Seijaku, A Heightened Awareness Practice

Justin Stone often tells his T’ai Chi Chih teachers, “It is no accident that you have become TCC teachers.” His deepest wish is that all TCC teachers evolve their spiritual consciousness to a very high state, and he feels that TCC is fundamentally a spiritual practice. In Spiritual Odyssey, he says, “I define Spirituality as identification with the Real.”

Justin created TCC as a service to humanity. We all know the miracles that often happen when the Chi is circulated and balanced. In addition, he created Seijaku for his teachers and advanced TCC students. I teach Seijaku as a practical method of heightening spiritual evolution, and I use methods that differ from Justin’s. Years ago, I spoke to Justin about how I teach Seijaku; his response to my method, “Of course, dear, Seijaku is a heightened awareness practice. What you are doing makes sense.”

Justin and other spiritual masters highlight the two ingredients necessary to accelerate spiritual evolution: the ability to concentrate and attainment of heightened awareness. Furthermore, they all attest that no one else can do the work for you, and it is the job of an authentic teacher to set the students on their own path, which can be a lonely one and sometimes an unsettling experience.

In teaching Seijaku practice, I ask the student to place the mind in the tan t’ien as their point of concentration. It is essential that the mind be kept one-pointed. Next comes awareness of sensory stimulation. In Heightened Awareness, Justin highlights these awareness practices, which could be summarized as, “Become aware of sensory input, then let it go.”

When I teach Seijaku, I encourage students to “keep it simple:” Become aware of just one habit, which interferes with the ability to rest in a state of unconditioned awareness. The obscuring habit could be an attitude of anger at self or others; it could be judgment or resentment; it could be grief or any addiction. It’s easy for all of us to come up with a habit, which interferes with Pure Awareness.

Once they have chosen a habit, they place their mind in the tan t’ien, the point of concentration and begin the “soft/resistance/soft” Seijaku movement pattern. They begin in softness, and as their weight shift slowly takes them into resistance, they feel the dense quality of their chosen habit and then pass through it into the open Clear Light of Cosmic Consciousness. It is up to the practitioner to design the density of the resistance section. Sometimes they choose to add color, taste, texture, sound and mental/emotional feel to the resistance section. I invite them to “play” with these elements. There is no thinking in the resistance; there is only a “felt awareness of quality.” The density of the resistance section can vary from practice to practice; this is dynamic, not static, energy work. The important point is for the students to stay relaxed but alert as they begin the weight shift in softness, enter the resistance as the front foot flattens, then slide back out into softness as the back heel rises.

Staying in the present is critical; there is no anticipation of what lies ahead, or backward looking as one passes through. The concentration must stay focused and clear; I do not teach the student to push with the breath or push with the body’s muscles. With concentration in the tan t’ien and the mind held open, relaxed and alert, the weight shift leads the practice. There is just a felt sense of moving presence, with the presence feeling sometimes soft and light, while at other times thick and dense. The effect is to quicken and deepen the Chi flow.

A very curious thing often happens when I teach Seijaku in this manner. Those whose primary lifestyle is one of sufferer, will attempt to stay in the resistance far longer than after the back heel comes up. Those who actively practice spiritual by-passing (not wanting to acknowledge and accept the pain and difficulties that being human brings) don’t want to create any resistance section at all. But for those who are willing to practice what Justin calls, “first Bare Awareness, then Heightened Awareness,” they often experience a sudden power surge of freedom from the egoic consciousness. Joy Thru Movement attains a whole new meaning – one of identification with the Real.