The Vital Force Archive

Justin Stone separates spirituality from religion and philosophy, defining it as the inner search for the Real, and argues that believers and non-believers alike benefit from correct TCC practice.

Justin Stone warns against decorative, dance-like gestures, correcting the aimless hand waving he sees in Bird Flaps its Wings, Pulling Taffy Variation #2, Light at the Top of the Head and Daughter in the Valley.

Justin Stone warns that gossip and petty squabbles have crept into a practice meant for Love and Joy, and praises Ed Altman's leadership at teacher training courses and workshops.

Justin Stone insists the benefit of practice depends on how you move: flowing effortlessly from the T'an T'ien rather than using shoulders and arms, with correct yinning and yanging, as shown on his latest videotape led by Suni McHenry.

Justin Stone's poem asks what the Zen Way means, naming Zazen, the fullness of the Void, Bodhidharma's westward journey, and whether we can be thankful with no thing to thank.

Justin Stone describes the Saturday night meditation group that meets at his house and warns its readers not to apply the non-attachment demanded of yogis and monks to ordinary family life.

Justin Stone draws on his book Metaphysics of Wall Street to argue that talk therapy cannot break addictive habits, while TCC practice changes the metabolism and the ground habits grow from, as one prison is discovering.

Justin Stone distinguishes crammed knowledge from Prajna, the inherent wisdom, recounting a meditators' gathering where his comments anticipated Ramana Maharshi's words, and the day he bought his Albuquerque house by letting the car choose.

Justin Stone recounts visiting an animal farm where a hand-raised puma lunged at the chicken wire toward his gruff companion, and he watched his own breath stay calm throughout.

Justin Stone contrasts a culture of convenience, one-person-per-car loneliness and the quest for money with the inner Joy that comes from sincere TCC practice, Turiya meditation, gratitude and service to others.

Justin Stone strings together aphorisms on circular versus linear time, the Zen story of the monk who carried a woman across a swollen river, and vairagya, naming TCC practice as a way to dissolve habit-energy.

Justin Stone traces Patanjali's vritti into vashanas and samskaras, arguing that deep meditation and T'ai Chi Chih can erase harmful habit energies and addictions, closing with a verse from 20th Century Psalms.

Justin Stone answers a new teacher's letter on how wide to set the feet, why the title "Master" is meaningless in the West, Zen's rare granting of Inka, and Chi Kung.

Justin Stone argues that "Flow Softly" should be a teacher's first instruction to a new pupil, since tension contracts the meridians and blocks the flow of Chi.

Justin Stone retells the tale of Daito Kokushi, who begged under a Kyoto bridge until the Emperor's messenger offered melon to whoever could take it without using his feet.

Justin Stone quotes the Indian teacher Sri Nisargadatta on the Vital Breath and blockage, arguing that TCC exists to circulate and balance the Chi rather than to entertain or defend.

Justin Stone sets down the aphorisms he jotted after sitting, among them that bliss comes with stillness, that contradictory partial realizations can both be right, and that emptiness is clearest on leaving the turiya state.

Justin Stone, prompted by a teacher's plan to speak at an Albuquerque Consciousness Fair, argues there is no "higher consciousness" or good and bad karma, and warns against box-office titles like one Zen writer's.

Justin Stone's short poem looks at a mountain throbbing with life and indifferent trees that witness everything without attachment, then asks whether these are the wise ones.

Justin Stone distinguishes Jnana Yoga, the Yoga of Inquiry, from Raja Yoga's eight branches, walking through Yama, Pranayama, Dharana and the stages of Samadhi, and warning against self-enlightened dabblers.

Justin Stone distinguishes T'ai Chi Chih from exercise, urges teachers lacking an understanding of softness, circularity and polarity to audit classes and ask questions, and names capable teachers as the practice's great treasure.

Justin Stone explains "Chi Posteriori" accumulated through practice, the Turiya state he teaches only to a few privately, and the young ashram yogi whose nightly emissions ceased after a 1:00 a.m. practice.

Justin Stone distinguishes real karma from blind destiny, criticizes casual claims to teach Raja Yoga without Yama, Niyama or Pratyahara, and names meditation and correct TCC as ways to weaken Vashanas.

Noël Altman reports on Justin Stone's May 1998 talk to about 75 inmates at Folsom Prison, where he spoke of equal lives, leaving mistakes behind, and the plant growing from rock he calls love.

Justin Stone lists the four methods he used to fill classes when T'ai Chi Chih was unknown: a two-line newspaper classified ad, free presentations, talk radio appearances, and uncluttered posters in health food and book stores.

Justin Stone draws on the bamboo that bends with the wind and snaps back unharmed to argue that softness outlasts hardness and that the Sage accomplishes everything by doing nothing.

Justin Stone distinguishes ahimsa, which he says anyone can live by, from vairagya or non-attachment, which he calls nearly impossible for a householder, and credits prajna with finding his Albuquerque house in minutes.

Justin Stone lays out the yogic terms Sat Chit Ananda, the three gunas and avidya, warning that the one-ness found at a good ashram can trap a seeker in the vertical rather than the everyday world.

Justin Stone answers Dale Buchanan's questions by letter, warning that Seijaku and the Jing be taught only to sincere students, advising against weightlifting, and insisting the teacher must be a motivator.

Two short passages from Justin Stone's 20th Century Psalms on how a one-pointed mind becomes no-pointed in meditation, and on Turiya, the fourth state of consciousness.