Balthasar Gracian and the Pain-body

Understanding of what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain-body has been around a long time. Here is one of Balthasar Gracian's maxims from The Art of Worldly Wisdom, written in 1637:

lxix Do Not Give Way to Every Common Impulse.

He is a great man who never allows himself to be influenced by the impressions of others. Self-reflection is the school of wisdom. To know one's disposition and to allow for it, even going to the other extreme so as to find the juste milieu between nature and art. Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement. There be some whose humours are so monstrous that they are always under the influence of one or other of them, and put them in place of their real inclinations. They are torn asunder by such disharmony and get involved in contradictory obligations. Such excesses not only destroy firmness of will; all power of judgment gets lost, desire and knowledge pulling in opposite directions. [Italics added]

What has been less clearly stated is exactly what to do about the pain-body, how to dissolve it. Tolle says you dissolve the pain-body through simply becoming aware of it. This is a two-step process.

Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success: Intentness

This article was originally published by Technorati on 19 June 2010 as a Simply Spirited/Sports feature. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

The position of every block in Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success is significant. None more significant perhaps than the placement of the "Intentness" block directly on top of the foundational "Enthusiasm."

Intentness, Coach Wooden wrote in The Essential Wooden: A Lifetime of Lessons on Leaders and Leadership "is the ability to resist temptation and stay the course, to concentrate on your objective with determination and resolve."

He also describes what Intentness is not: "Impatience is wanting too much too soon. Intentness doesn't involve wanting something."

Friendship Foundational to Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success

This article was originally published by Technorati on 15 June 2010 as a Simply Spirited/Sports feature. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

As I put pen to paper to write about Coach Wooden's views on Friendship, I find myself researching more heavily the legacy of Adolph Rupp, Hall of Fame coach of the University of Kentucky (my alma mater) from 1930 to 1972. The two coaches' styles could not have been more different. Coach Rupp was colorful, foul-mouthed, a scotch drinker. Wooden--the opposite.

Wooden's players seem to have universally loved him as a coach and as a man. Rupp--the opposite.