The Body Speaks

Yesterday I found that my head was spinning. So today I decide that my head is off limits. Any internalization of the Tao these 24 hours needs to remain below my neck.
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Verse 3

If you overly esteem talented individuals
people will become overcompetitive.
If you overvalue possessions
people will begin to steal.

Do not display your treasures
or people will become envious.

The Master leads by
emptying people's minds,
filling their bellies,
weakening their ambitions,
and making them become strong.
Preferring simplicity and freedom from desires,
avoiding the pitfalls of knowledge and wrong action.

For those who practice non-doing,
everything will fall into place.
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(Morning) Oh, how funny to find the line about emptying people's minds the day that I endeavor to do so. But, busted, I'm already in my mind. How am I supposed to do this work outside of my head? For just a moment I cheat and stay in my head, and I think: how do I do wrong action if nothing is right or wrong? Or did I just make that last part up sometime in the past couple of days? Oh man, I'm already in a mess, and the day is just beginning.

Breathe, breathe, get into my body. There is nothing I have to know today, just be. Take in the words through my heart, my arms, my legs, my hands. Let them talk to me.
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(Evening) Oh my. How do I begin to share what I experienced today?

When I wrote my verse on the card this morning, I said the words aloud, but spoke them towards my mid-section. With this reading, and subsequent readings during the day, I didn't let the meanings of the words go into my brain. I could feel my stomach area get hot, like on fire, when I directed the energy there. It was a very strange sensation. When I sneaked for a moment back into my head, I got a panicky thought: what do I write if my brain isn't getting any information to analyze? I decided to just let it go, walk down the stairs from my head, shut the door, and see what happened.

After I read the words twice out loud, without intellectually understanding anything, I asked my hands, on a whim: "what do you say, hands?" From inside of me immediately came an awareness, and here are the wods that describe it the best that I can: 'I say, all of the words that you are reading in the Tao have no meaning in themselves; they are set up to get us out of our minds. The statements are like koans; ideas to meditate on that don't have any answers or reality. It's all illusion. None of these concepts actually exist. That's why they make less sense the more you investigate them. Oh, and by the way, the verses are also Truth."

I felt stunned.

I then turned to my leg and asked the same question. Another awareness came: "The Is isn't something 'out there'. It is us. Me. You. Don't try to understand it. Each time you do, you limit it."

What the hell. Since when do I have philosophers living in my body? Who else is in there? I didn't ask any more, as this was enough for me to stomach, so to speak.

Wow. It feels like I've blasted off in a rocket ship and landed on the moon.

So I went about my day. I felt like I was living centered in the darkness of my gut. My brain felt like it was resting, taking a nap. It must be some other brain that was speaking to me earlier, some body or spirit or ? brain that I can access when I turn the other one off.

This body talked to me off and on all day. Well, it actually probably spoke to me all day, but I only tuned in some of the time. Once in awhile I would feel a jolt, and when I paid attention, I realized that there was a message for me (kinda like 'you've got mail'). For example, when I heard someone at the gym speaking about their 'bad back', the jolt came. When I dialed in, I heard "it's not a BAD back, it's just a back that has a message that isn't being heard!"

Right on.

Tonight I'm freaked that I won't know how to handle the rest of these 81 minus 3 days. What else could there be?

My inner brain just laughs.