Circles vs. Lines

Circles vs. Lines


When autumn winds blow (Nan no mama)
not one leaf remains (nokoreu ha mo nashi)
the way it was (aki no kaze)

By Togyu (1705-1749)

I love circles and so had to post this picture. Just count all the circles! Circles can respent all kinds of thing. The empty tome of Christ to Joseph Smith. The eternal nature of the elements and of the soul. To Taoists and in Tai Chi (the Tao being the classic yin/yang circling each other) they can represent the complementary nature of all things. In Tai Chi, we try to make all movements related to a circle. When you throw a punch, its not a straight line it will
move in a circle-using some degree of a down or up movement. Your shoulder rotation will make sure of that. The adage is circle to line, line to circle. When someone attacks with a line use a circle to carry his intent, this will open up for your own attack. When someone attacks with a line using a circle with carry the attack and open the attacker up.
Kind of a....the ways of God are one eternal round. Even our eternal plan is a big circle, we started in God's presence-learning and growing from Him and our goal is to return to God's presence-learning and growing from Him. We view our life as a time"line" with dates and progression and get depressed when we don't see the progression in our line thinking.
There is a Zen saying, "Before enlightenment chop wood carry water, after enlightenment chop wood carry water." We do the same things day in and day out, but like the music concert this day is different becasue we are different then yesterday.
We return to the same place (circle) but everything has changed (the autumn wind/line). This rejuvenates my day that seems to look a lot like the last 3 days/3 years.

(I'm going to have to write rough drafts! thanks for checking it out!)