A rare Taoist rubber plant lineage

The following is about intentionality.

My friend Dick – not his real name and no anatomical allusions intended – DJ currently working the season here in Ibiza, late 40s, lovely, kind man, charming, eccentric, intelligent in a non-academic never paid attention at school way, loved by the ladies, who lives right on the edge, who with my guidance over the years has been learning to let go of the handrails and follow his Tao wherever it may take him, hence towards whom I feel a certain sense of responsibility to help keep him even-keeled when he hits the inevitable turbulent patches in the yin-yang cycle, one of which he just hit with some force.

You see, being of a romantic bent, when left unchecked, he managed to fall in love, though as we know its not really love but obsession born of projecting an idealized story onto someone. Not that that in itself is necessarily a problem of epic proportions but the object of his desire is alas a raging alcoholic – an utterly gorgeous, beguiling siren of a girl who binge drinks herself into a total stupor each and every day, and who consequently flips between declaring her undying love for him and coating him off, which combination has had him utterly hooked to the extent he almost jumped off a roof the other day.

So I took him out for dinner at this natty little non-scene, non-punter restaurant in an obscure part of the island that miraculously hasn’t been discovered by the scene-people yet so you’re not sitting there distracted by the usual bonfire of vanities parade, which wouldn’t be the ticket for a potentially suicidal DJ lothario.

His eyes darted nervously between me and his phone, watching for the next message or call from her. He was planning to fly to London the next day to “be with her and try and sort it out”.

Everyone was saying don’t but I said, “you’re going to do what you’re going to do regardless of good sense, no matter what anyone says.” This was the first time anyone had pointed this obvious fact out and it relieved him greatly – being given permission to follow his urge.

I then pointed out that no matter how he played it with her he was in for a period of extreme turbulence. But like the pilot of a plane about to hit a rough patch he needed to make a clear intention to negotiate the turbulence without the plane going down and subsequently land safely either at the envisaged destination or the nearest viable airport.

We figured out that would require a maximum of six months to happen.

And that he had to commit to succeeding at that.

He liked that too, though with eyes still darting nervously between me and his screen.

I then showed him how he was projecting the authority over his life onto her and that was obviously a hugely dangerous strategy, with which he agreed and asked how to reclaim authority.

I reminded him of the facility of moving into his back and watching himself from the back-brain.

I used my hands on his back and the back of his skull lightly to remind him where it all was.

He visibly rolled back for a moment but then the phone rang and he was up and wandering about the restaurant talking to her.

When he returned I went on to discuss the mode in which he chose to experience this passage, as in he could either enjoy it like a crazy warrior or not enjoy it lie a hapless victim of circumstance.

I asked him to choose.

He dithered.

I was firm – “you have to choose one now – warrior or victim?”

He chose warrior.

I wished him well in London and left.

A few missed calls both ways between us the following day but later that night we connect, me imagining him wandering deflated and despairing by the Thames contemplating his watery cold death, but turns out he sacked her off and canceled the plane and is staying in Ibiza with two new girls already in waiting.

That was a seriously swift and profound turnaround in a critical situation and the secret, and why I’m relaying it all to you is as follows.

Picture yourself walking along in a relative hurry either on a busy city street or in a busy airport or station and you have people walking towards you whom you don’t want to pose an obstacle to your progress – if you fix your gaze on the ground approximately 3 meters past them in the direction you want to go, without any eye contact they’ll instinctively move out the way for you.

Same goes for anything you want to accomplish – fix your gaze on the reality that will be approximately 3 meters beyond the point of potential obstruction – see yourself having cleared the obstacle in other words and make no eye contact with the obstacle – don’t even look in its face in other words – and you’ll get where you want to go (pardon the slight metaphor mix there). And often far more swiftly than you’d have imagined.

This must all be done staying back inside back of the body and brain as much of the time as you can remember, in order to be coming from power rather than from the weakness of the noisy front aspect.

So with Dick, once he’d accepted he was about to experience turbulence but seen himself land the plane, once he’d seen himself safe and sound at the other end of the emotional turmoil, his subconscious managed to take him there so powerfully he no longer needed to undergo the rigors of dealing with the abuse of a raging alcoholic and the probable tragedy that would ensue, and was able to right himself from severe imbalance in six hours instead of six months.

Obviously this involved some skillful mind-play on my part but the crux of what made it work was him knowing his intention and being able to see past what had previously looked so insurmountable he was even about to top himself as a way round it.

May this serve you well, dear reader.

I think it’s worth some time contemplating.

With love, Brother B of the Order of the Typist Monks of Old and descendant of a rare Taoist rubber plant lineage