New Year Greetings 2022

Hello Everyone,

I have noticed that this new year of 2022 has a very good feeling about it.  I mentioned this at the dojo blessing ceremony this morning. I have been noticing this for some time now, and perhaps you have as well.  So..is this overwhelming feeling of impending “plus-ness” merely a mistaken notion of wishful thinking?  Or is this the confirmation of a deep kind of knowing bubbling up to the surface of our consciousness? 

Before this, I don’t remember becoming aware of this kind of “premonition” in the past. I other words, I never noticed feeling that it was “good news” simply because a new year was coming about. So something major seems to have changed again, somehow. Some of you might say that, from a scientific point of view, there is a brain chemistry change. Certainly. But why?  What brings this about? 

It may appear to be obvious that, if anyone gives ones attention to what is happening within for the amount of time that I have, this state of abiding meditative awareness just sort of comes about with new and noticeable results.  But does it always?  Is this axiomatic, or not? 

From the perspective of the training that we are giving our life to, we know that this state of mind comes about through giving ourselves over to a deeper state of attention.  But I also know from my own experience that this is not necessarily a “cause and effect” kind of deal.  In other words, this is like having an experience of what we call “Musoku” when doing Ki Breathing.  No matter how intensely we train at Ki Breathing, we seem to be only making ourself available for Musoku, not causing Musoku.  Similarly, when a new level of awakening occurs in us, it appears that is because we have prepared our mind/body for this through increased attentive capacity. But then why does the awakening happen? Others may prepare the mind/body sincerely for years, and never have this experience. Things just never seem to come together in this way. And the greatest minds have never been able to calculate which ones would and which ones would not.

The interesting irony is that, the more we struggle and become obsessed with small mind satisfying answers, the more we close ourselves off to the deepest experiences of knowing. In other words, as much as we might crave an answer as to the “why” of this, possessing the patience to not mind that it cannot presently be known, is one of the inherent keys to awakening to, and maintaining, the experience itself!  

Aloha and Happy New Year,

Christopher Curtis