Justin Stone Speaks (May 2017)

PULL QUOTE: don’t forget that T’ai Chi Chih is not religion, having nothing to do with dogma and doctrine

From Justin Stone Speaks on T’ai Chi Chih, a transcription of a taped lecture, excerpted and reprinted with permission from Good Karma Publishing.

A woman in the audience asks: “You never mention good or bad in your talks, but usually refer to positive and negative. Why?”

“Well, good and bad are moral judgments and what is good in one cultural may be bad in another. When I am staying in India or a Chinese city I have to be like the bamboo and flow with ideas that seem basically wrong to me. Living with an Indian family in India I was dismayed to find that my kind hostess, the Mother of my young friend Kashek and his brothers lived in a room behind the kitchen in the servant’s quarters. Child labor at a Chinese YMCA caused me to grit my teeth. Watching a camel driver at a camel auction in East Africa beating a poor hobbled camel because he could not get to his feet, left me frustrated and unhappy. And let me relate an amusing incident that took place in Kyoto, Japan.

I was seated in a streetcar that became very crowded. A bent old lady accompanied by a man about thirty years her junior boarded the street car. Seeing her stooped and frail I got up from my seat, bowed, and pointed to it so she could sit down. She then bowed to the young man, whom I guessed to be her son-in-law and he promptly sat down, while she remained standing. I felt like throwing him off the streetcar. Good and bad are abstract concepts and can have entirely different meanings in different cultures and places.”

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A man in the audience wants to know if Justin still teaches T’ai Chi Ch’uan:

“The answer is I still do it and esteem it very much. But I do not teach it anymore, T’ai Chi Chih has taken its place. It is not easy to teach T’ai Chi Ch’uan, nor for that matter any worthwhile discipline, T’ai Chi Chih being a welcome exception. People do not really want to go through the learning process. And they don’t want to do the practice that is necessary to accomplish almost anything worthwhile. We know the Sufis are wise people. And one Sufi Master pointed out that you have to learn how to teach for man does not want to be taught. And before that you have to teach the man that there is something to be learned. At first people want to learn only what they imagine is to be learned, a pre-concept. And usually they want a carrot held in front of their noses. That is a picture of the rewards they will receive if they do study.

One time an aspiring student came to a Sufi Master and implored, ‘Teach me.’ The Master answered, ‘You do not know how to learn.’ To that the student replied, ‘Teach me how to learn.’ The Master then asked, ‘Are you ready to let me teach you how to learn?’

The beauty of T’ai Chi Chih is that the practice itself does the teaching. T’ai Chi Chih teaches you T’ai Chi Chih.”

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An audience member wonders if there is more to the science of the Chi than Justin has revealed.

“The truth is this is an infinite science, having to do with creation and destruction, and everything in-between. How can it all be revealed in words? But if you practice you will come to know it’s all within you. It is true that there are esoteric practices I can speak about, but I am not here to give you a biographical travelogue. One time in Taipei I met a very old man who was reputed to be the last expert in the little known T’ai Chi Gik. He was 89 years old and his skin was that of a baby. I was told that T’ai Chi Gik had once been outlawed in China because too many had been injured by it or died from it.

I don’t know if this is true because this is all secondhand. A Master of Chi knows where the Chi is flowing most actively, relative to the time of the day and the season of the year. And he can easily affect that part of the body. It is said that with a touch a Master can stop the flow of Chi and the victim is then helpless to do much of anything. If he struggles too hard he can injure himself and might even die. Only the one who has inflicted the damage can clear it away and heal the victim. And that is also an axiom in the martial arts.

Going back to the time of day, season of the year, et cetera, it seems a shame that western doctors pay no attention to these pertinent matters. Though your wise old Grandmother certainly did, when she gave you a Spring tonic and other helpful and timely aids.”

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Is T’ai Chi Chih is a martial art?

“The answer is; emphatically no – in the sense that we do not use it for self-defense or any violent activity. In a deeper sense, however the aura of Chi you build around you is the greatest self-defense, a psychic self-defense that can become apparent in your life once the Chi is flowing smoothly. T’ai Chi Chih is inner oriented. It is not a performance or a dance. Indeed the beauty of T’ai Chi Chih is far different from the graceful actions of the dance or the threatening movements of such disciplines as Karate, Judo and Aikido.

One of my first T’ai Chi Chih students was a medical orderly. He had studied T’ai Chi Ch’uan with me at the University of New Mexico and made rapid progress in T’ai Chi Chih. At the end of the beginners’ course he simply said, ‘Well, I don’t need you any longer.’ The other students were shocked, thinking he had been very disrespectful to the Master. However I pointed out to them that ‘his’ was the right attitude. He meant that I had given him the tools and it was now up to him to use them. Nobody can do it for you. You must travel the path yourself.

I remember a skeptical psychiatrist who took the very first course given. After the second class he told me, ‘Well, sure I feel something. How do I know I’m not imagining it?’ ‘How do you know you’re here, Doctor,’ I answered. Each will have his own experience. The depths will never be entirely plumbed.”

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An audience member suggests that Justin has spoken of the emotions but not mentioned intellect. Why?

“He is quite observant to notice that. First of all as Zen points out the emotions and the intellect must be in balance. When one or the other is too strong there will be suffering. The one who responds to everything emotionally is easily swayed and frequently has his feelings hurt. Conversely the overly intellectual person, and I have known many among the faculty of universities, finds it hard to love and to be loved. Everything must be analyzed. These two, the intellect and emotions must be brought into balance.

One helpful suggestion; occasionally during the day stop to notice your state of mind, then look at your posture. Don’t correct it, just look at it. You will find that your state of mind has a good deal to do with your posture, and you will also find that you’re posture influences your state of mind. Once again we have the mind, body continuum. Actually the intellect plays little part in T’ai Chi practice. The brilliant head of the Philosophy department at a major university tried to learn T’ai Chi Ch’uan in one of my classes, and was unable to do so. I’m sure she had the highest I.Q. in the class, and yet practically all the others were learning rapidly. There is the time for the intellect but T’ai Chi practice time is not it. Just do the movements and concentrate in the soles of the feet.

One thought; don’t forget that T’ai Chi Chih is not religion, having nothing to do with dogma and doctrine, but it very definitely is spiritual in nature. And it is joyous, not work but effortless play, that play of the Sage. Remember what Zen writer Paul Reps says, ‘If it isn’t fun, it’s better left undone.’ Just do what you can comfortably, and you’ll get the benefits. And now I would like to quote a brief passage from Ch’an Buddhist literature as a concluding note.

Who is capable of embracing this? The four seasons follow each other in succession. The Sun and the Moon shine constantly. Truth suffers no fundamental alteration, and the great T’ai Chi is not confined to a single place. Therefore free yourself to yield to whatever happens to you, rise and fall with it. And you may be simultaneously a common man and a sage.”