The World Of The Ten Thousand Things

Each moment you’re free to create the appearance of reality anew and Mondays are as good a time as any to do so. By choosing a different skin for your window on the world, a different prism through which to order the appearance of things, you cause the appearance of things to alter. When I mention appearances in this context, I’m referring to the deepest level of appearance, based on the notion that reality itself, the Tao or realm of causation, is unchanging even though it is constantly generating and only its effects are visible and that these effects (the world you perceive, or as the ancient Taoists called it, the world of the ten thousand things) are merely appearances, which change shape and position according to how you perceive them. This is the basis of magic in the true sense. For instance, choose to see the world as a place of wonder and opportunity, a warm, nurturing place that is only here to facilitate your healthy growth and perfect happiness and let that choice resonate soundly throughout your person and within but a wee while, the appearance of reality and, hence the way you experience it, will alter to match that.
One way to get your choice to resonate is to repeat it aloud or under your breath, as appropriate, in affirmation form and to link doing so with various habitual actions performed during the course of a typical day or night. So, for example, if say your choice was as above (but obviously make your own choices here), before taking a shower you’d say it, as you left the house you’d say it again, as you entered the workplace, you’d say it again and so on and of course, you’d say it as an antidote any time the words or actions of other people, and/or the thoughts in your own mind, caused a flurry of tension within, so that by the time you got to bed, your unconscious mind would be in no doubt what your choice was. Your choice would have resonated all the way to your bones and you would be that choice and by and by the external world would have reshaped itself to reflect that.
May this serve you well and may your world be full of wonder and opportunity today and tonight.Love,

Doc Find yourself today at BarefootDoctorWorld.

Pure Love

So here we all are, mostly rushing about on the surface of the planet, as if its heliocentric orbital speed of 66,000 mph wasn’t fast enough for us, all busily focussed on doing our chores, fulfilling our obligations, making our moves and generally working towards making dreams come true and with all that action is easy to lose perspective and forget where the real treasure lies.
When you eventually drop your body so you can get finally off the planet, the only thing you take with you, if anything is taken at all, is the love you’ve shared with others in all its various forms: those moments of pure soul connection with others, that happened for no other reason than love wanting to express itself – that’s what you take with you, if anything – that’s what gives your life meaning – not how efficiently you get through all your tasks, nor how well you manage to organise your physical existence, though at times, when caught up in the cut and thrust of the everyday, the very notion seems a bit wet, even though it’s not – to the contrary, acknowledging and accepting that love is the most precious jewel in existence and then living from that stance, is the boldest move you can make. And the truly beautiful, magical thing about it, is that once you do, the details of your material existence have a habit of sorting themselves out in an implausibly elegant way – far more so than when you spend your entire focus on them. It’s magic and I don’t really know how it works, other than by emanating a field of pure love around yourself, you attract even gods and spirits bearing great gifts, let alone mere mortals.
The key to realising this hallowed, yet eminently attainable state, while engaged in the everyday world, lies in simply relaxing the heart (chest region) at all times, especially around others, no matter who they are, something I’ll be talking about in more depth, should you be keen to experiment, in today’s Barefoot Journal.
Meantime, may you be blessed with waves of pure love moving freely and with full force up and down the connection between you and the world today and may the events triggered thrill you to the bone.
Love, Doc

Find yourself today at BarefootDoctorWorld.

Pleasing To The Spirits

With the global economy joining the global ecology on the slippery slopes now, heralding inevitable transformation in the underlying warp and weft of all aspects of life, it’s likely, unless burying your head deep in the sand, you’ll be occasionally finding yourself feeling somewhat existentially insecure and wondering about the future, in terms of how it will turn out and even how much of it there might be left. At such times of insecurity it is paramount to focus attention on developing a secure internal base from which to experience the accelerating changes in the external world, that you might grow in sanity rather than the opposite, for no matter how turbulent the outside, if the inside is stable, you are able to be more clear-minded, confident, unflappable and therefore more able to turn whatever happens, or fails to happen, in any one moment, to your advantage.
One of the surest ways to build a firm internal base is via meditation on a daily basis.
The Taoist style I’ve been interpreting and developing into something simple and straightforward enough for everyday use by anyone at any time and which I espouse in a near endless gush on a pretty much daily basis for your existential delectation and delight, requires no special equipment or costume (incense, cushions, rugs, throws, blankets, shawls, hats, false ears, robes, baggy pants, corsets, candles, dimmer switches etc), can be done with eyes open while in the midst of activity and needs only a short while spent – just five minutes will do the trick – as long as it’s done on a daily basis, which isn’t as onerous as it may seem, even to the laziest dilettante, as after only a few days of practice, it soon becomes apparent that it makes you feel so good and stable, in a subtle yet radical way, the whole day long, subsequent to practice, it becomes addictive, hence desirable, rather than a chore.
There are a few aspects to attaining a basic grasp of the fundaments, the most powerful of which is the breathing. Start the process now by concentrating on your breathing, gradually causing it to decelerate measurably, making the in- and out-breaths of equal duration, softening the quality until it feels as if you’re reeling silk from a cocoon, allowing the belly to swell as the breath comes in and flatten as the breath goes out again and counting nine breaths before drawing your awareness back to the external world.
This will almost instantly slow your mind down, increase focusing power and bring peace and calm to every cell in your body.
This is one vital aspect - check out today’s BAREFOOT JOURNAL for another if you want to deepen the experience even more.
Gradually you train yourself to remain in meditation the whole day and night long, as you work, rest and play, by which time you can be said to be a bit of a master (or mistress).
May you be fully in command of yourself today and tonight and may the results be profoundly pleasing to the spirits.
Love, Doc

Find yourself today at BarefootDoctorWorld.

Wisdom In Being An Idiot

There is much wisdom in being an idiot and I should know. I mean idiot in the sense of the archetypal Fool, he or she, who is without guile or contrivance, free of artifice, airs and graces, unencumbered by the burden of self-importance, unfettered by restrictive social conditioning, unclouded by false beliefs, clear of prejudice and willing to greet all comers and all eventualities with perfect equanimity and magnanimity, having fully transcended the realm of preferences, knowing that every coin has two sides, every cloud has a silver lining and every silver lining has a cloud, thus fully awake to the inherent yin-and-yang dynamic underpinning the mechanics of the universe and everything that moves within it, for in this state and only in this state, can you be said to be living in heaven on earth, only in this state can you be said to be inhabiting hyper-reality and only when inhabiting hyper-reality are you fully able to manifest whatever reality, or appearance of mundane reality you want, so if you want to attain to that state, begin at once by allowing your whole body to shudder like a horse and as it does, imagine yourself shaking yourself free of the burden of your own self-importance, releasing entirely the weight of the myth you’ve been carrying around about who you are and what the world is and instead allowing yourself to be totally comfortable with not knowing who you are or what the world is, thus free of all prejudice and, in this state, encouraging a vision to form of itself in the frontal aspect of your brain, in which you see yourself living exactly the kind of life you want to be living, complete with all physical and material resources required to facilitate it, letting yourself fully feel what it’s like being in the body of such a person and finally reminding yourself that person is none other than you, upon which you are free, in your own time, to almost stop reading this implausibly long, yet not so un-deftly constructed sentence and return gently to the everyday state, feeling subtly transfigured and transformed, as well as ready and raring to go with the next step of your fabulous adventure, one I wish for you to be so splendid today, tonight and through the weekend, you have to physically restrain yourself from running naked and ebullient to the highest natural or human-made point in your district and shouting, ‘Barefoot is a brick,’ for all the world to hear.
Love, Doc
Find yourself today at BarefootDoctorWorld.

Blessed

The Tao is all around you and everywhere within you but you block your awareness of it, partly through faulty conditioning and the mistaken belief that you are something less than divine yourself and therefore prohibited from the privilege of knowing and communing with the Tao directly, so you throw up a series of smokescreens to prevent direct access and then think you have to work hard to break through them to be become enlightened, whereas in fact, all you have to do is stop and know the Tao. It’s no big deal and it changes everything, though as soon as it does (alter your perspective profoundly), you realise that nothing has really changed at all – the Tao was always here with you, in you, around you, as it always has been for all of us but you were just distracted from it or obfuscating your own view of it.
It’s in the air your breathe, the sound of the words you speak, the feel of the energy moving through your limbs, the dynamic between you and the next person you speak to, in the gravity that holds you on the planet, in the taste of the next mouthful of food you eat, in the liquid quality of the next drink to slide down your throat, in the smell of the perfume you’re wearing, in the motile force of the next thought you think – it’s in everything, informing everything, animating everything, generating everything – and everyone, you, me and every living being in the universe and it is supremely conscious, supremely aware and its nature is love, pure love, so as you breathe in and out, eschew for a moment the thoughts of your rational mind, that’s trying to be so clever about everything all the time, it prevents you really knowing what’s happening here and know that as you breathe in, it’s because the Tao is breathing out into you and when you’re breathing out, it’s because the Tao is breathing in and creating a suck that’s pulling the breath from you. Know that as you breathe the Tao, the Tao is breathing you and as it does, you notice you’re starting to feel connected to the collective consciousness in spite of yourself, which provides an apt opportunity to spread a bit of unconditional love all about for the benefit of all, which in turn will rebound on you multiplied in the form of countless blessings heaped upon your head even this merry Monday, which should last you right through the week, at least.
May your day and night and week ahead be blessed.
Love, Doc
Find yourself today at BarefootDoctorWorld.