How being designed as a folded human means that you will sometimes be off in some ways, but that doesn’t mean that you are a failure in all things or a bad person.
The weaknesses you have are not because you are bad, but because you are folded.
You fold because you are designed to fold.
You are living your design.
That absolutely gives you success, no matter how you may fail.
If you understand what I will write in this article, you will feel better about your place in the world.
You are designed all folded up, something like a bellows, or an accordion.
Even your DNA is coiled and twisted and folded.
And with all those foldings, you will probably find that you mismatch your world in some way.
Not everything misses the mark, but a lot does.
That accounts for the varying levels of comfort that each person has.
There is a place that for any given application, is just exactly right.
Missing that place is called missing the mark or missing the bullseye.
Missing the mark is uncomfortable.
When you see the videos of cells dividing, the cells being folded all around into all kinds of shapes and structures and creations, you can understand that it’s not just you, but that creation around you is also folded in a similar way.
That is why it is called manifold creation, or the manifold universe.
But there is a way to reconcile these places that, because of being folded, may be off track, or missing the mark.
This directly relates to your surfing, skating, board sports, and to your life too.
Lots of mystical traditions describe it from different angles and using different names and terms, in different languages, but it is the same thing.
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Mystically, Folded Things Go In More Than One Direction
When something is folded, by its design, it is going in more than one direction.
Form follows function.
And function follows form.
You also are designed with whatever lefts, rights, ups and downs that you may have.
This means that you may tend to mismatch the world as to some applications in surfing, skating, board sports, and in life.
Folded things tend to be weak, as for some applications, because they are folded.
Being folded means that they will sometimes be off.
It doesn’t mean they are bad, it means they are weak as to that application.
It is by design.
When something is slightly off, it can interact with something else that is slightly off, and this produces an endless variety of new creations.
Creation that had never occurred before from the beginning of time.
The new creation is witnessed from the changeless pristine place that can be found between opposites.
So flaws are valuable because they interact with each other to bring forth new creations, new learnings, and new combinations of life.
There is locationality and directionality to all of this, and there can be to its remedy.
Those weaknesses you may have, are not because you are a bad person, but because you are designed as you are, and living the design.
Even though something is folded and missing the mark, there is also a way to straighten it out.
A Bullseye Is Not Folded And Does Not Miss The Mark.
A bullseye is just one place.
If you can arrive at the bullseye, you can know it is the right place, and be done.
Because the bullseye is a place of conclusion.
It represents the end of all missings, all distractions, and is the end of all exhaustive efforting to get there.
So in this way, the bullseye is a place of rest.
It is like the peaceful center that is found in the eye of a hurricane.
A place of refuge in the middle of life’s storms.
It is possible to hang out and live as the bullseye.
You might have heard an ancient scripture verse that talks about lowering the mountains and raising the valleys.
That means reconciling the mismatchings and is a real thing.
The Mountains Will Be Lowered And The Valleys Raised.
In Mystical Christianity, there is a teaching that Christ will lower the mountains and raise the valleys.
To return creation to its pristine, unfolded state.
To straighten the foldings.
To remove the missings of the mark “as far from us as the east is from the west”.
Reconciling manifold creation to as it was in the beginning.
To a state that does not miss the mark.
The pristine place existed before directionality arose, before left and right, up and down, early and late separated from each other.
When Something Isn’t Folded, It Is Something Like A Tent Pole, Straight And Strong.
The tent pole supports the weight of the tent with no problem and doesn’t blow out into 10,000 changes.
You could say, a tent pole can support a tent, and similarly, a yoke can support the universe.
It is possible to use the human frame to gather two or more points, and set up the equivalent of a yoke or a scale.
You can practice in such a way as to actually hold to the center and witness the foldings and changes of creation outwardly, while the center remains steady, peaceful, and secure.
As you rest in the peaceful center, it will seem as if you are resting between the walls of appearances, the walls of rest.
And that place where you rest, where you are, isn’t so much a thing, as it is a place between things.
Between opposites.
This matches the story of the Buddhist teacher that had just had his finger cut off but still lifted his hand in a gesture as before.
It was the absence of that expected finger that allowed his student to realize that something changeless can be known by what was missing.
He lifted his hand, but the finger was gone.
The contrast of what was there, and what was missing brought enlightenment to the student that saw that.
Also being able to view the surrounding fingers that were still there was important for this realization.
And that is why, when we set up the equivalent of a scale to surf the pristine place, we actually choose two points in creation, and gather those points while resting in the midst of them.
Unchanged between them in the changeless place between opposites.
So from the Buddhist story above, we abide in the place of the missing finger.
The remaining fingers form a scale or reference to surf it.
In Review:
When pressure arrives, you will tend to give in, in one direction or another.
It is the way you are designed.
If the pressure of hunger arrives, you will give in toward the pizza on one side of the street, or toward the Chinese food on the other.
But for that particular hunger, there is only enough room for one of those choices at that moment in time.
So something is chosen, and by the choosing, something else is left unchosen.
Something is done, and something else is left undone.
That is just the design for you.
How To Use The Choosing Of Folds To Sail Along Through Life
It’s kind of like the wind to a sailboat.
The folds are your sail, and you can navigate life with your choices in this world of opposites.
You can extend one side, and withdraw another.
You want to go to the restaurant, you hoist one side and bring in the other.
That is how you walk, move, and do board sports.
Extend one side, withdraw another.
It’s also how you negotiate life, and how you surf and skateboard.
And you can experience all of these changes, as you rest in the timeless place in the midst of the changing world.
Where you extend your sail is where you’ll go and where you’ll be.
So try for good things. Peace, rest, beauty, goodness, and lasting happiness.
That’s what you get.
That’s what you travel to.
That’s how to seek and find a beautiful life.
Even if you are laying there like an accordion, all folded every which way.
Half smiling, half crying, wanting to go one place, but undecided, also wanting to go to another place.
Wanting one item on the menu, but craving another.
You are not stuck.
You can surf the Middle Way.
It Is Possible To Set Up The Equivalent Of A Scale And Surf The Place Between Opposites.
There is a way to surf the changeless place between opposites and transcend the missings of the mark.
Then surfing that place, just rest there no matter how the world moves and changes.
When you do that, you are in the place that does not miss the mark.
And life around you will tend to be organized in relation to this changeless center.
I wrote about that in the article on How To Surf Or Skateboard Without A Board (The Spiritual Exercises)
All you do is find it and abide there no matter how the world would draw you outwardly.
So instead of going outward, chasing the world of creation, just hold to the One.
This is the abiding place of your true self, exactly where you are, and where you have always been.
But because that is not always realized, we have this way to train and practice, which is an additional way to surf that place in all varied conditions.
And to experience it as steady and not changing.
And that’s all we do.
We surf the space between opposites, and with dwelling there, we will realize that it transcends even the points that we hold.
And with this, we realize that effort is not necessary to simply be as we are.
It may be hard to believe, but even as you read this, you are in exactly the right place at the right time, and in that, you do have perfection.
The fact is that no one can do a better job, of being you as you can.
So you are living the design perfectly for this moment.
And you are right on track.
And from your outpost, you can also choose to surf the arisings and appearances that life may present.
Some say that you can never escape yourself.
Indeed, if you climbed to the highest mountain, or swam to the deepest ocean, you would still be you. You can never escape your existence as you.
Think about it, if despite everything you could ever do, and no matter how creation may change, you can still never escape being yourself, then what effort would be necessary for you to obtain that place. Would you need to sit in meditation, practice fasting, chant, pray, do yoga, etc.?
Newsflash: You are there Now. You are it now.
There Are Two Sides To Missing The Mark.
Each time any element in the body chooses a left, right, up, down, etc., it is choosing to go in one direction but not to go in another.
If you visit one person in the hospital, that means that you can’t visit another one in the hospital across town at that same time.
So you will feel the fulfillment of visiting one person, and feel the unfulfillment of not visiting the other.
Between those two opposites though, there is a place that is steady.
You neither come nor go.
Wherever the place and moment of fulfillment is, that is the place of the bullseye.
And you can bask there for awhile.
It takes awhile for the next goal to arise and form.
But you can surf and abide in that place during the arisings of life around you.
So wherever there is something done, there is also something left undone.
But whatever you choose in life, and wherever you go, can be the place and point of satisfaction.
Because you are there.
When you learn to surf the center, you can fully attend all of life around you.
Creation outward from you corresponds in the example of the target, to the rest of the target outward from the bullseye.
Your Changeless, Pristine Place In The Center Is The Beginning And The End Of All Seeking.
Directions and angles are changeable and weak. They can collapse or fail.
So when people collapse or fail in some area, it doesn’t mean that they are bad.
They are just folded up in such a way to be weak as to that particular application and are living the design.
But they can rearrange themselves, reorient themselves in advance of that arriving application, and so be spot on.
And you can surf it.
You can stay in that sweet spot.
That is how and why you can stay on a surfboard or skateboard for an extended time.
That is where training comes in.
So things are as they are supposed to be.
Folded things usually aren’t as strong. Not as strong as something like a tent pole, where everything is in alignment and in one piece.
However, if you actually wanted an accordion instead of a tent pole, the tent pole wouldn’t work.
It wouldn’t expand in and out, and wouldn’t produce music.
It would miss the mark for that particular target or application.
The accordion alone would hit the bullseye. Would be the bullseye.
In the same way, you are already exactly perfect for yourself.
You are already the bullseye.
Even if externally, something hasn’t worked out, it only fails in its limited way, but not in all ways.
In many other ways, it succeeds.
There will always be a way in which it succeeds.
In the middle of all that, you are successfully still here.
God wants you where you are.
Uniquely being in creation as only you can.
God loves having you onstage, and you are doing great.
It’s like appreciating a movie or an actor that puts on a good show.
That is a reason that you never have to feel less-than again.
In Tai Chi, we learn that even if a person’s posture seems beautiful, unbeatable, or flawless, there are still hidden weaknesses.
They are still folded and weak.
Adding the right kind of pressure to them will bring out the weakness that otherwise might not show.
When the pressure is applied, the weak points will tend to blow.
That means that all these people that you once might have envied, prancing around looking like they have it together, are also flawed.
They are folded up too.
Be easy on them.
They cry themselves to sleep too.
You never have to feel less-than again.
Because you are like them.
People, being folded up as they are, are designed to eventually blow outward when pressure is applied.
But you can find that place that existed before directionality separated out into opposites.
You can live from that place, and abide there.
As you do, it will help set things right in creation and in the world.
And you can live from there.
And you are free.
You can sample the world in limitless ways, and no matter what its external appearance, still be able to find and abide in the space between opposites.
In that place you are untouched and beyond folding.
That is where you always live.
That which is beyond folding is preeminent over anything that is capable of being folded.
Anything capable of missing the mark.
Here is the article which explains how to set up the equivalent of the scale and surf the place between opposites. How To Surf Or Skateboard Without A Board: (The Spiritual Exercises).