Discipline = Life

There are those who live behind closed doors, glazed eyes and hardened hearts, waiting, wanting a way to express themselves to other human beings. They never really look at the beauty and wonder of life around them, never finding the acceptance that they came to this life to experience. T’ai Chi Chih practitioners have a different way of experiencing, seeing and feeling life. As one young lady stated, “You wouldn’t think that these simple movements could make such a difference, but THEY DO.” Enough of a difference so that she found herself practicing discipline, which is not something we usually give youth credit for doing. The discipline of doing her practice every day, the discipline of coming to class every week, the discipline of speaking up, when she is usually too shy to talk, to state something that she feels strongly about.

Some of you who are long time practitioners of T’ai Chi Chih can probably be heard saying, “And this is just the beginning.” And it is, as we have found, and are grateful that it is so. This discipline, though it begins in a simple way, goes on to touch our lives in our relationships. We find ourselves more willing to try to work things out, rather than running away or trying to have peace at any price, including our integrity. When discipline touches our jobs, we learn that a job is not just for making a living, but a way of being of service to our community and our fellow man. Discipline in our finances is something that we are all trying to learn. Even at a national level, we have found that greed and delusion can be disastrous. There are many reasons for doing T’ai Chi Chih, but the first steps of discipline seem to be a pretty good place to start.