Appropriate Action - The Process of Change
The Appropriate Moment of Acting
This is the moment of acting with WHAT IS APPROPRIATE with the pressure. We don’t talk about what is right and what is wrong: it’s a balancing point. From a balancing point, any change you know—there’s a difference. This is a direct difference because of different pressure, or different aligning has different pressure. Point here or point there –each has different pressure because there’s a feedback reflection. You understand?
If you’re already connected and can see further, you’ll see less action [you’re actions will be smaller/less obvious].
Before, if I can see five point ahead, when the force comes to the 2nd or 3rd point, I’ve already neutralized it—the opponent has no chance to come all the way to the hand. A lot of times when you see me handling some situation, when I touch a student, why can’t the student move or be off-set? Because before he can act, I already know, before he can reach point of [application].
[If you can’t extend your network by connecting center to center] you will have surprise, it will be so sudden in front of your face and the action/reaction will be so different. It’s like a radar—if my radar is bigger, then if something comes close, I’ve already knocked it down already.
“The stillness is the balance point that changes with the change not to change.”
~GM Sam Chin
Expanding Our Attention In The Face of Impermanence
How to spread out? But everything works on balance—everything is changing, but within the change there is a moment: a moment that is the “Balance Point” that doesn’t’ change—or that rather changes within the change to maintain so nothing changes.
We say everything is impermanent; impermanent is permanent. Alright. So when we try to learn things we talk about the relationship of separation and unification. You can say that without unification there’s not separate. Separation needs two also; because why can’t separate? Must have two.
You also can say we’re constantly unbalanced—we are TRYING to balance. The action is keep on adjusting to balance.
Change is constant unbalance—a constant balancing. That’s the action. The problem is, just like a baby, when a baby starts to walk, they start to fall—they’re constantly balancing. But when we get older, we forget everything. That kind of thing turns into habit, a reflex, habit. So we must constant go back here to see, to be conscious.
Only from here with the constant balancing can we see what is real. Just because of this your life will be much much better. It will help you with anxiety, stress—all these things—because of not maintaining this. Because of all the judging, we constantly fall back to the past. When we fall back to the past, constantly we are judging the moment, then you’ll have the feeling of ‘like, don’t like, don’t know.’
Only with this connection of linking, this is what we call the feel of Suchness, the feel of Such—it’s just like this.
Where’s the stillness? The stillness is the balance point that changes with the change not to change—that’s the stillness point. With that stillness point, then clarity comes. Because clarity here you can see the difference. This clarity is what wisdom is. Then you are acting according with the moment. The only problem for us is that what we see is so small, what we maintain we can’t stretch it big enough to see. Then, most of the time we say “ah, this is useful’, because it’s too little information, or not enough information to make a decision—so you fall back to the past. Here is where you start with and then you slowly grow and connect and get bigger and bigger. But all of this is based on the cause and effect—understanding the condition of the movement: the cause and conditions. Because everything is based on the condition itself.
