Entering a New Way

Permitting ourselves to grow often involves allowing ourselves to be influenced by other people in the beginning. Then, we are on to a greater influence as St. John of the Cross says, “On this road (life path), to abandon one’s own way is to enter into the true way, to pass onwards to the goal; to forsake one’s own way is to enter that which has none, namely Infinite Life.” How do we allow ourselves to enter this influence? Through T’ai Chi Chih! How simple it appears, to rise daily and do our practice, deeply.

During a Teachers Training, another teacher and I were discussing how many T’ai Chi Chih teachers don’t understand the depths of what they practice until they glimpse it at their Teachers Training. This leaves them eager for more. This happens to many of us. But when we go home, give our first presentation, and offer our first class, things don’t seem like they were at Teachers Training. The energy in a beginning class is different. What happened? The truth is that the energy we experienced during Teachers Training is still there, deep inside, deep inside every student in the class. We must realize it’s still there and we must remember how to access it.

As classes unfold we find beautiful things beginning to unfold for everyone. But still, we don’t feel like we did at Teachers Training. Yes, Teachers Training is a unique and wonderful experience, one which will unfold for the rest of our lives. It has made us conscious, beyond intellectually, about the chi. There is more to chi than we think, more than we have read about, and more than we experience daily. Justin has said, “A person doesn’t know about the chi until they know what it is (from the inside out) and what it does.” He also says that it is no accident that we are here as part of the T’ai Chi Chih family. We have a wonderful opportunity — to find out about the chi through T’ai Chi Chih. Our family and our desire to know are two wonderful gifts. It is up to us to decide how deeply to go with them. Keeping this in mind, I look forward to being with each of you at the annual summer conference, at a T’ai Chi Chih retreat, at a Seijaku Teachers Training, or at a T’ai Chi Chih Review with Ed. We have many opportunities to go more deeply. Are we wise enough to do it?

One great monk admonished himself every morning, “Don’t be misled by others.” It is up to us not to be misled by others (looking first at ourselves) and realize that going deeply is the only way we will find answers we have always been looking for.