Being TCC

Paradoxically, the purpose of T’ai Chi Chih and other forms of meditation is to learn to be, without purpose. Nearly everything else we do is done for some purpose. Most of our actions are a means to an end and aim us at the future that does not exist.

Teachers frequently use the phrase “Let T’ai Chi Chih do t’ai chi.” What does that mean? When no goal disturbs it, TCC (like all forms of meditation) allows us to discover the richness of the present moment. We glimpse the miraculous power of our own lives – not as they once were or how they might become but as they actually are now.

Practicing TCC is one of the few things in life that is about being, not doing. It is the art of being completely in the here and now. Alan Watts is quoted in Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life, where he gives these basic instructions originally written in an essay entitled “The Practice of Meditation:”

Simply sit down, close your eyes and listen to all sounds that may be going on – without trying to name or identify them. Listen as you would listen to music. If you find that verbal thinking will not drop away, don’t attempt to stop it by force or willpower. Just keep your tongue relaxed, floating easily in the lower jaw, and listen to your thoughts as if they were birds chattering outside – mere noise in the skull – and they will eventually subside of themselves, as a turbulent and muddy pool will become calm and clear if left alone.

Also, become aware of breathing and allow your lungs to work in whatever rhythm seems congenial to them. And for awhile just sit listening and feeling breath. But, if possible, don’t call it that. Simply experience the nonverbal happening. You may object that this is not “spiritual” meditation but mere attention to the “physical” world, but it should be understood that the spiritual and the physical are only ideas, philosophical conceptions, and that the reality of which you are now aware is not an idea. Furthermore, there is no “you” aware of it. That was also just an idea. Can you hear yourself listening?