There is a cycle to all things. A time for rest a time for action. I have spent the last few months in retreat. I have questioned many things in life, looked at personal direction, goals, habits and beliefs. Now I am struggling, how do I turn the reflection into action. How do I transition from rest to action?
So as I turn to action, what should I undertake? How do I distinguish what is a worthy pursuit, from what is mindless actions?
Confucius choose action over words and provides a guide in moving forward in The Analects Book VIII. He writes:
So as I turn to action and transition from rest I must ask myself these questions. What is the good form? Are the virtues I move forward sustainable, to the middle, and not representative of an extreme? Did my rest provide the recovery need to sustain an enduring balance as I take action
2. Three branches of the Way are dear to a Gentleman: To banish from his being violence and disdain; to sort his face to the truth, and to banish from his speech what is low or unseemly.
To find the Way is to find the water that carves through rock and leads us down the valley of our existence. Water does not fight the rock and violently attack the rock, it merely is and the rock gives way and the canyon is formed. Violence is easy to define and I understand why Confucius would banish it. However, how much have you thought of disdain? To follow the Way is not to consider anything unworthy of consideration. Can a blind man teach of Vision? Can the poor enlighten on riches?
The hardest thing in moving to action is to face the truth. This is not the truth of others, but the truth that retreat brought to you, the truth of your self. What self truths are each of us not facing? Was it retreat and recovery, or avoidance? Are you true to yourself?
There are a thousand speeches with words so grand, but is this action? Is it unseemly to speak without the Way guiding your feet? Does it move to action if you stop to speak of low things instead of the greatness of the Way?
3. A man of simple faith, who loves learning, who guards and betters his way unto death, will not enter a tottering kingdom, not stay in a lawless land. When all below heaven follows the Way, he is seen, when it loses the Way he is unseen.
Where will your actions go? To what will you put your energies. Rotten fruit will not become sweet by your action of eating it. It would be easy to enter into action for the need to address corruption, however the Way will be unseen. To take action for a reason that is external is to be unseen. To take action where it is simple, to learn, and to be true to self is the Way.
Action
To take up a plan that is true to self, that holds to the middle and avoids extremes, action that is for self not an external existence. He is the path for transitioning.
So where do you need to take action?
So as I turn to action, what should I undertake? How do I distinguish what is a worthy pursuit, from what is mindless actions?
Confucius choose action over words and provides a guide in moving forward in The Analects Book VIII. He writes:
- Without good form attentions grow into fussiness, heed becomes fearfulness, daring becomes unruliness, frankness becomes rudeness.
- Three branches of the Way are dear to a Gentleman: To banish from his being violence and disdain; to sort his face to the truth, and to banish from his speech what is low or unseemly.
- A man of simple faith, who loves learning, who guards and betters his way unto death, will not enter a tottering kingdom, not stay in a lawless land. When all below heaven follows the Way, he is seen, when it loses the Way he is unseen.
- Without good form attentions grow into fussiness, heed becomes fearfulness, daring becomes unruliness, frankness becomes rudeness.
So as I turn to action and transition from rest I must ask myself these questions. What is the good form? Are the virtues I move forward sustainable, to the middle, and not representative of an extreme? Did my rest provide the recovery need to sustain an enduring balance as I take action
2. Three branches of the Way are dear to a Gentleman: To banish from his being violence and disdain; to sort his face to the truth, and to banish from his speech what is low or unseemly.
To find the Way is to find the water that carves through rock and leads us down the valley of our existence. Water does not fight the rock and violently attack the rock, it merely is and the rock gives way and the canyon is formed. Violence is easy to define and I understand why Confucius would banish it. However, how much have you thought of disdain? To follow the Way is not to consider anything unworthy of consideration. Can a blind man teach of Vision? Can the poor enlighten on riches?
The hardest thing in moving to action is to face the truth. This is not the truth of others, but the truth that retreat brought to you, the truth of your self. What self truths are each of us not facing? Was it retreat and recovery, or avoidance? Are you true to yourself?
There are a thousand speeches with words so grand, but is this action? Is it unseemly to speak without the Way guiding your feet? Does it move to action if you stop to speak of low things instead of the greatness of the Way?
3. A man of simple faith, who loves learning, who guards and betters his way unto death, will not enter a tottering kingdom, not stay in a lawless land. When all below heaven follows the Way, he is seen, when it loses the Way he is unseen.
Where will your actions go? To what will you put your energies. Rotten fruit will not become sweet by your action of eating it. It would be easy to enter into action for the need to address corruption, however the Way will be unseen. To take action for a reason that is external is to be unseen. To take action where it is simple, to learn, and to be true to self is the Way.
Action
To take up a plan that is true to self, that holds to the middle and avoids extremes, action that is for self not an external existence. He is the path for transitioning.
So where do you need to take action?
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