Living in flow is to join the flow of life. It is to live consciously, in balance, on the edge of uncertainty, releasing control and livig in trust.
Living in flow is to be mindful and aware, in harmony with the natural order of the universe.
The philosophy of flow is to transform your life from a chaotic rat race to a sublime dance. It is to live consciously, with mindful Awareness.
In this state of heightened Awareness, actions flow spontaneously and intuitively from the core of your being.
The ancient mystics, philosophers and monks of the east have built their spiritual, creative and martial practice in the pursuit of flow for centuries.
The Japanese martial and creative arts use the word ‘mushin’ to describe an unusually state of Awareness where there are no thoughts or emotions to block you from accessing the zone of peak Human performance.
In the Chinese internal arts, this is called this ‘wu wei’, translated as effortless action, non-forcing or effortless doing.
Both ‘wu wei’ and ‘mushin’ describe entering a state in which it feels as though nature is guiding us
In the yoga tradition, there is the concept of ‘samyama’ (perfect control of the mind) which can be likened to ‘mushin’ and ‘wu wei’.
Can you become weightless here? I said a little while ago that the person who really accepts transience begins to feel weightless.
When Suzuki was asked what was it like to have experienced satori, enlightenment, he said it’s just like ordinary everyday experience, but about two inches off the ground.
Zhuang Zhou, the Taoist, once said ‘It is easy enough to stand still, the difficulty is to walk without touching the ground.’
Now why do you feel so heavy? It isn’t just a matter of gravitation and weight. It is that you feel that you are carrying your body around.
So there is a koan in Zen Buddhism, ‘Who is it that carries this corpse around?’
Common speech expresses this all of the time: ‘life is a drag.’ ‘I feel like I’m just dragging myself around.’ ‘My body is a burden to me.’ To whom? To whom? That’s the question. You see?
When there is no body left for whom the body can be a burden, then the body isn’t a burden. But so long as you fight it, it is.