Intention Without Effort: “Abandon Hope”
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.
“Abandon Hope!” – Justin F. Stone, TCC Originator
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From the November issue of The Vital Force:
Service: “I was particularly attracted by the idea of TCC as a service to mankind, and I practice and teach it with this intention. Some of my students who have been dealing with self-sabotage or self-destructive impulses have really resonated with the reality that they have the wisdom, clarity, and strength to manifest beneficence in their practice and hence in their everyday life. I now try to hold that intention in all that I do.” – HH, Mountain View, HI
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Editor’s Note: Read more experiences that teachers and students have with T’ai Chi Chih
in the November issue of The Vital Force.
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Softness: “My mission is to spread the practice of TCC. I hope seniors will learn to balance the Chi (Vital Force) and, as a result, enjoy good health. This practice improves flexibility and balance, which could allow seniors to live independently and gracefully age in place. I’d also like to introduce TCC to musicians, especially violinists, and allow them to discover the enhanced creativity derived from balanced Chi. The softness of the practice would allow musicians to relax while playing their instruments. For violinists, soft hands allow the bow to glide from one string to another without effort, playing beautiful music that soothes the soul..” – NB, Bay Area, CA
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Lightness: “Once you really feel the tan t’ien navigating your movements, you can never go back to just going through the motions. What a lightness, what freedom to have my body move without me making it move. The pilot – the tan t’ien – is in control and my body can glide without effort. On rare occasions when practicing, I’m blessed with that magical moment of ‘T’ai Chi Chih doing T’ai Chi Chih.’ There’s no effort on my part; it’s a gift from the Universe I cherish.” – DK, Midland Park, NJ
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Insight: “Only by abandoning hope for the future can we know life in the present… We each live in a private world created by our own desires and seen through a veil of self-interest. It is pure illusion, but who will believe it? Who will look within to see that world, knowing the outer is merely a reflection? This requires courage and the abandonment of hope. Only by seeing things as they are, without a shred of hope that they will be different, can we get a glimpse of Reality.” – Justin F. Stone
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