The Vital Force Archive

Two lines from W. S. Wu's Essential Principles for Practicing T'ai Chi Ch'uan, submitted with calligraphy by Virginia Cepeda, hold that doing nothing wins over rushing and gentleness wins over strength.

Pastor Scott Dunfae answers St. Luke's Lutheran members suspicious of anything "eastern," reminding them Christianity began as an Eastern religion and describing the classes two certified instructors lead there.

Ann Doering recounts a two and a half week study trip to Hangzhou for Chinese medicine, chi gong and T'ai Chi, where she demonstrated T'ai Chi Chih for her Chinese teacher.

Newly accredited in spring 1996, Mark Jones offers the write-up he gives students, defining T'ai Chi Chih as a Chi Kung discipline, explaining Chi and the Great Yin and Yang, and urging daily practice for fun.

Steve Ridley, Kathy Grassel and Lee Campbell pass along favorite passages: Swami Chetanananda on the world as a play, Eno the Patriarch on the temple flag, and Lao-tse on gentleness, frugality and humility.

Excerpts from a Sept. 27, 1994 Albuquerque Journal feature on 78-year-old Justin Stone, tracing T'ai Chi Chih from a chance 1971 bookstore conversation to 800 teachers and the Chinese idea of TEH, inner sincerity.

Justin Stone contrasts Buddhist cause and effect with cyclic events like the plum blossom pushing through February snow, and names steady T'ai Chi Chih and Seijaku practice as the way to enter the Tao.

Readers including Justin Stone, Jean Stone, Sandy McAlister and Anita Germain praise the anniversary issue, and Steve Ridley connects the Chinese proverb "Fallen Leaves Return To Roots" to softness and continuity.

Justin Stone contrasts the hard-to-grasp roots of Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism with Confucius' plainly understandable human-heartedness and TEH, urging honest examination of one's own financial dealings.

Carolyn P. Shaw's first teaching after breaking her leg: a two-week class for 19 seniors in the Getaway Program, with Tao Te Ching readings, chair practice, and a man with a lung ailment performing at the final banquet.

Theda Gillespie traces her path from private lessons at Rio Caliente Health Spa in Mexico to the 1983 teacher training in Denver, and her classes in New Zealand, including a demonstration for 200 guests at a Chinese New Year dinner.

John Lash recounts meeting Justin Stone at an Albuquerque bookstore in 1974 and now running the Harmonious Dragon T'ai Chi School and a Taoist temple in Bern, where every student learns T'ai Chi Chih.

A set of contemplations from the T'ai Chi Chih Teacher Training Manual, quoting Lao Tzu on flowing with the universe and T'ai Chi master Wen Shan Huang on the life-energy behind Yin-Yang motion.

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.

Justin Stone offers casual notes on the fullness of emptiness, gratitude as joy apart from satisfied desire, Confucius on human-heartedness and Teh, and why teaching must fit each person's Karma.

A short passage from Lao Tzu on the sage who accumulates nothing for himself, gaining more the more he gives, and acting without competing, as Heaven benefits without injuring.

A gloss on the Chinese character chih as knowledge above the sun, followed by Dianne Daffner's query about whether anyone has written T'ai Chi Chih in characters and why the chi of T'ai Chi differs from the chi meaning vital force.

Verse twenty-four of the Hua Hu Ching, in Brian Walker's translation of Lao Tzu, argues that subtle awareness is no achievement, since your nature and the universe's are already one.

Verse thirty-seven of the Hua Hu Ching, in Brian Walker's translation, describes the superior person who sees a tree as root, soil and sun together, and takes responsibility for the energy she manifests.

Derek Hirsch's pyramid poem, dedicated to the Chinese poets Li Po and Du Fu, moves from ducks at twilight and a moon emerging as teacher to a ruined temple and falling rain.

Three classic Taoist and T'ai Chi passages: Wang Tsung-yue on how the practice recedes as you reach for it, and Lao Tsu on the usefulness of empty space and letting things take their course.

Chapter eight of the Tao Te Ching, likening the highest good to water that gives life without striving, followed by a brief note defining shen as the spirit ruling body and mind.

A pyramid poem that asks whether we turn on our inlight as we turn on a light, suggesting a lit candle or stick of incense dedicated to another's inlight, an oriental custom of respect.

Jean Katus, still wearing her conference t-shirt, ate at a hibachi table in San Jose with three Taiwanese diners who described younger people in Taiwan taking up T'ai Chi.

Liz Salada makes the case that teachers who co-sponsor community events gain reciprocal guidance and flexibility that solo teaching lacks, citing the I Ching on synergy and collective achievement.

Chapter 34 of the Tao Teh Ching, printed in full, describing the Great Tao as a flood that clothes and feeds all creatures while claiming nothing and lording over no one.

Steve Ridley argues that "relaxed intensity" and full awareness in each movement produce stronger chi flow than absentminded muscle memory, citing two translations of The Song of the Thirteen Postures on mind-body unity.

Derek Hirsch of Santa Cruz offers a short poem on teaching without words, clouds making rain, nets forgotten once the fish are caught, and fondness for pine in gentle snow.

Steve Ridley of Denver honors Justin Stone at 75 with chapter 15 of the Tao Teh Ching, the home-recorded jazz cassettes Justin mails him, his paintings, books and workshops.

Justin Stone argues the body is not solid but a swirl of shifting yin and yang energies, describes Mind and Chi as mutually conditioning, and places T'ai Chi Chih as action taken before illness.