Eureka! Mindful TCC Practice Vs. Mindless Practice

The Chi gave me a great gift today during the weight-shift of Around the Platter. Our extraordinary T’ai Chi Chih (TCC) teacher, Marie Dotts, recently has been emphasizing engaging the Chi/practice with “soft eyes, soft gaze.” Today she encouraged us to pay attention to what the Chi was beckoning us to do, which is essentially “serving” the Chi, rather than habitually moving into and through our customary, maybe even automatic practice. Marie begins to turn into blazing white light as she talks.

My entire body and aura of subtle bodies seem to drink in those words: “feel, listen to, observe” the Chi and where it is moving, how it is telling you to loosen your elbows, move your upper arms slightly away from the body. Let it, rather than your mind, take the lead. The mind gets you in trouble, defaulting to the “I-think-I know-how-to-do-this-mode,” rather than using acute listening and observation.

Warm, bright, clear realization of the oneness, that each of us is, innately, flowed over me and from within this body. The dams of resistance in this body are gone. The Chi flow moves like a sweet river of honey through the arms, legs, hands and feet, the limbs, the torso, through the back, the hips, the shoulders, neck, ears, and head. Surrendering to the Chi, and letting it beckon and beguile me, instead of trying to direct it and move it. My body feels feather-light and is being caressed by the love-light that fills the room as we students stand in a silent semi-circle, facing Marie, who fades into light. The room and its people and objects seem to fall away.

Now the awareness dawns: This is what it feels like when the Chi is doing me, rather than me forcing the Chi to bend to my human will. This is truly mindful versus mindless practice. Blink. Blink. Mindless practice for me is like someone using muscle memory to do a perfect piano rendering of the only two classical pieces they know by heart/memory. The sound, though technically proficient, doesn’t move the listeners to the depths of their souls the way they are moved to tears with the key-caresses of a great maestro, whose utter loving devotion to the music, the composition, and the fluid execution of the performance prompts audiences to jump to their feet in thundering applause at the unified recognition and experience of exalted, penetrating, expansive oneness enveloping the room.

Where am I? Am I still in the class? Where is Marie? She’s still here. The light around her has subsided. The others are still here. What movement are we on? Have I been keeping up? Was I both out of my body and doing the movements, simultaneously? I stumbled once. We’re already on Pulling Taffy. What bliss this is, and all I care about is surrendering to the Chi, in the practice, and in life, though this mind keeps trying to arm wrestle me away from my lover, the Chi. When I let the Chi have me, which wants only my highest good, I am never alone, or lonely, but always connected to the whole. Everything is always complete, just the way it is, perfect, no matter the seeming chaos or confusion that might be presenting itself in this seemingly holographic world. I am the screen not the actor or the movie. A song bubbles up from within:

“Oh Sweet Chi, flow over me. Lift me up, for I am Thee.”

We are now on Cosmic Consciousness Pose. Marie smiles and bows to close the practice. Coming back to “normal” working mind and customary consciousness now. How will I be able to wobble back to the car in this altered state?

As my husband Jim and I ride home in the car I tell him about my unusual experience. Blinking helped a lot and giving myself to the Chi, made all the difference in today’s practice. I have been doing “muscle memory Chi,” rather than “Mindful Chi.” This insight is profound and I don’t want to analyze it, but merely to keep surrendering to that sweet, enrapturing honey that is my very self.