Always Say Less than Necessary

Always Say Less than Necessary

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinx like. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

Reputation – Guard it with your Life

So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

Be Aware of Your Breathing

Paying attention to emotions and breathing can help people identify and alter their responses. Fear, anger, and sorrow are the usually the most challenging emotions, and are often reflected in breathing in the following ways:

• Fear: When people feel afraid, they tend to hold their breath, breathe through their chests or, in extreme cases, hyperventilate. This elevates the stress level in the human body, and decreases the immune system’s ability to fight off illness.

• Sadness: When people feel sad, they inhale forcefully, but exhale weakly (an example of this is expressed as sobbing). This inhibits the ability to breathe freely and to exude energy.

• Anger: When people feel angry, they exhale more forcefully than they inhale. This is a defensive state that renders people unable to receive or accept incoming information or energy.

In the midst of a busy day, a cleansing breath is an effective way to release negative energies and return to a place of balance and equanimity. When people exhale, they breathe out not only carbon dioxide and waste gases, but also mental and emotional toxins, concerns, worries, sorrow, anger, and fear.

When people inhale, in addition to oxygen people also take in life energy, light, love, happiness and inspiration. Consciously focusing on inhaling, even for a few breaths, can become an exercise of healing and balance.
Purifying Breath Exercise

To become more mindful of your breathing, try this exercise:

• Inhale into a soft belly, taking in light, love, and healing energy. Picture this as clear, bright, or sparkling. Feel yourself becoming brighter as you fill with light and joy.

• Exhale fully, releasing any negative states or feelings. You may picture it as darkness or a fog. If you have anger, fear or sadness, breathe them out. If you have tension, anxieties, or worry, release them as you exhale.

REALITY CHECK

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What is reality anyway? According to the dictionary, it is the quality or state of being actual or true. Reality can be a person, an entity, or an event, that is actual. It can also be the totality of all things possessing actuality, existence, or essence or something which exists objectively and in fact. Reality is not black and white. Reality is different for every person and their experiences; it is an open definition, open to interpretation.
First, for some reality isn’t based on the real world such as a schizophrenic. A schizophrenic can’t tell the difference between the inside and outside world. They can become so attached to their imaginary world that they won’t even consider it as a figment of their imagination. They just can’t be convinced otherwise.
People who have auditory or visual hallucinations are confused because no one else can hear or see what they do. They wonder how come no one can hear what they are hearing. It’s a very lonely disease. It may be even as bad as losing your memory. There is a saying, “The mind is a dangerous neighborhood. Don’t go there alone.”
Next, some people live inside their heads. They live in fantasy. If we don’t like the world they live in, they turn to books, movies, or music. The list goes on and on. It’s easy to do this, especially, in our American culture. Natalie Bedingfield said, “Take me away, to a secret place, a great escape, take me away.” We want to feed our imagination and daydream all day in hopes that just by wishing for our dream house or dream person that it will come true. It’s nice to get lost in a book or lost in our lover’s eyes, but in the end we can’t escape life. Sooner or later the hype will go away and we will be back with our problems again. Someone said, “The feeling of being on top of the world is fleeting.” Douglas Everett said, “There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.”
Also, some people lie to themselves so much they believe it. So their reality becomes twisted.
After a while, lying about everything will eventually push everyone away from you. You may lie to yourself so much that no one can hit the buzzer to tell you to stop. There is a story about a man that kept lying to others that he needed help when he really didn’t; when he actually was in a situation where he was serious, no one believed him anymore. Earl Nightingale said, “Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.”
Next, for some their reality is limited because it’s all they know. There’s a verse in the Bible: “My people perish for lack of knowledge.”
Wouldn’t you want to leave a better reality for others?

“The perfecting of one’s self is the fundamental base of all progress and all moral development,” Confucius .

“What’s real is up to you to decide.”
Where do you draw the line?

Where does the real world and the distorted world come together? We may never know and science can only tell us so much. We should let people come to their own conclusions. Reality is an open-ended subject and experienced in different forms and ways for different people. Reality is a gray area.

“Whatever you believe with feeling becomes your reality.” However; you have to work the work to reach that reality.

The Walking man

Make this moment count. And the next one, and the one after that. Spend your energy today thoughtfully on words and actions that serve you and others well. Be grateful for what you have, knowing that you have far more than you'll ever need. Celebrate your gifts, your creativity, your voice in this grand chorus of life. You and I are both here to inspire one another, to help one another, to share with one another. Sing from your soul. Cherish your life and the lives of those around you. We are all in this together •

We are all connected

We Are All Connected

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.

"What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered.

He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed this warning, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The pig sympathized but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap... alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house - the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it.

It was a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap.

The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital. When she returned home she still had a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.

But his wife's sickness continued.

Friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

But, alas, the farmer's wife did not get well...

She died.

So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them for the funeral luncheon.

And the mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn't concern you, remember ---

When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

We are all involved in this journey called life.

We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.

The Dojo

(Training Hall)

It is vitally important that every student understand the true purpose of a Karate training hall (dojo). You may think that the dojo exists in order for you to lean the art. If you think this, you are wrong. There is one major fact that you must keep in clearly in mind; a traditional dojo is not there just to teach. The prime objective is to perpetuate and disseminate the art of Karate. It is to the style and it’s progenitors that your Sensei has given his loyalty. In order to preserve the style he is obligated to teach the art to someone else, but exactly who it will be is left up to him. He has not the moral or ethical obligation to teach you in particular.
Take a look around the dojo and you will see that the membership is comparatively low to that of other dojo. This isn’t because this is an unsuccessful school, it is because the instructor really does not want more students than he can teach properly. He actually wants low numbers. This is a concept that commercial schools can never come to terms with.

If the dojo has been established for any length of time the vast majority of students will be seniors, possibly all of black belt ranking. The instructor may well have already chosen his successor, along with several back-ups, so he doesn’t need any new students. The fact that a new student wants to study with the style really does not concern the Sensei at all. As stated before, his duty is to the style.

The traditional dojo is not a commercial school. The money collected goes into the running of the dojo, producing first class journals, and paying for the senior’s to go meet the style’s masters or to bring the masters to the students. This is an enormous financial burden for a private group. All the instructor gets from the deal is the satisfaction of seeing the students progress. As it happens, this is a great deal to him, and he treasures the success of his students as they progress through the grades. It is little wonder then, that the teacher is not always enthusiastic about newcomers. Some instructors even have a policy of putting off students requiring that they "Come back next month." just to make sure they are serious. Most, however, will be able to make up their mind about the new applicant within the first few seconds of the initial meeting. No matter what the art, the mental image of a "proper student" tends to be very similar. The instructor is looking for a strong personality, someone sincere with enthusiasm, determination and considerable courtesy. This person must be prepared to train hard, learn and remember.
The relationship between the traditional instructor and his student is closer than that of commercial schools. The Sensei looks upon his students as his personal family. Clearly, he will be looking for someone to whom he can relate and to whom he feels some affinity. Questions may be encouraged, but the student should be wary not to fall into the trap of asking questions about what will be done in class or how long does it take to learn. The student just does what he is told to do. What the student wants to do, has absolutely no bearing on the program. An uninformed student may ask how long it takes to learn the style and be told, "The rest of your life. Which will not last long enough to complete the task."
In actuality, things are not as bad as they sound. Most Sensei realize that their ways are somewhat strange to outsiders and are willing to pretend they do not notice all but the most glaring of insults. These principles of etiquette are Ryukyuan (Okinawan) rather than Japanese. Today Ryukyu is part of Japan, but there are still fundamental differences. The Japanese etiquette tends to be very militaristic, and very precise when approaching budo. The Ryukyuans, on the other hand, demand total commitment but tend to be more gentle in their approach. The training will still be very, very hard but there is a compassion and understanding within the Ryukyuan tradition oriented Sensei. This may all seem very strange to a Westerner, even ridiculous to many. This is the point. Those who feel that it is ridiculous have no business in a traditional dojo. The instructor of such a dojo isn’t satisfied with having you like the place and stay. He is looking for love at first sight because he knows that if you truly join a dojo you in a sense marry it. This requires a major spiritual commitment that is too much for most potential students.
So if you are going to train in a traditional dojo, don’t expect it to adjust to it’s customs to fit your wishes and philosophy, after all, they were there first!