The Vital Force Archive

Carmen Brocklehurst answers the question of purpose through the words T'ai Chi Chih themselves, knowledge of the Supreme Ultimate, and describes the state of emptiness the movements and Justin Stone's example open up.

Charles Hintz poses a one-line riddle about kesa, zafu, zazen and na fu, then glosses each term, from the Ganges cremation sheets behind the robe to na fu as comfortable retirement.

May Young Chin took up T'ai Chi Chih in early retirement for balance and coordination, and draws on her Chinese roots and Feng Shui's wind and water to explain why she keeps attending group classes.

Larry Bloom recounts Carmen Brocklehurst's Atlanta workshop, listing the questions and corrections that stayed with him, and the morning days later when he stopped planning his day, practiced, and felt gratitude bubble up.

Chris Norkus draws on Norman Cousins, Bill Moyers and Jim Rohn's apple-a-day analogy to argue that TCC's cumulative circulation of energy builds health rather than repairing illness after the fact.

Justin Stone tells the story of Chuang Tsu, who drummed and sang after his wife's funeral, answering horrified friends that she came when it was time and left when it was time.

David Sakry retells a Tao Te Ching story about a monk who paints a symbol on a dream spider's abdomen, then lists four traits of indecision and how TCC practice restores clarity.

Sandy McAlister argues against shortening T'ai Chi Chih to TCC, recalling a New Jersey spring intensive where an article's initials were read aloud, and showing how precise wording like "soften the knees" teaches better.

Roman Obara connects the Taoist idea of wu-wei to his own years of trying too hard, from learning the 19 movements in six weeks with Bill Moore to practising without attachment to results.

Quotations drawn from Justin Stone's CD on balancing yin and yang, the reciprocal character of habit and Chi, Chang San Feng's instruction on moving lightly, and Seijaku as serenity amid activity.

At Justin's Life Celebration, Sr. Antonia interviewed Justin Stone, who recalled Professor Wang's three warm-ups, the week the TCC movements came to him named and complete, and refusing teachers' tithing checks.

Direct quotations compiled by Pauline Quimson-Tong from Justin Stone's 2006 CD, in which he defines chi through Lao Tzu and the Lotus Sutra and insists that words and passive listening cannot substitute for practice.

Justin Stone distinguishes T'ai Chi Chih from the martial arts that share the name "Supreme Ultimate," citing textbook translations into Spanish, Italian and French, a letter from the American Medical Association, and his conviction that doctors will one day refer patients to classes.

At 89, Justin Stone names his two turning points: boarding a Japanese freighter in 1963 and the midnight revelations that time is Maya, plus his Wall Street years and his name change.

Justin Stone collects jottings found among old papers, from Paul Reps's line about having "no thing" to be grateful for to the Uncarved Block, arrogance, boredom and the two levels of truth.

Accredited by Justin Stone in 1979, acupuncturist David Fuess talks about his twelve key acupuncture points, alternate nostril breathing, polarity therapy, diet, and why yinning and yanging returns the practitioner to one.

Ann Rutherford pairs Lao-Tzu, Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey and physicist David Bohm to teach the Matter and Substance sections of Seijaku, asking students to sense the congealed energy rather than resent it.

Della Pacheco's Indianapolis Prime Times interview in which Justin Stone recounts leaving Wall Street in 1953 for India and Japan, why T'ai Chi Ch'uan proved too long for Westerners, and Folsom Prison's near-zero recidivism among practitioners.

Ann Rutherford reports on the November Seijaku accreditation weekend with Justin Stone and Ed Altman, where 19 candidates and 24 auditors worked with resistance and softness, and 50 people celebrated Justin's 83rd birthday.

RuthAnne Plourde's fax interview with Justin Stone, reprinted from Twin Cities Wellness to promote the 1999 International Teachers' Conference, covers his 1962 departure from Wall Street, Professor Huang's three hand movements, and the circulation of chi.

Justin Stone draws on the bamboo that bends with the wind and snaps back unharmed to argue that softness outlasts hardness and that the Sage accomplishes everything by doing nothing.

A short passage from Barbara Aria and Russell Eng Gon's The Spirit of the Chinese Character traces chung and ho, the "just rightness" of things, to a character picturing a mouth beside ripe bending grain.

Quotations from Professor Wen-Shan Huang, Justin Stone's teacher and friend, on T'ai Chi as a circular form generated from Wu Chi, with Justin's comment that enlightenment is experienced in the body.

Ed Altman answers the recurring Seijaku course question about where the resistance lies by pointing to the soles of the feet, quoting Wang Zong-Yue's T'ai Chi Ch'uan Classics in full.

Christeen Sproehnle practiced beside the ocean, saw chi in the lit crests and dark troughs of the waves, and sketched them until the Tao symbol unfolded as a figure eight.

A December 1997 display of Ju Ming's bronze sculptures depicting t'ai chi postures, presented by Herve Odermatt at The Plaza in Paris.

Lu Tong, an eighth century Chinese poet, counts seven bowls of tea, from the first that moistens his lips to the seventh that wafts him to the Isle of Immortality.

A passage from the Sung dynasty Taoist philosopher Chow Teng-yi's A Diagram of Tai-chi, tracing Wu-chi to Tai-chi and the alternation of movement and stillness that establishes yang and yin.

A brief quotation from Wang Tsung-yu's Tai-chi Chuan Treatise, stating that Tai-chi comes from Wu-chi and is the mother of yin and yang, which differentiate in motion and integrate in stillness.

A short quotation from Confucius laying out the sequence of stillness, steadiness, calm and contemplation, presented in the journal's Pyramid Poetry column.