and bathroom door are the most glaring absences. The outside of the house needs another coat of plaster. The tile floor has yet to go in. Rain gutters, window shutters and water tanks wait in the wings.

“Is it finished yet?” I laughed to myself last week when I heard the question again. “The house is never going to be finished,” I said. I meant it as a joke, but as soon as I’d said it the revelation hit me: Really, it won’t ever be finished. The list of what I know I still need to do stretches on. Above that, there’s gardening and landscaping to think about. And a house like this one, built and plastered with natural materials, is not something you build, and then it’s done. There’s always going to be something needing repair or improvement.

So I’ve decided to embrace the fact that the rice house will never be finished. Far from being depressing, this shift has proved liberating. The weight of expectation has been lifted from my shoulders. I can enjoy focusing on each specific task, and stop sweating the big picture. I can play with, not fear, the never-shortening to-do list.

The more I think about it, the more this new line rings true. I considered the big things in my life – my marriage; my role as a father; my family relationships; my personal development through study, meditation and martial training. These things are never, ever going to be “finished”. And they shouldn’t be. They require not just attention and maintenance, but continuous and loving re-creation.

I sat alone in the house last week, late into my first night there. A deep feeling of satisfaction welled up. The curved, hand-shaped thick walls enveloped me. My heart was full, my mind at ease. I considered the process, the manifesting of this reality, taking a positive, creative idea and molding with my own hands into wonderful, natural material fact. It’s a modest little place but its significance looms large for me. I will move on to new projects but the house will remain as a new partner and teacher. As with those other major elements in my life, the more I give to it the more I’ll get back. “Is the house finished yet?” “No. Not yet,” I’ll answer with a smile from now on. Having a front door would be nice though.

Since that day two months ago this experience has been coming to me more and more, always in the pauses before and after intense, focused practice. Most often it is wind that serves as the trigger, and I’d begun to wonder if there was something particularly and immediately powerful about the sense of touch that was involved. Then one day it came through sound – a brass ensemble practicing nearby on campus. They were just warming up and there was a long, low blast from a trombone. Its vibrations rode on the evening air and touched off my expanded awareness.

The more this has continued to happen, the more I’ve tried to analyze what is going on. I know that this expansion of awareness can come through other disciplines as well – yoga and vipassana meditation for example. But this martial way has an interesting and unique element that I’m trying to tease out.

Through martial arts we learn to cultivate enhanced sensitivity and awareness. It starts out with a limited focus – we pay careful attention to our own posture or technique, we track the movement of our training partners carefully, especially during sparring. This starts out as a discursive process – we conceptualize and internally verbalize what is going on within and around us. But as training intensifies, there is an imperative that provides fuel for a process of internal transformation.

When things are happening fast, when you’re pushing hard for self-perfection or self-preservation, the senses become more finely tuned. There is no time to think, you have to perceive and react. And it seems to me that the more you develop this facility, a kind of momentum of mindfulness kicks in. As one sense gets stronger it pulls the others along, allowing you to simultaneously increase your focus and yet be more open to your environment. Suddenly, feelings and sounds – that brush of wind, that blast of the horn – that were mere background noise stand out with their own beautiful clarity. The very ground of awareness itself seems strengthened, with wonderful results.

For sure martial arts do not provide the only doorway to such inspiring experiences. But karate, the way of the empty hand, provides me with a regular, systematic way to enhance my ability to perceive, to react and to experience the world with heightened clarity and beauty. That’s a big reason why, though I hate violence, I truly love to train.