States of consciousness

The Sixth Sense has been out for five years now, so I guess it’s OK for me to reveal a plot device… which is that ghosts don’t realize they’re dead, recalling the incident that killed them as a near-miss, and continuing to believe that they’re alive. If there was such an event for me, it was two years ago to the day: I was in Paris, about to cross the Boulevard St. Michel (I think). The traffic goes north towards the Seine; I was crossing from west to east, and about to leave the pavement to a lane divider in the middle of the road. Looking right towards where the traffic was coming from, the lane nearest me was empty. An instant before I stepped into the road, I looked left for some reason: to see a bus travelling fast, inches from my head. The bus lane, which is what I had been about to step into, runs against the flow of the rest of the traffic. If I had taken that step, I would have died, without any doubt. It isn’t the first time I’ve been a step away from death (back in the days when I was rock-climbing regularly, let’s just say that a rope I thought was firmly anchored wasn’t attached to anything at all except me), but it was so totally unexpected it left me kind of numb, unable or unwilling to process what almost happened.

This memory floated up just now as I was practising Taiji sabre 108 form; three times in a row, the movements just flowed. I didn’t quite achieve the state of no-thought, but it was close. I’ve experienced this kind of “spontaneous memory” during Vipassana meditation, which teaches us to react to the experience with equanimity, so that past emotions and experiences lose their hold on us.

Nuli xuexi

Friday night, and I’m in my room going over Financial Management, ready for next week’s mid-term. I’m quite enjoying this; it isn’t as hard as I’d expected from the people who did it last trimester, and it’s really interesting in that the stockmarket, bonds etc were an area I knew very little about befor starting the MBA, and it’s nice to feel that I’m getting a grip on how it all works. That isn’t to say that I’m confident of a good mark in the exam – quite the opposite, in fact!

Actually, I’ve really just got back from an hour’s break from studying. I was practising my Taiji sabre form, and Bagua qigong. Very satisfactory: I only finished the last couple of moves of the 108 sabre form this morning, and I’m glad that the moves are sticking in my memory. I need to practise a lot more to get them firmly embedded, though. As I mentioned before, I practise under the trees opposite the graduate hall, because the qi is good there, it’s quiet and reasonably out of sight, and there’s just about enough light to practise at night. It’s on a path where practically no-one goes -except tonight when a lovey-dovey couple didn’t see me until they were practically on top of me, and got a bit of a shock!

I’m pleased with the Bagua form, too: I’m only doing the basic circling moves at the moment, in order to work on the sliding ‘mud’ step. It’s coming along very nicely, given that the spot where I practice at night is on an uneven slope, has very high-friction asphalt, is being pushed up by roots in places and in any case is too dark to see clearly where I’m putting my feet. Despite all this, the step is progressing well, and my style is improving. (The place where I train in the mornings, in contrast, is even, smooth, and comparatively low-friction, so I can keep going for longer, and that lets me build my leg strength up). The work I’ve been doing with the Bagua lately has had a very noticeably effect on my back, which was terribly tense and painful at the start of the trimester; paying attention to the stances has opened up my shoulderblades, and relaxed my back muscles a lot. At the same time, the Taiji is relaxing my pelvis and lower back, so my coccyx is tucking under a lot more than it was, which is also improving my posture and banishing lower-back pain.

Talking of building up strength, TOMA and I have started going swimming together at the campus’ Olympic-size pool. It’s great! My thighs and shoulders already feel better, though it’s way too soon for me to see any weight loss (pity!).