Spaciousness
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.
“Barn’s burnt down — now I can see the moon (haiku by M. Masahide)….” – Justin F. Stone, TCC Originator
From the August issue of The Vital Force:
Quieting: “For years, I’ve attempted meditation and it mostly eluded me. I’ve heard ‘empty your mind,’ which is impossible for my busy brain. It doesn’t stop because I want it to. (I’ve also heard) let your mind ‘be filled with the Holy Spirit,’ an instruction I found vague and mostly unhelpful. I’ve also tried counting my breaths – a good centering discipline but not terribly enlightening. About two months ago, during my post-TCC quiet time, I stumbled into something enlightening. It’s what I call the practice of One… Perfect… Moment…. When I’m in this space, there’s no anger, no celebration, no fear….” – Allan B., Asheville, NC
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Editor’s Note: Read more about Allan’s experiences of “One Perfect Moment” in the August issue of The Vital Force.
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Moving: “One of my favorite teaching moments was when an 80-year-old student who’d been with me a couple of years came bursting into class. She was lit up like a light bulb and said, ‘I get it, I get it!’ I asked her what and she said, ‘It’s all about moving from the Center. If I’d known that earlier, my whole life would have been different.’ I said all that matters is you know it now. How many of us can say we live in the aliveness of our feet and tan t’ien 24 hours a day? I know I’m still on that journey.” – Marie D., Loveland, CO
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Flowing: “Sometimes when we do a group practice, I feel like we’re an orchestra producing a beautiful symphony. Although each of us is performing as a uniquely different instrument actuated by a uniquely different inner vibration, we’re all playing the same group chord. With the teacher as conductor, the group flows as a single body and the conductor serves as the group tan t’ien, in a sense. When this happens, our individual Chi synergistically blends together into a group Chi.” – Bruce L., Havertown, PA
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Allowing: “It is the absence of any pressure, moving slow motion in a dream, that allows softness to prevail. The best way to forget worries and ease tensions is to shunt the ego-center aside, so that no one is doing T’ai Chi Chih, but TCC is doing itself. In this sense, TCC becomes a meditation.” – Justin F. Stone
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