When I First Noticed a Change

 One Thursday about nine months ago, I was driving my wife and her friend to the JBG class that I had been attending for about six months. My wife wanted to try the class and talked Cheryl, her friend from work, into going, too.

 I asked Karen, my wife, why she wanted to attend. I thought it was because Dr. Painter had appeared in her favorite movie, Midnight Cowboy, and that mystique was the draw.

 “No,” she said, “it’s because of the change in you.” She turned to Cheryl in the back seat and said, "Fabe's turned into a different person since he's started this class."

 I looked at her and said, "What?!"

 "Yeah. You're not as likely to explode when I say something that you don't want to hear. I’m not walking on eggshells like I used to."

 Karen's comment surprised me. I had not realized that I had changed. I thought that I was looking at things a little differently than before I started the class. I can’t exactly say what the change was, though, but I seemed to have achieved a calmness that I hadn’t known before. This felt like a very slight difference and only perceivable to me. But my wife, the closest person to me, and someone who knows me better than I know myself, had noticed the change in my behavior, too. This appeared to be more than a small change, and for the better, it seemed. Also, while I didn't think of myself as a saint, I certainly didn't think that I ‘exploded.’ Other people ‘exploded’ while I rationally debated. I was no Mahatma Gandhi, but maybe, oh, I don’t know, his cousin or something. Karen just rolled her eyes when I said this.

 When she had said that I had changed, I remembered the words of my SGL, Shi-ge Rick Krausman, saying, “This art will change you.” I had written off that comment as soon as he said it. What? Change? Nah!

 But something *did* happen, and I attributed the change mostly to quiet sitting and reciting the four virtues after each practice session. When I recite them, I don’t rattle them off like a machine gun going through bullets, but think about each one and how it could apply to me and my life. Other things contributed, I’m sure, but I don’t know what they might be.

 “Wow,” I thought. “I’m going to tell everyone about this!” And I did. I bragged, “I’m a better person!” to family and friends alike. I hit quiet sitting with a vengeance; “Watch out Mahatma, I’m coming!” Soon after, I lost the feeling that I had before and my wife started walking on eggshells again.  

 When I realized what had happened, I remember Shi-ge Krausman saying, “You can’t chase it or it’ll never come. All you can do is be receptive and let the feelings take their own course.” This paraphrase of Rick’s words is a good synopsis of the following lines in the first verse of Gia Fu Feng’s translation of the Dao De Jing,

      Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
      Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.

 Desiring, and the ambition that desire brings, prevented the attainment of my desire. This catch-22 was so obvious afterwards that I just had to shake my head at the attempt. So I stopped bragging, and started over with quiet sitting, expecting nothing and putting in my time.
 I feel calmer now; things don’t upset me when they don’t go the way I think they should go. I train daily with a happy heart, and try to remind myself to enjoy every minute that I’m alive.

 Did quiet sitting do this? I don’t know. It’s irrelevant, really, because I just do the work and calming things happen. I’ve learned not to expect, not to desire, to let what will happen to just happen. Will this work for others? The synapses that fire in my brain are twisted by my background and my personal experiences. What quiet sitting, or whatever, has done for me may not do the same thing for someone else. Rick likes to say, “Your mileage may vary,” and nowhere is this truer than in this art, this journey that we’re all taking.

 So, where is all this rambling going? I think I want to make a couple of points. First, this art is world-view altering. This is monumental; no other adjective can apply in my opinion. I do not know how I made such a profound change to my core in such a short amount of time. And a change for the better. I just followed the instructions of my Shi Ge, and here I am, different. Better. Second, I now listen a whole lot closer to whatever Rick says, and especially to Dr. Painter.