The Vital Force Archive

Barbara Kristoff walks California's Old Tiburon Trail using Justin Stone's Satipathana mindful meditation, then describes the Zoom class she co-teaches with Linda Prosche and Tom Rothenberger, closing with pyramid poems from their park practice.

Daniel Pienciak recounts the panic episodes and hypervigilance he faced during COVID-19 quarantine, and how Justin Stone's Maximum Chi Program, Seijaku and forty minutes of daily meditation restored him.

Oreann Kempadoo recounts becoming accredited in 2015 and struggling to introduce TCC in Rockland County until an adult learning center called, followed by testimonials from students including a woman recovering from a head injury and C-spine surgeries.

Justin Stone lays out the four observations of the Satipatthana or Way of Mindfulness practice - breath, state of mind, feeling-sensation and objects of mind - and recommends a half hour daily.

Sandy McAlister describes her own holding pattern during the COVID-19 shutdown, the nudge from Pam Towne that ended it, and how teachers turned to parks, mailed lesson plans and Zoom.

Lorraine Lepine describes hosting a daily Zoom T'ai Chi Chih practice and guided meditation since March 2020, and the wordless energetic connection she feels with participants through the screen.

Deanna Shapiro answers talk of enforced stillness during shelter in place with seven stanzas likening stillness to a giving tree, a summer breeze, clear water, a loving friend and an orchestra's harmony.

Justin Stone gives two healing visualizations, the Duck's Egg and the Waterfall, that precede Chih-kuan and Great Circle meditation, recounting the Russian woman whose hospital practice restored her strength.

Justin Stone gives step-by-step instructions for two seated meditations, Chih-kuan concentration on the t'an t'ien or third eye, and the Great Circle, which lifts a golden current from the Bubbling Spring using breath and eyes.

Connie B. Shaw describes the clear tone she calls the sound of the Chi, or Sacred Pranava, heard in the head while attention rests on the t'an t'ien, and gives a week-long listening practice.

Jerry Jonnson offers teachers a ready-made promotional piece citing Dr. Richard Davidson's neuroscience of well-being, presenting T'ai Chi Chih as an easier moving mindfulness, ending with his outdoor Mt. Cuba Center classes.

Justin Stone lays out a sequence of listening practices, from registering random sounds without embroidery to chanting the Gayatri Mantra and singing his own "Healing thru Joy," recalling a flute heard in Himalayan rain.

Justin Stone writes that the outer world mirrors our inner state, that habit energies are well-worn grooves requiring effort to leave, and closes with his poem "Saints and Poetry."

Justin Stone examines the Buddha's teaching on dukkha, arguing that suffering springs from our own habitual desires and that only a disciplined mind, honest introspection and emptying of old patterns can change it.

Dr. David Parrish summarizes Richard Davidson's brain plasticity research on attention, positive outlook, resilience and generosity, and the Dalai Lama's answer about subtle energy, followed by Lorraine Lepine on adapting TCC to aging.

Connie Shaw recounts the Spring Equinox class led by Marie Dotts, where silent practice in a circle within a circle broke open an expansive state of tears, deep sleep and impersonal love.

Sandy McAlister asks what legitimately follows the graceful conclusion, naming gratitude, sitting quietly and the community's palms-together bow as the only traditions Justin Stone handed down.

Concluding "Who Am I?", Justin Stone moves from Shinran's Pure Land faith to the Buddha's five hindrances to meditation, Ramana Maharshi's verses on breath and absorption, and Hakuin Zenji's "Song of Dhyana".

Linda Braga's notes from the Northern California teachers' annual daylong workshop, where Sandy McAlister taught polarity, continuity and stillness through three movements each, followed by side-by-side partner practice.

Justin Stone takes up the question "Who am I?" through Tagore's unanswered poem and the 12th century Japanese saint Shinran, who abandoned self-power on Mount Hiei for Amida's saving vow.

Nancy Johnson sets a great horned owl beside a satellite at dusk, contrasting solo grace and natural stillness with metal, programs and village-sized upkeep, then asks whether both belong.

Justin Stone instructs students to sit quietly and note tactile sensations, sights and sounds, classifying each reaction as pleasing, displeasing or neutral, with the Zen master Tokusan telling two disputing monks both are right.

Amy Tyksinski describes teaching Nei Kung to beginning students midway through each semester and shares notes from Justin Stone's Saturday night teshos on Original Face, motivation, patience and confidence in the Chi.

Jeneth Rundle traces how the instruction to think of what she was grateful for during Cosmic Consciousness Pose brought her to Justin's "fasting mind," with humility arriving hand in hand with gratitude.

Sandra Wells describes visualizing the TCC movements as a mental practice she uses in the dentist's chair, in waiting rooms and on a train ride to a state park, arriving energized and relaxed.

A practical list of ways to invite prajna, including mindless yard work and silent retreats, plus the writer's own blocks: rushing, met with singing 'Feelin' Groovy,' and ego.

Justin Stone lays out a breath exercise of counting fifty out-breaths, clicking the teeth and holding the breath at top and bottom, and recounts meeting a pet puma that sprang at the fence without stirring his breath or fear.

Andrea Skillman's biweekly class for in-patient PTSD veterans in North Chicago pairs tapping and guided meditation with TCC; 67 participants reported drops in pain, racing thoughts, anger, anxiety and agitation.

Judy Hendricks describes waking at 3 am in terror over a career change, and how remembering an earlier time of fearless certainty, along with her practice, restored her grounding and connection.

Dora Wiemann's beginner class sank into moving meditation during Daughter on the Mountaintop and stayed there through Daughter in the Valley, emerging only when Carry the Ball to the Side's instructions intervened.