Our T’ai Chi Chih Community: Keeping It Pure

The 2004 T’ai Chi Chih conference in St. Louis was a joyous time of warmth and sharing as we gathered to strengthen our connections with friends and colleagues and benefit from the many opportunities for refining our T’ai Chi Chih practice and enhancing our teaching skills. As always, I have been enriched by all that I experienced and shall continue to cultivate the seeds that have taken root within me, knowing that my ever-deepening level of growth will extend out to my students as well. I am grateful!

It seems to me that our T’ai Chi Chih community is our collective soul, and each of us is an equal part of the greater whole. The essence of the T’ai Chi Chih community is our Chi –our Collective Chi– and the Chi is our source of power and strength. The quality of our collective Chi is a reflection of our individual Chi. By each of us refining and purifying our individual Chi through our T’ai Chi Chih practice, we will also be affecting and enhancing the quality of our collective Chi. Justin has said that we must “keep T’ai Chi Chih pure.” We also need to keep our T’ai Chi Chih community pure, flowing freely and effortlessly from a center of love, thereby enabling us to function from a higher consciousness of loving wisdom (prajna).

The life of our T’ai Chi Chih community should flow in accord with the T’ai Chi Chih principles. Justin says in Spiritual Odyssey that “Awareness is the root of T’ai Chi Chih….softness and continuity is the Essence….Love Energy is the fruit.” As a community we need to remember to sink into the Essence and be guided by the Chi. It is important for each of us to be aware, and constantly ask ourselves: Is our T’ai Chi Chih community functioning from Love? Is there a sense of unity (or division)? Are we coming from softness? Are we functioning in accordance with the principles of Yin and Yang, flowing effortlessly from the substantial to the insubstantial in the areas of assuming responsibility? For example, if one member is feeling weighted down by too much responsibility, are we restoring the balance by allowing the energy flow to shift some responsibility to another member? For instance, perhaps the community could have been asked for a volunteer to take on the responsibility of printing the very useful Teachers Directory so that it could still available to all without extra cost.

We need to keep “balancing the soil” of our T’ai Chi Chih community, working to keep our ground fertile and pure. Our T’ai Chi Chih practice is our source. It provides the “tools” for cultivating our “soil.” In the essay “Balancing the Soil,” Justin says, “In T’ai Chi Chih practice the character of the Chi gradually changes….We do not fight the problem…but the problem cannot grow in the new, balanced soil.” (Spiritual Odyssey). In our T’ai Chi Chih community we want to sow seeds of positivity, keeping out weeds of negativity. We are each responsible. We are each important. Each voice needs to be heard. Each of us is the community.

As we flowed together in unison at the last practice on Sunday morning, the power of the collective Chi could be deeply felt. There was a sense of harmony…a profound stillness. In this stillness, ego is dissolved…we are One, in Love.

May we each rest in the stillness, and may we each be guided to do our part to keep our T’ai Chi Chih community pure, so that its Essence and function may always be a reflection of Love.