DICHOTOMY OF CONTROL - Shaolin Masters Shi Heng Yi talks Epictetus

the next philosopher is Epictetus and he talks about the dichotomy of control which is the understanding of the things that are outside of our control and what is inside of our control and he says that we should not give we should not worry or stress about things outside of our control so I'd like to know your thoughts on this control oh let's take the word control for example sometimes if I talk too fast it also flops out of my words that I use control but if I properly think about what is actually meant I would rather replace it by adjust and why is that because if you are controlling something if you are controlling something it still means that that's something you are trying to control is not a part of you it's not the part of you because you control it so it's we're talking about like two separate areas I am here and this is what needs to be controlled I'm talking about adjustment then what I mean is whatever you try to adjust you have gathered an understanding for it you have made it become a part of your perception and because it has become a part of your perception a part of your life let's say that's why it's one with you and if it is one with you then it is something that we can now adjust you know this is now just because of the wording of the control and now this idea of outside world inside world outside influences or outside adjustment or outside control and internal adjustment there was a time when I used to travel quite a lot here to different countries visiting different let's say mainly businesses it was because what they wanted our Monastery or our our organization to support with a bit was that all these employees all these high managers they were very stressed stressed because of work like the real heavy um business environment so they asked us so what is Our advice and sometimes when we went there we asked them okay write please on a piece of paper what is it actually that ultimately is stressing you so much and so people always we had that small survey and so at the end we had the collection of a lot a lot of different things written on the paper what are the stressors that in this business World business world for example is stressing them yeah sometimes people say it's the traffic jam in the morning sometimes people say it is the deadline other people say it is uh the colleagues at work other people say there is the construction site next to my office which yes so but at the end there were some similarities but at the same time What also was just written there black on white was different people have different reasons why they are stressed that is the one conclusion so what it means is not correct to say that the traffic jam is stress no the traffic jam just triggers something inside of you why you feel stressed because other people are in the traffic jam they don't feel stressed other people receive a message they don't get stressed another one he receives the same message but he gets stressed so what do I want to point out is that apparently if somebody feels stressed is something very personal so that automatically means it is not the external circumstances that are the stress that are causing the stress they might be triggering something they are triggering something that internally inside of you at the moment is not adjusted properly or maybe it's not aligned in the proper way to deal with that external impulse let's say it like this and of course there is this idea well why I mention it that the stress is not coming from the outside this is like what is my conclusion what I want to point out I want to say everything that is disturbing to you it's not because of this outside world it's because something inside of you is not properly aligned but we can play this game meaning let's just say someone has all Financial possibilities so money is not an issue and you are trying now to fix everything in the external world which is causing stress to you which means for example you use all of good yeah you are using all of that money for example and try first of all let's say oh exactly you're trying to make a program that is filtering out all the emails that you are receiving in the inbox with all the type of messages that you don't like to read or actually that have a Content that you already know would cause something to to rise inside of you so how will it be what are you gonna do you're going to install some spam filters you're going to have a blacklist so you can do everything in order to try and control what message is going to arrive in your inbox and now I ask you do you really think you can control with all of this technological advancements do you really think you can control who is going to send you which email with what content and at what time I also don't think this is possible now sometimes people say the people around me are stressing me okay let's control the people around you let's take the best example think about the person that is the closest to you and that also knows you the best you know might be one of your brothers might be one of your sisters it could be your parents could be a good friend just think about that person does that person always say the things or do the things or behave in the way how you expect this person to behave or or do okay so what is it that we are right now talking about we are talking about the closest person in your life the closest one is even not in a hundred percent not even 50 percent the way how you imagine him or expect him to be yeah and now we're talking about the society where other people you saw them for the first time so why should they behave in a way how someone personally expects no it's not family now it's getting farther it's just colleagues that you work with in a certain time then maybe it is like the neighborhood that you are living in then sometimes you meet people from the city area so the more far away we get what does it mean the less influence we have on them so the idea of trying to change a human being out there I also think it's wasted energy and so we were talking on the one side about trying to use technology to control the external world then we were talking about trying to control human beings in the external world and in both cases I come to the conclusion it's not working there's no only one thing again that remains because apparently the stress and the worries and the fear it arises somewhere and that somewhere is individually always inside one self and this is that Paradox part sometimes about this world that you know when you are sad the sadness sits inside of you when you worry about something it's your worry other people around you may be see the issue too but they don't worry you worry but nevertheless we try to fix this issue we try to look for the solution yeah not inside of you you try to find it out there and this is what I think is a little bit this idea that at least in our tradition why we think this self-reflection is a very helpful method let's say in order to really reflect about yourself think look inside yourself because all of these things all of these emotional states they all take place inside of you so if you want to adjust something about the way how you feel the way how we feel it's inside of us that we need to find the right points to trigger inside of me because no that's the really nice saying here if there is something that you can to a hundred percent adjust and control in this life it can only be yourself if there's something which is a hundred percent in your control it must be yourself what else should it be and so if you think there is a possibility to master something to take responsibility of something then I think it is it must be related first of all to your being and therefore yes we talk about internal word external world but you know this is so it is so close related with each other that ultimately you know you can't live in only one of these let's put it like this in the way how we talk we say that's the internal world that's the external world the external causes me stress so maybe some people now might think yeah and the one from Shaolin he said so you should take care of the internal meaning not taking care of the external this is not what I said I said also look here from time to time But ultimately it is impossible to even separate those two from another because whether something is internal or external only depends on where you are placing let's say the mind because while I'm sitting here I can try and figure out what type of emotional state am I in right now yeah so it means while I'm looking at you while we drink tea I can still with my mind actually do something else you see so be inside of me but still our conversation is going on at the same time it can also mean that inside something is cultivating I just don't pay attention to it instead I pay more attention to the outside I pay more attention to how the tea tastes so that means it still is always there internal external it still is there all the time it's just that we as humans have this ability to sometimes switch to sometimes pay attention okay now you want to pay attention to the external a little bit more okay do it sometimes then I'll but return back now the external you let it stand still you move internally and then you find the balance that what you have on the inside reflects one on one on the outside because then there is no internal and external anymore that is just that one state of being there's yeah you're not switching worlds anymore it's just that one type of let's say experience and this is something that can be practiced but in order to connect you first must know what is their existing that can be connected and that is an external world and an internal world foreign how would you practice that connection getting the connection between the internal and the external no before already maybe the people don't know but when we did a little bit when I showed you some of the training practices there is something you are doing externally let's say of of touching that back just an external movement it's something people on the outside can see what I could not see what only you know is how does that what you do there is connected to what you feel in there what comes up inside of you yes and this is already one expression of there is something you do externally but this it is affecting you on the inside and no matter what it is even if you start riding a bicycle in order to ride the bicycle you need the sense of balance there is something that you are doing on the inside question is are you aware of what exactly it is you are doing it and so that's why we say there are so many different methods how to cultivate and how to slowly start establishing this type of connection also like doing only kitchen work cutting vegetables also this because how I said if you would have closed eyes you know when the knife is touching the vegetable because it goes hand in hand within perception of feeling you know when it's touching so let's just imagine you're really concentrated you know when it's touching and so now at the same time you know now how do you properly cut so you maybe slide a little bit to the front and then you do that one slide closed eyes so what does it mean it means that there is something where you connect feeling with action internal sensation with movement internal sensation with movement this is what we mean when your internal Energies are aligned with your action another way and yeah very typical now for this tradition where like we are coming from is to is what we call Qigong Qigong is that method to connect internal and external because for example literally translated that word of chi many people sometimes try to translate it as energy which is not wrong but another very simple expression of chi is just press the breath the gong standing for exercise or for for work for exercising for walking for increasing some skill so Qigong is breast work simplified and why do we say that breast work helps with the connection it's because our breath is the only thing in this complete universe that is literally traveling always with every press from inside world to outside world because the air the oxygen comes from there and comes in and is then inside of you so the air we say is that intermediate link between the internal world and the external world this is why then on a later level sometimes people become spiritual and say Qigong is the key because it is that Missing Link Between the external and the internal and like I mentioned before in some conversations this is why there are existing spiritual Qigong practices practices to build up that link it was in a conversation you know I had with your brother about what is it afterwards when this body is gone well the body at the moment is a carrier it's a vessel through which this energy at the moment is flowing through so what happens if that vessel falls apart I don't know what happens but if it falls apart but that amount of energy that you have cultivated is still existing it might just search for another vessel to get into another exchange of internal and external and this is why uh this Qigong let's say is something very very well known as a spiritual practice on the one side but also to really just simply get in touch with this idea that you want to take more part in this life you want to engage more in living a life how do you do it the easiest way learn how to breathe properly learn learn to use your breath as good as you can learn from resources that are available and learn the practices that go hand in hand with it now you know sometimes I really get a lot of questions that are still based a lot like on on philosophical level but at the same time me myself when I was in school before my favorite um subjects in school was mathematics physics chemistry and Sport because chemistry physics mathematics this is not about imagining something this is you have a formula and if you put one and one together something comes out if you make it a second time same formula the same result comes out so that means in a way it's very rational it's very logic so that means this type of thinking that one plus one is two it's logic I can follow that sort it makes sense to me I have this inside of me which means if somebody comes up and gives me a philosophical question or a philosophical opinion I think about it but I really try to get the part out that somehow has to do let's say with fantasy world imagination illusion yeah so and why I mentioned this is because this Qigong just think about from the moment on that we are born our lungs start to breathe inhale exhale until today our lungs never made a mistake you have never inhaled one time more than you have exhaled so that means our lungs already keep a certain rhythm looking at our heart the heart keeps a certain rhythm this Earth never stopped turning the moon never stopped turning so one thing I can see is circular movement repetitive movement reoccurring movement is part of the world we're living in and at the same time now if I think about okay people mention Qigong which is breast work this breast work is very close related to the quality of life the more Chi you nourish the more Chi you have the more energy you have the more you can do with it in this lifetime and now I switch back and say okay breast oxygen breathing and now you just look at yeah you look at our oven down in the basement if we want to create more heat if you want to create something more than it is right now it's not just we need more wood we need to open the valve more a bit more oxygen streams in if you maybe heard about how people are let's say trying to increase the performance of an engine it also means somewhere along the line you need to have more air intake more air plus more fuel injection or however you put it in there that equals more performance and so for us humans it means you need to eat you need to breathe um that amount of necessary air inside of your body and then the process of creating energy that you then can make useful with your body then it can start so you can see all of this Qi and energy as something like philosophical esoteric but for me it's like the it's just like real it's very Logic for me so and uh yeah this is one of my special moments where I actually don't even know anymore what the question was but I think somehow we probably covered it yeah you covered the combining the external and the antenna yes made sense to me it is not things that harm us it is our interpretation that harms us it's a very popular state quote and I think it rings true and relates to what Master Changi is saying something I thought was interesting is his when he mentioned I thought this was very interesting in fact he's talking about expectations um he talks a lot about expectations actually just in general but in this talk we had expectations expecting people and things to happen or behave a certain way well he said imagine the person closest to your loved one your spouse your parents your friends this person you have these expectations um but even them even these people that's closest to you um they surprise you they do things out of these expectations so it only says then people that aren't close to you people random strangers how can you have this expectation for them to behave a certain way as mozzarella says when you wake up understand that people may be meddling maybe rude maybe surely you know we cannot expect people to fit into a mold for us um there are people that my annoyers irritators that things in life that happen these obstacles these circumstances that we are faced with that can be bad and so when you expect these things in the morning they don't surprise you and it builds you up to face these challenges so I hope you enjoyed this talk with Master xiangye if you want to support these projects what I'm doing then head over to my website www.theyeverdayster.com where you can get they are more fatty t-shirt the momentum or a T-shirt and it just supports what I'm doing so I can do more projects like this you know it takes a while it takes a lot of Manpower time money to go to these places like this one was in Germany The Shaolin Temple we stayed there for a while had all the equipment filmed you know it takes a while but um I love it I love getting this message I love sharing it with you all and I know you all enjoy it so um yeah your sports greatly appreciated especially those becoming a member or subscribing to the YouTube channel or even at the Instagram at the everyday stick or my Instagram at William River where everyone's joining in in a step Community sharing their thoughts their ideas their beliefs and um I just think it's amazing so I hope anyone that's not part of that maybe head over to that and become part of it and let me know if you do just leave a comment or a message and I'll try and get back to you all and thank you for watching I hope you enjoy

Channel: Everyday Stoic

Views: 720,725

Keywords: shaolin, master your mind, master, the master, master teacher paul hannh m.d., steve jobs personality type, how to be a stoic person, taoism flow like water, paul thomas anderson directing style, einzelganger stoicism, einzelgänger stoicism, paul thomas anderson style, tao te ching, style of paul thomas anderson, intelligence, studiobinder, paul thomas anderson directing, how paul thomas anderson changed, existentialism, in the flow state

Id: v-ip7X_uINc

Length: 30min 7sec (1807 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2022