The Vital Force Archive

Justin Stone traces anger to preoccupation with self, recommends sleeping on it before responding, and invokes ahimsa and karma alongside T'ai Chi Chih as softness in action, like bamboo bending without breaking.

Lysette Marie T. Ly of Milwaukee marks Colleen Heising's quiet passing among the journal's page of name and address changes, likening her to a noiseless butterfly carrying T'ai Chi Chih spirit.

Elizabeth Tyler's two-sentence reflection describes letting go of hurry and worry, moving from doing into being in the beauty of now, and finding her life transformed.

Justin Stone contrasts Hinayana Buddhism's view of the world as a forest fire with Zen Master Yun-men's "Every Day's a Good Day," and Seigan's dying words praising the joy of life.

Benjamin Hoff's verse from The Te of Piglet invites the reader onto a wide, never-ending road that flows away like water, leaving behind the things that do not matter.

Elizabeth Tyler of Lake Oswego describes the flyer she uses to promote classes, her twelfth eight-week series, early morning classes for school district teachers, and a presentation to fifty inmates at a Portland prison.

Steve Ridley's pyramid poem describes body motions stirring meditation, penetrating power enlivening the marrow, followed by a prose line on the meditative mind meeting the moment in quiet gratitude.

Lysette T. Ly's pyramid poem remembers Colleen's dancing eyes, giggles and T'ai Chi Chih spirit, down to their last wave goodbye on a sunlit lawn before a conference parting that proved final.

Susan Webster reports on the nineteen graduates of Steve's August 1993 accreditation course, new classes for San Diego city employees, Mercy Hospital and an AIDS program, and her bid to add TCC at Grossmont College.

Steve Ridley argues that sensations, emotions and perceptions of light or sound arising in meditation should be moved beyond rather than savored, since the aim is awakening to one's status as spirit.

Ralph Garn remembers his teacher Rahshelle-Lei O'Culmain, who died February 7 at a hospice in Oahu after years of caring for family members with cancer and facing her own.

Marian Massman describes how T'ai Chi Chih, alongside Inner Child work and contemplative therapy, built her self-confidence and spontaneity, and recounts teaching at the Franciscan Spirituality Center since her 1990 certification.

Steve Ridley's pyramid poem builds from the single word meditation to a line about arising in your Self to greet, fresh-minded, the new.

Steve Tang's pyramid poem moves from clean, cold winter air to green grass and trees, naming yin and yang and the sea of energy within as the movements flow outdoors.

The La Crosse Tribune of August 2, 1993 profiled Sister Marian Massman, a Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration who teaches TCC at the Franciscan Spirituality Center and credits daily practice with suppler limbs and the end of her knee pains.

Yogi Pranananda describes the continual conflict between what a seeker presently is and what he aspires to be, calling it a necessary condition of the Search and a catalyst for its resolution.

Carmen Brocklehurst quotes Justin Stone's remark that he just does these silly movements, and finds in a short daily practice the wonder and strength enough for a new beginning each spring.

Excerpts from Diana Daffner's piece in the Shanti Center newsletter describe the T'ai Chi state of mind, plus her letter on a Big Sur workshop with Chungliang Al Huang.

Justin Stone describes the pulsation of Chi felt in stillness after practice, and argues that regular, sincere T'ai Chi Chih changes the ground from which worry, resentment and addiction spring.

Carmen Brocklehurst recalls Justin Stone's habit of saying "You don't have to do these movements" and "You can't appease the hunger by reading the menu," and urges students to take every chance to practice with him.

Sr. Antonia Cooper traces her teaching from a first class of two students in 1991 to a full spring calendar, including seated classes for chair-bound residents of St. Ann's Home in Jersey City.

Steve Ridley argues that bliss is already the essence of us and cannot be manufactured by any discipline, since practice only clears restricting tendencies so innate bliss can arise.

Justin Stone corrects two claims from a newspaper article sent to him, insisting T'ai Chi Chih is neither therapy nor thousands of years old, and naming the movements he himself created.

Sr. Antonia Cooper describes the Sanskrit greeting Om Namaha Shivaya, exchanged with a bow at the start and end of each class and used to begin her own daily practice.

Yogi Pranananda offers a brief maxim: as physical and material demands grow, inner work must grow with them, just as a tree enlarges its roots while adding mass above ground.

Steve Ridley describes how the T'ai Chi Chih movement patterns circulate and harmonize vital force, with form and function blending into a single occurrence as practice continues.

Ruth Marie Arguello-Sheehan and Brandon hosted a three-day Arizona retreat for ten couples and five singles, practising all the movements three times daily and holding evening "Sharing the Fire" gatherings.

Steve Ridley offers four short spiritual notes, comparing human egoic consciousness to an acorn that must break open, describing cause and effect as inseparable, and recommending quiet centering over killing time.

Steve Ridley argues in a few lines that borrowing another person's realization as one's own belief leaves us in unknowing, and that concepts must be transcended rather than adopted.

Two short aphorisms from Steve Ridley: observing the inhalation and exhalation as a meditation focus that eases tension, and spontaneous openhearted laughter as the best medicine there is.