The Positive Side of the Heartbeat
THE POSITIVE SIDE OF THE HEARTBEAT
Preface
This essay is in two parts.
Part 1 of this essay is primarily written in the context of Great River Jiu Jitsu classes and related class assignments. These recent ‘homework’ assignments have been based on the concept of associating the human heartbeat with our connection to the eternal. This may be a somewhat indecipherable concept for any reader other than GRJJ students.
Part 2 picks up on some of the examples I’ve given in Part 1 and reflects on how this concept may not be all that indecipherable, after all.
Mark Walter
09/04/23
PART 1 – The Positive Side of the Heartbeat
Introduction
When we attempt to consider that we are more than our physical body, can we consider that it is an actual possibility? For some of us, that thought might not make sense. But I’ve observed that most of us can at least pause just long enough to consider it. In our consideration, can we also ask ourselves what lies beyond the pause?
And if we persist in our inquiry, can we move past mere consideration into at least some form of understanding? And hopefully eventually emerge into realization?
In Jiu Jitsu, my personal on-the-mat practices have generally focused on movement and mental attitude. But both on and off the mat I focus on universal principles. I’ve practiced principles so extensively that they have become a second nature conditioned reflex. With that amount of practice in mind it can lead to another question: what lies beyond the principles?
The universal principles taught in our school are tools that help us navigate our life, including our relationships, our challenges, and our difficulties. This small essay focuses on a practice that can take us beyond the practice of principles and into the world of the eternal. I’ve learned many years ago that universal principles are also critical tools in both navigating the unknown and also navigating the eternal connections of past lives, in-between lives and real-time experiences and lucid ventures into the deeper forms of reality.
Recent Practices
Very recently, my studies have been based on teachings about the esoteric nature of the heartbeat. Speaking both metaphorically and literally, I’ve been learning that there is a rhythm at which we live our lives, somewhat analogous to how musicians keep in time with the tempo or beat. Some musicians tend to be slightly behind or slightly in front of the beat.
If we apply this concept to our own lives, many of us live slightly behind the beat. We are not in precise timing with the center of the beat. As such, we find ourselves living in a life of regret, sorrow, guilt, or anger. Sometimes we do this in secret, perhaps masking our discontent with attitudes conveying optimism, cheerfulness, or gung-ho enthusiasm. But masks are restrictive. They hide our real face and can inhibit our deeper nature.
Several months ago, I was visiting my brother Scott (also referred to herein as Sensei). Among his many talents he is an orchestra conductor. My visit coincided with the leadup to the orchestra’s annual Spring Concert. In their last rehearsal before the concert, he invited me to sit next to the conductor’s stand. “You’ll get to hear what I hear,” he said.
I took some still pictures of various players and him, as well as a few short video clips. I also observed something up close that I’d seen before from a distance. Among other things, a conductor keeps the beat. But I noticed that he stayed ever-so-slightly ahead of the beat, allowing his cues to the orchestra to be the slightest split-second ahead of the players. This provided them with a near-instantaneous preview of when to come into the precise moment of the beat, the intonation, the swell and a myriad of other cues a conductor must provide. I’m mentioning this because I was getting to observe a real-life visual example of being ‘slightly in front of the beat.’
The heart itself possesses an electrical spark that initiates the heartbeat. Electrical sparks, easily observed watching by a spark plug on a lawn mower, have an arc. If you slightly separate the spark plug from the spark plug wire, you can actually see it. It’s also easily observable when viewing lightning, or in a science lab when seen on an instrument called a Jacob’s Ladder where we can see the arc buzzing and crackling its way up the ladder.
Anyway, these recent Jiu Jitsu lessons have taught me that the arc contained with the human heartbeat, the spark of life itself, is the Ark of the Covenant. I’m not going to pretend I understand this, yet. But a lack of understanding does not stop me from practicing.
I will briefly explain at the end of this commentary, to the best of my ability, what I’m doing when I engage in my fledgling practice… which is positioning or aligning myself to be slightly in front of or slightly on the positive side of the heartbeat. That’s what this short essay is about. It’s what we’ve been instructed to practice.
Finally, the personal examples that I provide below may not seem significant. But I am speaking as a devoted practitioner of universal principles. While I often stumble or fail at being consistent, my failures do not deter me from resuming or continuing to practice. I practice. So, as an early practitioner of this new-found practice, the modest examples that follow ARE very significant. Because this new practice has given me instant results, subtle as the may seem to an outside viewer.
Dreams, Cars, and Airplanes
In my dreams I had often seen large and small campuses. I came to realize these are places of learning. I’d often see people I recognized, including people I know in this life. Adjacent to the campuses, I’d often spot large parking lots filled with cars. During one dream I saw someone I knew climbing into her car to leave. Her car was not one she currently owned, but a previous small compact she’d owned years ago, a car that I clearly associated with her. In an instant I had a realization: her ‘car’ was her physical body that she was ‘parking’ or leaving behind in her dreams, allowing her to attend night school.
I was on a plane today and a similar realization occurred. I positioned by self just slightly in front of my heartbeat. And the moment I did that, here's what emerged:
Just as we inhabit our physical bodies, and come and go in our dreams, or in our meditations, or in life and death, some 200 of us were stuffed inside the plane, inhabiting the body of our aircraft. Once the plane landed, we would all leave the plane’s physical body, emerging into our daily lives.
The plane was clearly representing the physical bodies which we inhabit when we enter a life. As passengers we were representing our eternal selves, poured and tucked-in to our physical bodies. The aptness of the metaphor continued because, as any passenger knows, we are crammed into a jet’s fuselage with very little wiggle room. Similarly, we have a sense of being un-maneuverable within our own bodies. Without more wiggle room, it’s hard for us to stretch, to open-up to our greater true nature. I believe that this suffocating or confined way of living contributes to our living anxious lives, crammed like passengers in a plane with no knee room, constantly touching shoulders with our seated companions.
The moment I connected the wiggle room appeared, it instantly opened up.
I think the metaphors I'm using are easy to understand. Perhaps their simplicity can make them easy to dismiss. Yet, in my opinion and experience, these ‘simplicities’ surround us. Their simple, holographic nature is repetitive. This makes them a constant in the sense that they are constantly reinforcing a deeper message, doing so through their essential simplicity and availability.
Once I made this slight adjustment (positioning myself slightly on the positive side of my heartbeat), I was instantly experiencing a truer and more accurate insight into the deeper nature of reality. Simple as it seems, all I had to do to see and experience this was to make a small adjustment within my personal self-awareness.
This simple airplane metaphor had never occurred to me before, even though I’ve flown on hundreds of flights. What created the realization? What was the "small adjustment within my personal self-awareness?"
I had employed a practice that I’ve only recently been taught: positioning my awareness slightly on the positive or leaving side of my heartbeat. I had no idea of its meaning, yet the instant I turned to this practice a realization immediately emerged.
I had headphones on during much of the flight, listening to Pachelbel, Satie, Mozart, and other meditative compositions. The headphones had the added benefit of sound dampening aircraft noise. In relative isolation and during Canon in D Major, I once again positioned myself on the positive side of my heartbeat. Instantly, and I truly mean instantly, another message occurred. The flight attendant was announcing landing instructions. But with my noise canceling headphones, her voice was not only muted, dim and far away but I also couldn’t understand a single word she was saying.
The moment I positioned myself, however, I had an instant realization. Almost as if someone was talking to me. But it was thoughts that were occurring within my own mind. Thoughts which instantly conveyed to me that we live within a muted environment. It’s so muted that it obscures the background voice. By practicing this exercise, I was hearing the proverbial “still, small voice” of scripture, typically experienced as non-existent, or at best faint and dim. And this voice was sharing with me something that was right in front of me the entire flight. It was there to be seen and heard if I chose to reorient myself to see and hear it.
So here I sat, utilizing a very simple exercise, performed on a cramped, crowded flight. And much to my repeated surprise, the inner voice clearly and instantly emerged. It wasn't a subliminal urging or hint. It was clear direction. A clear voice. Clear thoughts and messages. Clarity.
The Particulars of My Novice Practice
When I heard my instructor recently tell the class that we needed to be slightly on the positive side of the heartbeat, I had no idea what that meant. He repeated this phrase numerous times throughout the class, but I left without any sense of clarity. The next day, however, I was driving with the phrase still ringing in my ears. Within the slow-moving oppression of rush hour traffic, I spontaneously decided to practice. I didn’t let my lack of understanding stop me, even though I had no further sense of clarity from the previous evening’s class.
It could seem a bit preposterous to practice something I had no idea of what to practice. But I’ve engaged in such practices for a long time, and I’ve learned to trust someone who’s ventured further down the trail than I have. In a sense it’s a leap of faith, but in reality it’s not. For example, imagine if I were a climber and had available a trusted climbing partner who’d climbed a cliff face a hundred times – one that I’d never climbed once. I’d simply follow his or her advice when she tells me where to place my feet and hands. So yes, on the one hand that can appear to be purely faith-based trust, but it’s actually faith based on experience.
My early practice:
I decided to be slightly positive.
I then associated this with a mental state. Being positive-minded. Not overly so. But just enough.
I then used my breath to provide me with a sense of filling up an inner balloon. With a chest of air, I felt a slight sense of push or fullness in my chest. I wasn't breathing deeply. But my breath was in a similar 'just enough' state to support my sense of being positive.
I noticed an immediate change in my psychological demeanor. I felt affirming but not invincible. It was as though I had a firm, positive confidence that would persist and not give up. It gave me a slight sense of invincible optimism.
Instantly a ‘message’ would come through. Or a change in perspective or insight. It emerged as a perspective or thought that was utterly appropriate to the question, issue, person or circumstance I was facing or encountering.
I have also noticed an instant change in the quality of light. Everything seemed a bit more ‘illuminated’.
So, there I was, driving in traffic. Yet somehow, I 'knew' where this spot, this slightly positive heartbeat positioning, was at. And I can repeat it. How did I know that? How did I know how to practice something I didn’t understand, at all?
I suspect the physical attributes I've described are the insights of a novice practitioner and that the more experienced practitioner would convey things more succinctly, perhaps by suggesting that this is our natural orientation as eternal beings. I'll suggest that's why I 'fell into' this state of being or state of mind so readily, even though in the previous night's class I'd had no clue what my sensei was talking about. In other words, I didn't fight my natural state of being... I just kind of relaxed and let my body connect to what it wants to connect to.
To be clear, I'm not declaring an understanding here. Rather, I'm simply sharing realizations that instantly emerged when I began practicing something I didn't understand.
PART 2 – The Positive Side of my Interactions
Introduction
Following are some personal stories and experiences. They are short and they may not appear to prove anything particularly revealing or convincing. But the fact that they aren’t obviously providing convincing proof doesn’t mean the proof is not there. It simply means it may not be obvious.
Since I’ve recently begun my practice of positioning myself “slightly on the positive side of my heartbeat” I’ve been realizing that there is something going on that I do often. But I wasn’t seeing it at first.
Like me, you may find that your awareness and observational skills are able to reveal more than you realize. Perhaps you’ll discover an improved ability to observe the threads that connect the connections, interactions, and occurrences that take place your everyday life. It will likely take practice and a lot of repetitions, as it has for me.
Stitching it Together
Each of the small episodes that follow have occurred within the last week. There have been others.
General Contractor – I was in a construction job trailer. On the opposite end was a small office where the GC’s project manager had a desk. I was working out-of-state for a week, and we’d only briefly said hello. On my second day, he walked down the narrow hall to the opposite end of the job trailer where I had a temporary work area. I was sitting with my back to the door with my laptop placed on a six-foot folding table. The AC and a table fan were running at full speed to help dispel the searing outdoor temperatures. Two construction supervisors were in the same cramped room, engaged in working through construction schedule issues.
As the project manager walked into the room, I swiveled slightly in my chair and gave a polite head nod. He sat down and looking straight at me, began to talk about how much his wife suffers from anxiety and how frustrating it is to deal with, particularly since this jobsite was a five (5) hour roundtrip from home and he’d typically spend several nights a week in a hotel. He’s a very nice guy, but GC team members are typically fairly hard-core in the sense that the job requires leadership qualities that can best be described as ‘driving and demanding’. It’s not normal to take time to talk personal issues, particularly with a newly arrived consultant on his second day on the job.
Construction Worker – I was in the same construction trailer. The project is in a US state that is known to be intolerant of minorities. Black men and women must be on guard, often needing to modify their behavior around white people. It’s a forced deferential attitude that is unnatural but craved by quite a few of their white co-workers.
I’ve worked all over the United States and I typically don’t see this on many construction sites. People are generally treated with respect. But xenophobic and old racist attitudes do not die easily. And so, this particular quiet and deferential young man was also having to play dumb around the white man.
He was in that same job trailer and had never met me when, spontaneously, he began telling me that his dream had always been to be a psychiatrist. And how much he wanted to help kids who found themselves in juvenile detention centers. He related how his brother or cousin had just been released from a 3-5 year term in the penitentiary, and how important it was to get to troubled kids when they were still young. His attitude was that of passion and enthusiasm, and by now his deferential demeanor had faded into the distance.
Restaurant Server
She was just another middle-aged server in a hectic airport restaurant. Quick service and rapidly turning over tables is the norm in such a busy environment. Yet before my order had been placed, she approached my table and immediately noticed my Apple laptop.
She told me about her own Apple laptop including its age and told me she was using an old version of Photoshop. When I inquired what she was doing with Photoshop, a story immediately emerged about a documentary book she’d written, with photos, about a local environmental issue. She’d received Blue Ribbon awards and monetary grants. She recounted how the person she had centered her book upon had now written her own book which was being picked up as a motion picture. Her manager finally had to come over and whisper her to move on. I ordered an morning bagel with egg and a coffee for the plane.
Parking Lot Encounter
I was leaving a restaurant when a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother approached, heading into the same restaurant. Women are naturally cautious in parking lots, more so as it’s getting darker. As they approached, I casually asked them if they were headed into the same restaurant while simultaneously rubbing my stomach indicating smiling satisfaction and recommending a ‘sinful’ dessert. They both lit up and began excitedly chatting and giggling about enjoying a good dessert. It was strawberry shortcake.
Looking back, I came to realize that I was in the same mindset with each of these encounters as when I practice being “slightly on the positive or leaving side of my heartbeat.” These realizations have flashed me back to an important part of my Jiu Jitsu training. It was a training regimen which slowly and steadily taught me to focus on the eternal center of our being.
Jiu Jitsu and Deeper Awareness Training
I was in my early black belt years. It was the late 1990s and early 2000s. We nearly always practice with a partner. We take turns defending against attacks. The person making the attack is called the Uke. The defender is called the Tori. Uke makes the attack on Tori, who defends and then submits Uke. The practice partners then switch positions.
There came a period during my training when Sensei instructed me to “take Uke down at the first sign of movement.” It is easy to imagine being in front of a partner who ‘winds-up’ and slowly begins to throw a roundhouse strike. As I spotted the strike coming at me, I’d move in and submit Uke. It was a simple assignment. I already knew dozens of ways to take uke down to the ground.
I practiced this quite a bit and after a class or two Sensei returned and said, “That’s good. But I said at the first sign of movement.” And he walked away.
I wasn’t sure what he meant. So, I decided to spot Uke’s incoming strike a bit earlier, this time not waiting so long to move in. Soon, I was performing the take-down as soon as Uke wound up. I practiced this repeatedly. After a time, Sensei returned and said, “That’s good. But I said at the first sign of movement.”
Hmmm.
I tightened my focus and observed the moment when Uke was beginning to do his/her wind-up. Just as the movement was starting rather than a split second or so after it had started. I did this repeatedly. Again, after a time, Sensei returned and said, “That’s good. But I said at the first sign of movement.”
By this point, I had already trimmed my lag time to the point where I was taking Uke down before there was a wind-up, at only the merest hint of a movement. But with this newest inflection of, “But I I had said at the first sign of movement,” I was going to have to somehow up my game. Which, of course, I had no idea what that even meant.
That being said, it was here that the real training began. I began to focus on Uke’s overall body. To do that, I let my own eyes drift into a gaze, allowing Uke’s face and body to go into a soft blur. I wasn’t looking at Uke directly. It was more like I was looking at the implication of Uke.
These lessons continued for many practice sessions until finally one night Sensei returned and said, “That’s great. You’re doing good. But I said at the first sign of movement.”
I was frustrated. But I kept practicing. Occasionally Sensei would walk over and say, “That’s it. You just got it!” or, “There! Right there! Good!”
Even though I was achieving intermittent success was occurring, my frustration continued because I still had no idea what I was doing or what the teacher was seeing. I had trained for enough years to know that the thing I couldn’t see, he was seeing! So, I continued to practice on the thing I couldn’t see.
Eventually I came to realize that the first sign of movement in Uke was his/her intention. I was learning to perceive a little switch going off in Uke’s mind. At the precise moment Uke decided or even contemplated making the attack, I was swooping in. I was finally at the beginning of understanding. But I was only reaching that understanding through the realization of experience, through getting experience practicing in the direction of the thing I did not understand.
During these same months and years of training I was also working on a martial arts fundamental: the notion of moving the body as a unit, not as isolated parts. The training was teaching me movement from hara, from the center point within my body. I was learning to move in a more balanced and coordinated way. At the same time, I was learning to make an inner connection with Uke.
I was also learning that balance is multi-dimensional. That hara exists not only in our physical bodies, but also in our emotional, in our mental, and in our spiritual bodies. If I was in an unbalanced state in any one of these dimensions, I could use an adjacent dimension to help balance the part of me that was a bit topsy-turvy. For example, if my emotions were out of sorts, I could work on balancing my physical body to help quell my anger or frustration. Or I could calm my mind by steadying my emotions.
Off the mat I was studying my behavior in relationships and at work. I was observing what triggered me to lose my balance and what helped me to regain it. I was also studying unbalanced behaviors in others or in meetings. After a time, I began to learn how my own success in inner balance could be applied to relationships, to situations, and to problems.
Along the way I was being shown that a more perfect balance incorporated the notion that if one dimension of being was out of balance then I wasn’t in an optimal state of balance. Again, balance had multidimensional aspects to it. As my studies continued, I was also realizing that Uke shared these multidimensional obstacles as well. While on the one hand that seemed obvious, within the context of self-defense this realization took on a very significant meaning. And it was here that another massive milestone in my training occurred.
For example, I had begun to understand that creating better alignment within myself implied that I might be able to affect others. Within the context of Jiu Jitsu, this insight opened the door into realizing that I could sense much more about Uke than his/her moment of intention.
One day, Sensei said, “I can see you are observing and practicing these principles within yourself. But can you practice them within Uke? Can you make that same connection inside of this other person?”
To accomplish this, I had to learn how to see and connect to the center not just within myself but also within Uke. The lessons about sensing intention were just the beginning. As I slowly worked on improving my skills in doing this, it became apparent that the Uke’s in my life were not used to being touched or connected to in this spot.
Having learned to make that connection within myself, I was also learning how to find and connect into it within others, to a spot within themselves that very few of us are used to finding. To a spot within ourselves that we tend to resist. Yet, once we make that connection, things suddenly and immediately become easier.
When I looked back over the last week at the General Contractor and at the other three encounters I had, it immediately became clear that this was what I was doing:
· I was looking at that spot within each person.
· I was practicing without thinking about it.
· It was very easy to do. Practice clearly pays off.
· The unsolicited responses were all very positive.
· I was in the identical spot that’s “slightly on the positive or leaving side of my heartbeat.”
To summarize: deeply significant improvements and inner connections can emerge when you practice (and practice) this thing that you might not understand at all.