Being Present, Taking Time
T’ai Chi Chih is a mindfulness moving meditation practice that’s easy to learn. The series of 19 movements and one pose helps circulate the Vital Energy, the Chi. Practitioners experience peace, improved health and many more benefits. Our free monthly e-newsletter offers inspiration between issues of the TCC quarterly journal, The Vital Force, in which teachers and students tell stories about ways they’ve benefitted from the practice.
Live in the present with gratitude. – Justin F. Stone, TCC Originator
From a recent issue of The Vital Force:
“Day by day, I slowed down Push Pull when I practiced it so I could really feel all the parts of the movement as flowing from inside the Chi, rather than from a more mechanical understanding of it imposed externally by the mind or how I thought I understood it. As the tan t’ien shifted the body forward, I paid particular attention to the slightly downward-pointing curve of the ellipse that the wrists traced, the subtle tug in the wrists as the fingertips pointed upward. An exquisite awareness began to infuse each millisecond of Push Pull as a fuller embodiment coaxed the vital energy to circulate more strongly and teach me about itself. What was happening, what was felt at the final moment of the return? Ah, the return. The energy of love poured into the front of the heart as the hands released more and more gently into the chest area ….” – AT, Albuquerque, NM
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Not so long ago, someone asked me how long I had been doing these 19 movements and one pose? ‘Quite a long while,’ I answered, adding that I was still learning. The quick response was, ‘Oh, you must be a slow learner.’ I laughed and agreed. Then I remembered what someone else said to me once: ‘Les choses qui en valent la peine prennent du temps,’ meaning ‘things that really matter take a long time.’ Maybe discovering the Chi in our own body is worth all the time it takes to do so.” – CG, Lake Charles, LA
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I was at death’s door when I began my T’ai Chi Chih journey in September 2012. I was very sick and tired all the time. It took everything I had just to make it to work every day. That was all I could manage. In the beginning, the movements were difficult to learn, but I just kept going to classes at the TCC Center, which became a lifeline for me. I practiced as much as I could. Gradually I began to feel alive again. I wasn’t exhausted all the time. Fatigue and irritability changed into energy, love and light. The unfolding lessons, physical vitality, mental clarity, spiritual blessings and awakenings are so sweet. Life is no longer something to dread or endure, but something to behold, something to create and something to be grateful for…. This practice and these teachings of Justin Stone’s are a tremendous and a powerful gift to the world. ” – CL, Albuquerque, NM
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Although we are tossed around like tumbling tumbleweeds … by our feelings, and our lives are shaped by the direction of our state of mind, we do not generally ascribe any significance to what happens to us or the sensations and feelings we have. We rationalize them but do not really cognize them. He who is mindfully aware of the tactile stimuli and of the mental reaction to a given stimulus has taken a big step forward in understanding life. – Justin Stone
Where in the World? Visit our website for photos of TCC practice around the globe. Submit your own.
Want more inspiration? Want connection with the global TCC community? Want tips for a better practice? Join us:
1) Subscribe to The Vital Force. Our quarterly journal offers engaging stories, hints and insights from TCC teachers and students. We also highlight wisdom by, and photos rarely seen of, originator Justin Stone.
2) Subscribe to this monthly e-newsletter by sending an email.