Justin Stone Speaks on T’ai Chi Chih: Untitled Thoughts (February 2025)

Editor’s Note: These excerpts are from Spiritual Odyssey, available on .

Vairagya: Non-Attachment

To live a family life and be non-attached is very difficult and, at first glance, would seem to be unnatural. What father or mother would not be grief-stricken at the serious illness of a child? When one is supporting a family, how could one not be concerned about the financial future?

Yet, I have known a few who led successful family and financial lives while fully understanding the impermanence of everything. To feel one’s present health and financial status is invulnerable is childish; any thinking person knows these can change in the blink of an eye — or the crash of a car.

The Chinese say, “Make peace with heaven and not with men.” This requires an understanding that there is more than what we see, and that all things and beings are interrelated. The English poet, John Donne, referred to this when he said, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Yet most people are really interested only in the welfare of themselves and their families, the opposite of compassion – not realizing that the welfare of all others is closely integrated with their own welfare. To realize this is the beginning of spirituality. Until all have some idea of this interrelatedness, there will be wars, suffering, and injustice.

When you understand how temporary everything is, racial and religious provincialism will die. Then there will be a better, happier world.

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Buddha’s Answer

The Buddha was asked: “Are you a God?” “No,” was his answer.

“Are you a super man?” “No.”

“Then what are you?”

“I am awake!” was the surprising answer.

Buddha meant this literally. Most of us dream our way through life, superficially responding to the karma brought on by our vasanas (habit energies). Compulsive behavior is a sign of these.

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Spiritual Evolution & the Divine Instrument

There are two histories of mankind: one is cultural, which is lasting, and the other is the study of aggression and violence, which is fleeting. As an example, there are no remnants of the work of the Greek army, but the philosophers and playwrights of Greece contribute much to our everyday life.

The spiritual development of humans is so slow that we take it for granted the egocentric way of thinking is the only one: “How does it affect me and mine?” Both Jesus and Buddha pointed the way to compassion, but that was merely a foretaste. The usual thought is that poor people bring about welfare, and that raises my taxes. There is no compassion for the poor; they’re merely inconvenient.

As one works with the Chi, in T’ai Chi Chih (TCC) — circulating and balancing the Life Force – the pace of the evolving is greatly stepped up. How we think and act affects this Chi, but, in turn, we are the products of the Chi. Call it the divine instrument if you want. As we practice TCC this Chi will be molded (and accumulated), and our spiritual evolution will be greatly enhanced. We will begin to change, and so will our world.

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T’ai Chi Chih Practice Notes

To teach well, it is obviously necessary to do TCC; I know what the practice has done for me. One can’t get the benefits without practice. But, whether or not you want to do TCC is entirely up to you. There is nothing wrong in abandoning T’ai Chi Chih practice if you get nothing out of it.

With the coming of the beautiful autumn weather, there is heightening of spirit, a great feeling of “livingness” and, usually, a gratitude for being alive.

As the Zen Master Seigen said as he was dying, “Better than Zen doctrine, the Joy of Living.”

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Identification With the Real

Most people use the word spiritual (as opposed to physical) without having any idea of the meaning of the word: they just think of something ephemeral. Even if you explain that it means identification with the Real, they still don’t understand because they don’t know what is meant by Real. If it is explained that Real means lasting or permanent, the mystery remains. Isn’t it reality that you have to earn a living and pay the rent? At one level, yes, this is true, but that is not on a permanent level.

India’s Yogi Vashishtha helped clear away this mystery by counseling, “Ignore the taster and the thing tasted and rest in the tasting only.” The taster is subject, and the thing tasted is the object; obviously, both will disappear in time.

But the process, the tasting, was never born, so it will never disappear. If this lesson can be digested, it is of great help to serious seekers. The one who is just interested in daily activities, completely unaware of their meaning, will, of course, be totally disinterested.

Self-interest is being preoccupied with something temporary. When it is overly strong, it can bring great suffering. Yet psychologists and psychoanalysts deliberately try to strengthen this narcissistic quality.

Properly seen, all happenings are Spiritual, arrows pointing at the Real. This is especially so with so-called illness, which many advanced teachers look on as purification. We are all spiritual beings.

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The Idea of Impermanence

In my recent visit to Albuquerque, I gave a talk to over 200 people on The Spiritual Life (in a busy world). Many points were similar to the Merging Sense with Essence talk I made to teachers at the Minneapolis conference. This subject seems to hit people hard, as they feel they must get away from family and work routine in order to practice Spirituality (accordance with the Real).

That is far from the truth. I related how a Zen priest in Japan had said to me, “Stone-san, be the big hermit; anybody can be the small hermit.” I told them how I suddenly remembered this phrase while meditating with the Yogis in the cold Himalayan foothills, eating once a day. I then thought, “I should be able to do this at 42nd and Broadway!” and left the mountain seclusion the next day. Though I didn’t yet know the meaning of Seijaku – stillness in the midst of activity — the idea had already begun acting in my consciousness.

In my book, Abandon Hope: The Way to Fulfillment, I have a chapter about “The Growth of Certainty,” and once that has been experienced, it is not difficult to sense the Essence at all times, whatever the situation. This usually leads to a feeling of profound gratitude. As Paul Reps says, “How grateful I am with no-thing to be grateful for.” Note he didn’t say, “nothing to be grateful for.” Once we accept the idea of impermanence, it is not too difficult to experience Who and What we are. This is so well expressed by the Lotus Sutra, which says:

From the State of Emptiness

Man’s body is a body pervading the Universe,

Man’s voice is a voice filling the Universe,

Man’s life is a life without limit.

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A Mind at Ease

I gather chrysanthemums at the eastern hedgerow

And silently gaze at the southern mountains.

The mountain air is beautiful in the sunset.

Overhead the birds, flocking together, return home.

In all this is a real meaning, but

When I try to express it, I get lost in no-words.

These words by a 4th century Chinese poet, Tao Yuanming, present a graphic picture of a mind at ease, spoken by a contented person. Notice that all allusions are to natural things; there is nothing of the artificial. Our way of life is being ruined by the artificiality that leads to a superficial outlook, away from natural things. Our world glorifies the computer and the airplane, the television set, and the telephone. The latter has become our master, and few are willing to turn it off.

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All Healing, in the End, Is Self-Healing

Four accredited TCC teachers are former cancer patients. Examples of T’ai Chi Ch’uan masters teaching well into their nineties are well-known. True healers are using this

force, often without really knowing what they are doing.

The Japanese Healing Church, Sekai Kyusei Kyo, makes active use of this Chi with little knowledge of it, projecting it for healing effects, first felt as intense heat. Very real benefits result.

Good acupuncturists do not treat symptoms. They stimulate the flow of the Intrinsic Energy and balance it; the results are felt all over. Taking pills to relieve pain or to apparently cure some disorder without trying to affect the cause is somewhat like rolling up a window of the car so the knock in the engine won’t be heard.

All healing, in the end, is self-healing. The sincere practice of TCC, without squabble about different schools and other ego trips, enables us to accumulate, circulate, and store the most valuable of all products (and in some ways, the real one).

Guided by the mind, the Chi comes to life – this is equivalent to safe Kundalini practice. Then we perceive the results and benefits. Only the one drinking the water knows if it’s hot or cold. From a healing standpoint, we are not healed; we are made whole.