Seijaku As A ‘Heightened Awareness’ Practice

Justin created T’ai Chi Chih for his teachers. He wants us to align with heightened awareness and cosmic consciousness. He wants us to be free. I teach Seijaku using Justin’s Heightened Awareness book. About eight years before he died, I met with him and reviewed how I was implanting the mindfulness practices found in his book onto Seijaku practice. He responded, “Of course, dear, Seijaku is a heightened awareness practice.”

When Justin informed me that “a non-yogi has to work to get over hindrances,” I began to experiment with Seijaku as a tool for this purpose. I placed an aspect of egoic consciousness (for example, fear) in the resistance section of Seijaku, and the weight shift through the resistance deepened the letting-go-of-hindrance experience. The amazing thing is that the body possesses consciousness, so using it in this mindfulness practice accelerates spiritual evolution. In Heightened Awareness, Justin named the six senses, which can lead to hindrances: our perception of and reaction to sight, sound, texture, smell, taste, and thoughts and emotions. Of the six senses, Justin said thoughts/emotions are the most likely to create clinging to egoic consciousness. This is why he often said, “You say it must be one way or the other, but I say neither/nor.” An attitude of neither/nor leads to non-attachment and connection to the Absolute. Developing the habit of surrendering to the Chi leads to the dissolution of egoic consciousness, a discipline that can be painful and often takes great courage.

How important did Justin find the practices of heightened awareness? “Awareness is the mark by which we can judge the degree of progress one has made. Heightened awareness gradually becomes Universal Consciousness, and we begin to get away from the self-centered concentration we had formerly known. Hatred is the result of self-clinging. When one can say he no longer hates, resents, or even dislikes anyone, he can be said to be on his way to sagehood. That is why the writer feels that the teaching of heightened awareness is so important.” (Heightened Awareness, p. 58)

Conference 2013 – Minneapolis (August 1-4)

The Minnesota community is actively working on the 2013 conference. We have some great suggestions from Portland conference (for which we are grateful) that we hope to incorporate. Our journey thus far has been fun.

Please consider bringing someone you know who didn’t attend the 2012 conference or has never attended at all. We hope all can participate in this wonderful gift of movement.

Follow the schedule on the website () and on Facebook () as we assemble the program. We hope to see you at the conference in 2013. Encircled in Chi. – Judy & Deb