Experiencing Deeply
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 benefited from the practice.
The ocean waves: the essence is water. – Justin F. Stone, TCC Originator
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From the recent issue of The Vital Force:
Eureka: “‘Aha’ moments are every day. Something about TCC – always new, always fresh. Here’s one: I always resisted that directive to ‘stiffen’ the back leg while yinning and yanging. Anything ‘stiff’ in TCC seemed oxymoronic. Justin must have intended some other word, I thought. He did, after all, have multiple ways of explaining yinning and yanging, both verbally and in writing. Then one day, experimenting on myself as I’m fond of doing, I did the stiffen-the-back-leg thing and it changed everything. The effect was getting that tan t’ien right out there front and center.” – KG, Albuquerque, NM
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Editor’s Note: Learn more from TCC teachers with more than 25 years of experience in the May 2024 issue of The Vital Force.
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Lost & Found: “Thank you for this intense day of peace and quiet (at a TCC workshop). I felt a deep meditation above all else after the afternoon practice. A moment of very intense connection with the whole group. Silence, peace, together, but in one dimension. Deepening and remembering the meaning of the movements was useful to arrive at an ideal concentration. I got a little lost in myself and found myself again.” (translated).” – D, Mantova, Italy
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Being: “The following thoughts spontaneously flowed into my mind immediately after a one-on-one Seijaku session with a longstanding student: Peace … deep peace. No sensations of needing to be somewhere, go somewhere, do something. Quiet mind … quiet connection to my student, to my body, to my life. Feelings of comfort with things, simply as they are. Physical sensations of ease all over my body … just being in this deep sense of comfort and utter relaxation.” – JL, Claymont, DE
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Impermanence: Spirituality is accordance with Reality. This doesn’t come through words or intellectual processes. As the Chi is circulated and balanced, it comes of itself – rather, it is just there. When there is concordance with Impermanence, and you know Who and What you are, it is there. – Justin F. Stone
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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.