A word is formed from a breath that is expired from the lungs. The air passes through the voice box and acquires vocalization. The moment air is vocalized it is transformed into a form that is called a word. The vocalization becomes a peculiar essence that is enlivened by the intent, will, reflection, or accompanying emotion that is present at the time the word is conceived. Words are a transformation from Chi (which is the Chinese word for breath) to Jing (which is the Chinese word for essence that arises from the depths of the kidney Official).
Word is essence. The strength of one’s word is the strength of one’s Jing. Jing comes from the Kidney Official and is nurtured by Zhi which is the spirit of will and determination that has affinity for Kidney Jing. A word’s power rests in the influence that Zhi has upon it. Zhi is not something that is hyped, through saying affirmations or by keeping a positive mental attitude. The presence of Zhi is strong when the Shen (that come from Heaven to the empty Heart) and the Jing (which arises from the Kidney Official) grasp each other.
What makes one word powerful and another word just hot air? Certainly the strong presence of Zhi colors its power, but most importantly, the answer lies not in the power of the word, but in the listening presence a word is received into!
As a form, a word calls forth union. Its nature and tendency is to grab. Therefore, it seldom stands alone, but seeks and embraces the company of other words; thus words combine (by their tendency to grab) into sentences. A sentence will grab the listening of others, or it will not; thus sentences have the potential to evolve rather quickly into conversations.
A state most foreign to a word is detachment. Words must have company as well as a safe, reliable place to be fostered and nurtured.
The Kidney Official rules over the listening that others have toward the words I speak. The strength of the Kidney Official is found inside the generous listening of others. In fact, a strong Kidney Official will actually cause the listening of others to grasp my words the moment they leave my mouth! When I, in turn, embrace and acknowledge the listening of others that cleaves to my speaking, then – in that moment – a powerful union emerges inside the context of speaking and listening. A tight embrace is created that cannot be broken by external means. But what happens when the tight embrace is missing? A Perversion in the natural tendency delivered from Virtue has occurred. To correct this perversion, we use the Ko, or destructive cycle of the five elements. Earth controls Water. The Earth element must check the Kidney Official by reinforcing the dikes and dams the water is leaking through.
When Tera (my wife) speaks to me, she often engages in one-sided conversations where she speaks and I politely listen, or so I pretend to politely listen. Who she is for me at times like that is Charlie Brown’s teacher, who only says mwah – mwah – mwah. Once as she was thus speaking to me, I noticed that I was only able to be with her words at a level of thirty percent. I literally could not concentrate or follow her conversation. Seventy percent of my available space was encumbered by something else. I interrupted her mid sentence and mentioned this to her and wondered out loud if she was aware of the shallowness of my listening, and, if she was, why did she continue speaking into such a listening? What were we a clearing for that allowed us to go on in this manner?
I was 100% present in the conversation that followed. She was speaking out of a desperation to be heard; and I was withholding my listening to have the upper hand over her. My shallow listening was my way of controlling her and wielding power over her, inside of a festering resentment I harbored that came from a story I created about her that went along these lines: “Tera is always right, and I am a burden in the relationship. We are unequally yoked because I’m just not enough for her. She deserves someone much better than me.”
After looking for what was missing, that if present would make all the difference in the world, maybe even inspire us, we both saw that Deep consideration for each other, and for the clearing we were for each other, was missing. Because of this missing, our experience of each other was one of desperation and resentment. Deep consideration is a strength the Earth element brings to the five elemental cycle. Deep consideration is the Earth element’s way of checking the Kidney Official that has become perverse. It is Earth damming Water that is not staying within its bounds. Deep consideration is acquired by a constant, ongoing giving up of my viewpoint that says “I know how you are”. It replaces knowing you (which is dead ended) to discovering you newly and ongoingly. It is asking the tough question, “Am I moved, touched and inspired by what I am presently doing?”
In considering deeply the perverse game that I play, I see that I pretend that Tera is always right. Acknowledgement of that pretense reveals another pretense. “I am not enough and I am in your way, and besides, you don’t need my help anyway. You will do fine without me.” This pretense comes from a moment in the life of my four year old self when I experienced the need to survive for the first time, and the only way I could survive was to say to myself, “Alright! I’m not enough, I’m in the way! It was a declaration that stuck with me down through the years, and I formed a perverse tendency to rely on and resort to that fixed way of being whenever I was confronted in any similar way that smacked of that initial time when I was four.
I consider deeply the impact that pretending all of this has over me. I am afraid of being discovered and known for fear that I really am what I pretend to be. I am uncertain, lost, and detached, wondering “Who am I really?” and I yearn to be self confident, with feet firmly planted upon the earth, fully self expressed and free. I am angry and resentful at Tera because of my belief in my story about her, and the evidence that stares back at me, that validates my story. I feel vulnerable, exposed, anxious, and unprotected, and defensive. From deep consideration, the thought comes to me, “If I give up the pretense, the impact that pretending has upon me will disappear too!” So, out loud, and with words, “I give up the pretense”; and immediately I am liberated of feeling afraid, uncertain, angry, resentful, anxious, exposed, vulnerable, and unprotected, and defensive. All of these impacts are gone with my giving up of the pretense. Then the Water element can truly contribute to the Wood element. With the Water element standing up strong, sure, and confident, with strong Jing that is rooted to the Zhi. The anger and resentment of the Wood element is quelled.
Out of deep consideration I invent a possibility for living life. This isn’t just any type of possibility that is a someday/maybe phenomenon, but a possibility that is real right now. I invent the possibility of being passionately involved. What there is for me to do now is to live life inside a clearing of being passionately involved. With my word that has a strong Zhi presence, I have created the world and context of being passionately involved. Now what there is to do is to presence the occurring world that I live in moment to moment with the world I just created with my word. I promise that my occurring world fit the world of being passionately involved. In other words, I fit the world to my word!
The Kidney Official controls the surrounding listening others have for me. It has the capacity to fit the world that occurs “out there”, into a world that is created by my word that I have now “put out there fully” into the listening the world has for me. I now find myself out on the court playing fully the game of life. I am no longer in the stands just describing and critiquing how others are playing. This is all accomplished through using the word forms of declarations, promises, and powerful requests. Speaking in this manner is the only way to powerfully make a difference in the listening that the world has for me. I put my word out there in this manner, and then I live up to the word I have created, cleaning up quickly the mess that occurs when I have breakdowns in keeping my word. This is all done inside the Spirit of will and determination, or Zhi. I do not allow the conditions and circumstances of my occurring world to temper my promises and declarations. Then my word would be fitting inside the occurring world. That would be a word to world fit. To truly make my world fit my word, I must make promises that I don’t really know how to keep. In doing so, I trust the power of the Zhi Spirit, that it will strengthen my word, I keep my heart empty so that Virtue will always be strong; that I will be guided, nourished, and upheld by the power of Heaven within me. It is in this way that I source and cause the miraculous.
Declarations, powerful requests, promises, covenants, vows, oaths, contracts and all other forms of agreement are words that resemble most the nature and tendency of words: they grab, capture, and embrace. We can use this tendency that words possess to effect mightily the listening others have for our words. This begins by keeping the agreements I have entered into. This begins by honoring my word.
to be continued next week.
