Raising windhorse is the abrupt and spontaneous magical process of letting go of fixed mind.This instantaneous process, combined with the gradual, developmental process of letting go of ego fixation, brings the experience of authentic presence.(To manifest authentic presence fully, these two abrupt and gradual processes work hand-in-hand within the further practice of the four dignities: meek, perky, outrageous, and inscrutable.)

Raising Windhorse - Authentic Presence

Self Improvement

To raise windhorse is basically to rouse the energy of basic goodness into a wind of delight and power.Windhorse invokes and actualizes the living aspect of fearlessness and bravery as it casts out depression and doubt on the spot. Not in a sense of exorcising depression and doubt, however - because raising windhorse transcends hesitation and doubt, allowing tremendous wakefulness to take place and cheering us up in the process.

Windhorse: Basic Goodness & Wakefulness

Windhorse provides an unending source of power because it is grounded in the experience of egolessness.Practitioners are connected to the energy of windhorse once they have developed an unshakable trust in basic goodness and the cosmic mirror.(The cosmic mirror is the unconditioned state of being that is without beginning or end. It allows reality to be perceived as it is, and for its sacredness and wisdom.)

Windhorse: Power & Wisdom

When we draw down the power and depth of vastness into a single perception, then we are discovering and invoking magic. By magic we do not mean unnatural power over the phenomenal world, but rather the discovery of innate or primordial wisdom in the world as it is. The wisdom we are discovering is wisdom without beginning, something naturally wise, the wisdom of the cosmic mirror.﻿

Drala: the magical quality of existence, the natural wisdom, that recognizes both you and your reality as reflections of the cosmic mirror - your human wisdom is one with the power of things as they are.<ul><li>External drala: harmony in one’s environment that encourages awareness and attention to detail</li><li>Internal drala: harmony in one’s body and connection to phenomenal world</li><li>Secret drala: (aka. windhorse) result of external and internal dralas; tremendous wakefulness and nowness in one's state of mind</li></ul>

Windhorse: External, Internal, & Secret Dralas

The warrior who experiences windhorse feels the joy and sorrow of love in everything he does. He feels hot and cold, sweet and sour, simultaneously. Whether things go well or things go badly, whether there is success or failure, he feels sad and delighted at once. In that way, the warrior begins to understand the meaning of unconditional confidence.

Unconditional confidence is not having confidence in something, but is remaining in the state of confidence, free from competition or one-upmanship. This unconditional state happens when you simply have an unwavering state of mind that needs no reference point. Unconditional confidence contains<ul><li>gentleness, because the notion of fear does not arise</li><li>sturdiness, because there is ever-present resourcefulness</li><li>joy, because trusting in the heart brings a greater sense of humor</li></ul>

Windhorse: Unconditional Confidence

Basic goodness is our basic, original nature that is undiluted and unconfused - an innate wakefulness experienced through the point of view of the cosmic mirror.You do not possess basic goodness - you are basic goodness itself.Basic goodness isn't an arbitrary idea; the world is good because we can experience its goodness. We can experience synchrony, harmony, and oneness with our world.

Basic Goodness

We are not talking here about an intellectual revelation; we are speaking of actual experience. We are talking about how we actually perceive reality.

“The expression of basic goodness is always connected with gentleness—not feeble, lukewarm, milk-and-honey gentleness, but wholehearted, perky gentleness with good head and shoulders."Gentleness comes naturally from experiencing the absence of doubt. Doubtlessness comes from trusting in the heart, from having experienced your body and mind synchronized together.

Basic Goodness: Gentleness & Trust

“Synchronizing mind and body is looking and seeing directly beyond language.” Not because you disrespect language, but because internal dialogue hinders your experience of the cosmic mirror.By means of sense perceptions and mind, you are accurate and absolutely direct in relating with the world. This ability is synonymous with fearlessness. Your fearless vision allows you to see your perfect right to be, and to see how the universe provides you its basic hospitality.Visual perception helps you develop mind-body synchronization. You see properly and you genuinely appreciate the world.

Mind-Body Synchronization

The warrior of meek is modest, unconditionally confident, with a vast mind. Modest in the sense that you feel true and genuine. Confident like a tiger who is walking in the jungle, not searching for prey, but is self-satisfied and modest, who appreciates his own body and rhythm. Vast mind that is uplifted and beyond the limits, appreciative of the “now.”“Like the tiger in the jungle, you are both relaxed and energized.”

Meek Warrior

…because you respect yourself, you do not have to depend on gain and victory. And because you trust yourself, it is unnecessary to be fearful of others. […]So meekness provides vast vision and confidence. The four dignities begin from this humble and dutiful but vast vision, which at the same time sees the details with a sense of meticulousness.

The warrior of perky resembles a youthful snow lion, is unconditionally cheerful, constantly disciplined and enjoying discipline. The two stages of perky are the experience of an uplifted, joyful mind and the resting in the trust that comes from meekness.Uplifted, joyful mind helps the warrior develop artfulness. Trust and doubtlessness help the warrior stay aware, clear, precise, never confused as to what to accept or reject. Perky results in a wholesome, synchronized body and mind. The warrior is humble, uplifted, fundamentally youthful, who has attained a wholesome life.

Perky Warrior

The warrior of outrageous isn’t unreasonable. You are outrageous in the sense of possessing the strength and power of warriorship, having gone completely beyond fear and hope.The garuda symbolizes outrageousness. She hatches full-grown from her egg, spreading her wings beyond the limits, soaring into outer space. Nothing obstructs her vast mind. Vast mind has gone beyond the beyond.There is no intention to measure progress, no fear, no imperfection. The warrior is outrageous because she is trained in meek and perky. She has immense capabilities to work with others.

Outrageous Warrior

The warrior of inscrutable is represented by the dragon, an energetic, powerful, and unwavering being. The dragon stands with the meek tiger, the perky lion, and the outrageous garuda.The state of inscrutable is gentleness developed from fearlessness, which allows you to be noncommittal with a sense of humor, resembling a dragon who enjoys resting in the sky. You are settled, solid, relaxed, open, and fearless. You are self-contained. Noncommittal as in uninterested in confirmation. Inscrutable expresses through fearlessness, warmth, genuineness. You proceed playfully, unhurriedly.

Inscrutable Warrior

When you are at ease, you find a state of true healthy mind. The cultivation of inscrutability is to learn to be. It has been said that everyone possesses the potentiality to be confident. When we speak of confidence here we refer to enlightened confidence—not to confidence in something, but just to being confident. This confidence is unconditional. Inscrutability is a spark that is free from any analytical scheme.

There is a basic human wisdom that can help solve the world’s problems. It doesn’t belong to any one culture or region or religious tradition—though it can be found in many of them throughout history. It’s what Chögyam Trungpa called the sacred path of the warrior. The sacred warrior conquers the world not through violence or aggression, but through gentleness, courage, and self-knowledge. The warrior discovers the basic goodness of human life and radiates that goodness out into the world for the peace and sanity of others. That’s what the Shambhala teachings are all about, and this is the book that has been presenting them to a wide and appreciative audience for more than twenty years.

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

Trees have enchantment and self-clarification to artists. “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way,” wrote William Blake.

The artist and trees

In a 1924 lecture about the creative process, German artist Paul Klee has insightfully intersected the canon of sylvan metaphors with the canon of theories of creativity.
"The artist has studied this world of variety and has, we may suppose, unobtrusively found his way in it. His sense of direction has brought order into the passing stream of image and experience. This sense of direction in nature and life, this branching and spreading array, I shall compare with the root of the tree.
From the root the sap flows to the artist, flows through him, flows to his eye."

Paul Klee likens the artist to a tree

Klee cautions that It is rather the work of transmutation for which the artist is both the agent and the vessel: "Nobody would affirm that the tree grows its crown in the image of its root. Between above and below can be no mirrored reflection. It is obvious that different functions expanding in different elements must produce divergences.[...] And yet, standing at his appointed place, the trunk of the tree, he does nothing other than gather and pass on what comes to him from the depths. He neither serves nor rules — he transmits."

The work of art is not a direct translation of the subconscious

Stashed ideas

How an Artist is Like a Tree: Paul Klee on Creativity

Arts and humanities are fundamental pillars of any education system and more important than ever. While education in Science, Technology, Engineering and math (STEM) is important, it is not enough. Tomorrow's generations need to become versed in empathy, imagination, and creativity. Integrating the arts into STEM education is a necessary strategy to reduce the skills gap of the next generation. But empathy, imagination and creativity are required to ensure that science and technology are developed in a human-centred way.

Reducing the skills gap

Art is necessary to build an emotional framework to make sense of the dialogues at the core of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Art and culture build the trust needed to bridge conflicting views and interests, overcome obstacles with dynamic and innovative approaches and understand the value embedded in any process of technological innovation.

Trust in technology

Art and design enable us to deep dive into the consequences of futuristic “what if” scenarios. A series of artworks can express and critique values before they are embodied in technology. Art provides cognitive and emotional tools to design the future and make creative breakthroughs in unexpected and emotional ways.

Embedding art and design into prototyping

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming health. It has the potential to make it more patient-centric, affordable and accessible. Agi Haines designed a series of speculative designs that imagine which parts of various animals could be used in combination with human tissue to solve common health problems. Circumventive Organs show the messy reality behind commoditizing biological material, and its potential to help people in need.

Shaping the future of health

We need the arts to stimulate debate over the impact of technological breakthroughs on society

Here’s how art is inspiring the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance.

Relationship is what makes <a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/12/08/the-songs-of-trees-david-haskell/">a forest a forest</a> and <a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/02/28/undersea-rachel-carson/">an ocean an ocean</a>. To meet the world on its own terms and respect the reality of another as an expression of that world as fundamental and inalienable as your own reality is an art immensely rewarding yet immensely difficult.How to master the orientation of heart, mind, and spirit essential for the art of sincere and honorable relationship is what philosopher Martin Buber explores in his 1923 classic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743201337/braipick-20">I and Thou</a> — the foundation of Buber’s influential existentialist philosophy of dialogue.

Philosophy of dialogue: Relationship

<a href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/01/06/alan-watts-reality/">Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others</a>.

To the man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks. The primary words are not isolated words, but combined words. The one primary word is the combination I–Thou. The other primary word is the combination I–It; wherein, without a change in the primary word, one of the words He and She can replace It. Hence the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the primary word I–Thou is a different I from that of the primary word I–It.

I–It establishes the world of experience and sensation.I–Thou establishes the world of relationship, which asks of each person a participatory intimacy. Thou addresses another not as an object but as a presence.

I - Thou. I - It.

“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you.”

To address another as Thou, Buber suggests, requires a certain self-surrender that springs from inhabiting one’s own presence while at the same time stepping outside one’s self. Only then does the other cease to be a means to one’s own ends and becomes real. The primary word I–Thou can be spoken only with the whole being. Concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my agency, nor can it ever take place without me. I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say Thou.

All real living is meeting

Another perspective to look into relationship:  the fundamental truth of this world of appearance. 

I and Thou: Philosopher Martin Buber on the Art of Relationship and What Makes Us Real to One Another

The father of industrial design, Raymond Loewy had an uncanny sense of how to make things fashionable. He believed that consumers are torn between two opposing forces: neophilia, a curiosity about new things; and neophobia, a fear of anything too new. As a result, they gravitate to products that are bold, but instantly comprehensible. Loewy called his grand theory “Most Advanced Yet Acceptable”—Maya. He said to sell something surprising, make it familiar; and to sell something familiar, make it surprising.

Most Advanced Yet Acceptable

Why do people like what they like? It is one of the oldest questions of philosophy and aesthetics. Ancient thinkers inclined to mysticism proposed that a “golden ratio”—about 1.62 to 1, as in, for instance, the dimensions of a rectangle—could explain the visual perfection of objects like sunflowers and Greek temples. Other thinkers were deeply sceptical: David Hume, the 18th-century philosopher, considered the search for formulas to be absurd, because the perception of beauty was purely subjective, residing in individuals, not in the fabric of the universe.

The Formula Of Likeness

In the 1960s, the psychologist Robert Zajonc conducted a series of experiments where he showed subjects nonsense words, random shapes, and Chinese-like characters and asked them which they preferred. In study after study, people reliably gravitated toward the words and shapes they’d seen the most. Their preference was for familiarity.This discovery was known as mere-exposure effect, and it is one of the sturdiest findings in modern psychology. Across hundreds of studies and meta-studies, subjects around the world prefer familiar shapes, landscapes, consumer goods, songs, and human voices.

Liking The Known: Mere Exposure Effect

In mere-exposure studies, the preference for familiar stimuli is attenuated or negated entirely when the participants realize they’re being repeatedly exposed to the same thing. For that reason, the power of familiarity seems to be strongest when a person isn’t expecting it.The reverse is also true: A surprise seems to work best when it contains some element of familiarity.

Familiar Surprise

Eureka moments are a force in the academic world as well.Scientists and philosophers are exquisitely sensitive to the advantage of ideas that already enjoy broad familiarity.In 2014, a team of researchers from Harvard University studied about sort of proposals that were most likely to win funding from prestigious institutions such as the National Institutes of Health: familiar proposals or extremely novel ones?<ul><li>Most-novel proposals got the worst ratings.</li><li>Exceedingly familiar proposals fared a bit better.</li><li>The highest evaluation scores went to submissions that were deemed slightly new.</li></ul>

Mere-Exposure Effect In The Academic World

In Silicon Valley, where venture capitalists also sift through a surfeit of proposals, many new ideas are promoted as a fresh spin on familiar successes.Optimal newness in names: Most parents prefer first names for their children that are common but not too common, optimally differentiated from other children's names.This helps explain how names fall in and out of fashion.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

#artsandculture

TOP STASHERS

IDEAS ABOUT #artsandculture

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

How an Artist is Like a Tree: Paul Klee on Creativity

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Here’s how art is inspiring the Fourth Industrial Revolution

I and Thou: Philosopher Martin Buber on the Art of Relationship and What Makes Us Real to One Another

The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

#artsandculture

TOP STASHERS

IDEAS ABOUT #artsandculture

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

How an Artist is Like a Tree: Paul Klee on Creativity

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Here’s how art is inspiring the Fourth Industrial Revolution

I and Thou: Philosopher Martin Buber on the Art of Relationship and What Makes Us Real to One Another

The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career