Yin and Yang

There is a story of a monk who held up a closed fist and asked "if my hand were always like this what would you call it?" The person replied deformed. The monk opened his hand and say, "If my hand were always like this, what would you call it?" and the person replied another kind of deformity.

It is really helpful when taking on a principle to find its range and create harmony between the extremes.

A closed hand has many purposes and should be studied, and open hand as well, but life is what happens when we go from open and then back to closed and then back to open again.

The study feeds the overall.

If we are a go getter, it can be helpful to enjoy the process.

If we are experiencing analysis paralysis it's sometimes helpful to just move forward.

Use the lesson that is helpful for where you're at.

Start with a good idea and become more and more inclusive. This is why in the dojo we start from the ideal. We take a thing and study it under perfect circumstances. This gives us a chance to really understand. Often when in a crunch or under stress there is a tendency to be expedient, but doing a wrong idea faster never gets us where we want to go. However, if we stay in the ideal, we lose the complexities that come from life.

Which is better? To chase function? Or to chase process?

Neither, one is a closed hand and the other is open. Too much of either and we are limit the range of experiences we are allowing to come into our lives.