The Vital Force Archive

Linda Braga lists how nutritionists, neuroscientists, astrophysicists and others define human beings, then cites Justin Stone's claim that regular TCC practice can speed up evolution and heighten awareness.

Accredited in November 2024, Joan Sheehan describes the intention she set during accreditation week, the absorbed attention she now brings to mashing potatoes, and the clarity of practising at the Poudre River.

Transcribed from Justin Stone's spoken word CD, two talks recount a Roshi telling a lawyer to remove his overcoat, poems by Tagore and Tenko-san on the question of who you are, and a monk who kept rescuing a biting scorpion.

Two excerpts from Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey equate energy with wisdom and describe Prana's physical work, citing Krishnamurti, Gopi Krishna and Rinzai, plus Paul Reps' ten minutes of quiet receiving.

Laurie Jacobi, quoting Waysun Liao and teacher trainer April Leffler on thinking, works out how to cage the monkey mind by turning attention to feeling the weight shift millimeter by millimeter.

Daniel Pienciak connects the Winter Solstice online retreat he hosted on December 21st to the elliptical yin-yang cycle of practice, describing the hairpin turn between weight shifts as continuous, not frozen.

Excerpts from Spiritual Odyssey in which Justin Stone takes up non-attachment within family life, Buddha's answer that he is awake, the poet Tao Yuanming, and why all healing is finally self-healing.

Ann Rutherford quotes Justin Stone's Photo Textbook and Heightened Awareness on enlightenment experienced in the body, then asks fellow teachers whether they tell students the deeper meaning of the Cosmic Consciousness Pose.

Terry Jennings answers questions on feeling grounded in resting pose, moving on without disrupting Chi flow, and her favorite Cosmic Consciousness Pose saying: embrace everything, all 10,000 things.

Lorraine Lepine traces how natural breath, emptying, and slowed movement lead to subtle vibration and inner light, citing Paul Reps and Justin Stone's statement in 20th Century Psalms that we are the product of sound vibration.

JJ Johnson traces Walt Whitman's phrase through Ray Bradbury to the 2024 Teacher Conference, where a group practice of more than 130 teachers seemed to move as one Mind.

Christina Tillotson describes practicing daily near her 21-year-old cat Quanyin, conducting chi toward her as she purred, and continuing that practice at her death and over her ashes.

A short untitled fragment from the 50th Teacher Conference, addressing the reader as the only one knowing spirit in the heart, followed by a string of words running from food and appetite to coma.

Linda's short untitled poem, presented at the 50th T'ai Chi Chih Teacher Conference, instructs the reader to be silent, go within, dwell long in the quiet, and become one with the whole world.

Linda Braga remembers Ruby Harper, her San Leandro student and a Hindu swami in orange robes, who while meditating at her Guru's ashram in India took down a message from Justin Stone about natural breathing, signed in his own ascending hand.

Connie Shaw recounts breakthroughs in seeing her own conditioning fall away, and lists what keeps her practice alive: posture, empty mind, returning to the t'an t'ien, and deliberate uncontrived laughter.

Richard Brier lists the reasons we practice, from awakening intuition to opening to cosmic Chi, and describes the "mind fasting" of the empty cup behind Joy Through Movement.

Linda Braga recounts writing "Blooming the Rose Within" during a silent retreat at Santa Sabina Center, where she led morning T'ai Chi Chih, and its 2020 first-place win in the International Dancing Poetry Contest.

Lorraine Lepine describes moving her attention from the soles of her feet to the t'an t'ien until the Chi seemed to practice itself, and a group meditation on listening to mental clamor rather than pushing it away.

Laurie Jacobi, unable to attend the 50th conference in person, recounts why her Journey of Signposts story felt daunting to tell, the shaking she experiences practising around others, and how her video reached a wider audience.

Ann Rutherford connects the 2024 conference theme "There's Only One Thing Going On" to the Heart Sutra chanted with Justin Stone, arguing Push Pull should be taught as an ego-free ellipse.

Excerpts from Justin Stone's Spiritual Odyssey on attenuating the pleasure principle, enlightenment hidden behind habit energies like clouds over the sun, why softness cannot be forced, and his 75th birthday verses.

Carmen L. Brocklehurst takes Justin Stone's 2005 remark that time is the maker of delusion and asks whether the Chi is in the movement or always present, comparing students' joyful faces to a baby reaching for something unseen in its crib.

Victor J. Dougherty recalls watching a technician degauss a cathode ray tube TV at the RCA Service Center in 1988, and finds in those slow circles an image of recalibrating chi.

Paul Ciske recalls the breeze he felt between his hands at a cardiac rehab demonstration, his 1991 accreditation with Steve Ridley, reversing his arms in Working the Pulley, and the veil lifting in a Hong Kong park.

Christina Tillotson traces her first TCC practice in a grassy circle at Asilomar in 1983, her 1993 accreditation, and a newer Encinitas Senior Center student who said this omnipresent energy would have replaced her hippie-days substances.

Aphorisms Justin Stone collected in Spiritual Odyssey, insisting T'ai Chi Chih is not exercise but movement from the center, alongside Paul Reps on vinegar, Bodhidharma's vast emptiness, and posture as character.

Lauren Marble recalls the 1988 Albuquerque workshop where Justin Stone taught heightened awareness, the Satipatthana mindfulness exercise, the reciprocal nature of mind and chi, and his choice to leave the Himalayas and be a 'big hermit'.

Terry Gay Puckett was practicing Around the Platter on her deck when a large cat appeared balancing along a twelve-foot fence, teaching her to move slowly and attend to the soles of her feet.

Jessica Lewis passes on a disabled Army veteran's account of going medication-free since 2018 and keeping his temper with his teenage son, then records her own sensations after their one-on-one Seijaku session.