A Gentle “Doing” Practice

Late Saturday night I returned from an intensive Zen meditation retreat called sesshin. It is always a profound and deepening experience, where we meditate for six to eight hours each day. I love to sit in stillness, but with the many hours of meditation, my poor body tends to get stiff, especially early in the schedule. I’ve found that T’ai Chi Chih is a very beneficial part of my overall practice for several reasons.

A sesshin, as you can imagine, is demanding. In the afternoons, I tend to get sleepy and fatigued, even with taking a nap. That’s when I love to do TCC. At 3:00pm everyone does a body practice, and if I start a little early, I can do all the TCC movements. I have a favorite spot where I can look out on ancient oak trees and just breathe in my experience. I can feel the Chi begin to move, and it’s often especially intense after hours of meditation. It is so complementary to a Zen practice, which teaches that there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to be, except fully in the moment. Whether I’m doing Bass Drum, Pulling Taffy or Cosmic Consciousness Pose, the Chi flows, I breathe and all is still.

In my daily life I enjoy TCC because it provides a balance to my spiritual work. Where I enjoy Zen meditation (a “being” practice) each morning, TCC offers me a gentle “doing” practice. The repetitions allow me to pay attention to my balance, energy and presence. There’s nowhere else to be, and I flow with “what is,” and I ground myself (as my TCC teacher Anita Vestal reminds me) with the bubbling springs under my feet. Just like at sesshin, I usually do my TCC practice at home between 3:00 and 4:00pm most days, and it both revives and calms me. I also experience great gratitude, since retirement allows me to spend this time with the universal flow of energy that is always available to me.