Apercu U Weblog

Cup of Tea

johncharvey — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 19:25:00 +0000

Here’s old Zen story from the little book, “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” entitled “A Cup of Tea”:

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. ”It is overfull. No more will go in.”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

We all have ideas and behaviors we are attached to. Mostly, they work for us, but sometimes we find that they get in our way and occupy space needed to change our thinking. We cannot learn anything new if we think we know, so the process of change requires that we empty out, “get out of our own way”, and be receptive to new information

Another word for this process would be humility. Realizing one’s own emptiness is a powerful thing, and when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

John Harvey (August 2011)

Rules for being Human

johncharvey — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:31:29 +0000

There have been numerous versions of this idea floating around for awhile, the original belonging to Cherie Carter-Scott. Here is my version of Rules for Being Human:

You get a body. You may like it or hate it. In fact, you will probably hate at least some of it some of the time. Get over it; your body belongs to you for your entire life. Treat it well.
There is no separating your mind from your body. Your body and your mind work in synchrony and are wise beyond your wildest dreams. You have intelligence in every cell. Get to know and listen to the wisdom of your mind/body.
You get a biological mother and father. Some biological mothers and fathers become our parents and some don’t. You get an inherited set of genes from your biological mother and father and rules for life and relationships from your parents.
You tend to take on the characteristics of one parent and marry the other. This concept can be wonderful and/or terrifying, but how else can it be? It is crucial to learn who we attract in life and why.
Everybody has heartache, trauma, and turmoil in their lives (sometimes you think yours is the worst). As long as we are breathing, we are more functional than non-functional. Your personal traumas in life’s journey do not have to define you from here forward.
You are enrolled in a full time school – The University of Life. You will have an opportunity to learn lessons whether you “show up for class” or not. You may like the lessons or think they are boring and stupid.
We learn and grow through trial and error. The “mistakes” we make are as much a part of the lesson plan as when we “get it right”.
A lesson is repeated until we learn it. You get recurring opportunities to learn the same lesson time and again in various themes and forms. Sometimes we think we learn a lesson, only to realize later that we need some continuing education of the subject.
The opportunity to learn lessons does not end. There is no aspect of life that is not part of the lesson plan.
Wherever you go, there you are. “There” is no better than “here”. You cannot avoid lessons you need to learn.
Others are merely a reflection of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
Your ego will work hard to keep most of this information unconscious; Yet…
What you make of your life is up to you. The choice is yours. You have all you need within and you know more than you know you know. All you have to do is look, listen and trust.
Be persistent, keep your feet moving, pick yourself up and dust yourself off.

-John Harvey (July 2011)

Wrestling with life

johncharvey — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 08:42:12 +0000

Wrestling is an outstanding sport (not WWF style pro wrestling for entertainment, but amateur Olympic and collegiate wrestling). Wrestling requires coordination, awareness, balance, strength, timing, and control. As with many marshal arts, good wrestlers use the movement, weight, energy of their opponent to move them in a desired way. Sometimes to get an opponent to move forward, you push them away. If you are going to throw an opponent, you need to use their momentum and weight to accomplish this most effectively.

One of the most famous wrestling throws occurred in the 72 Olympic games against US Olympian Chris Taylor. Taylor was a 2 time national champion heavy weight from Iowa State. At over 400 pounds, Chris Taylor was the largest Olympian ever. Taylor faced off against Wilfried Dietrich, a West German wrestler whom he had beaten in freestyle competition. Dietrich knew he would not be able to out muscle Taylor so his strategy was to push Taylor around the mat until Taylor pushed back. Then, at the right moment this occurred:

Next time you wrestle with a weighty problem, you might want to consider Dietrich’s tactic – its akin to the 12 step idea of “power through powerlessness”. Stop trying to out muscle those things that are bigger than you, acknowledge the weight of the issue, then use it to accomplish a change in direction.

- John Harvey

If I had a hammer

johncharvey — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:51:47 +0000

I was taken on a tour of a treatment facility not too long ago and invited to sit in on the clinical staffing. The facility was once a psychiatric hospital converted into a detoxification and treatment center. As the medical director reviewed patients charts with the treatment team he mused “almost everyone here is bipolar and on medication”. Of course they are, I thought. This is a medical facility on the grounds of a psychiatric institution. How else would patients be treated? Abraham Maslow once said that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. This is the dilemma with many healthcare facilities. Everyone is a nail, patients are over diagnosed and over medicated; too many hammers. I’ve got nothing against hammers, but I would want my healthcare provider to carry more tools. I am impressed when providers and programs can think outside the box of the western medicine paradigm. I heard a psychiatrist friend of mine express concern that too many of the medications available for his patients carry horrible side effects. He is encouraging his patients to explore alternatives. Another psychiatrist friend declaired she was moving in a direction of integrated medicine. This is encouraging news for the consumer of health services. Perhaps there are other, more natural and holistic means to manage mood and behavior. Looking for an introduction to progressive and alternatives treatments? We can help you get started.

John Harvey

“You Know More Than You Know…”

johncharvey — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:20:54 +0000

This slogan is such an important concept around our agency that it adorns our coffee mugs.

We want to remind people that there is more to “knowledge” than the thoughts in our brain. There is a “wisdom” that is hidden and powerful at work in all of us, all the time. Sometimes, we are quiet enough to sense it’s power and begin to trust it.

Last week when I encountered some strain of bug that left me flat on my back for days, the intelligence of my body was working hard to heal me. Apparently, it detected something out of balance and enacted an elaborate defense system that rid my body of whatever attacked it and rejuvenate me. My symptoms did not just “go away”, I was healed by an intelligent, coordinated set of systems that worked to find a cure.

How did my body know how to heal me without my having to consciously direct it? Truth is, it alway has been on the look out for me. We are wise beyond our knowing – we know more than we know we know.

-John Harvey