Spiritual Benefits Of TCC’s ABCs

My topic is the spiritual benefits of accumulation, balance and circulation of the Chi. I’m supposed to say they are peace, wisdom and enlightenment. But there are no spiritual benefits. Maybe I should explain… A benefit is an advantage gained from an activity. So benefits are of this world, the world of transactions, subject/object, pleasure/pain, good/bad, the world of ego, the world of habit energies and karma.

Justin says T’ai Chi Chih gets rid of ego and karma. So any spiritual benefits would seem to contradict the aim of TCC. But Justin also says that getting rid of the ego is spiritual, and that spiritual evolution is a result of TCC. I can think of one way out of this conflict.

Justin lists six aspects of spiritual practice and spirituality: detachment; nonviolence; inherent wisdom; recognizing, feeling and according with impermanence; finding out Who and What you are; and working with people. TCC has many of these same attributes.

Justin says that TCC should be done in a leisurely way, almost as if you are an onlooker. This is detachment. Justin says that TCC should be done softly with the effort of no effort, so that TCC does TCC. This is nonviolence. TCC is a meditation, and within it lies an uncovering of inherent wisdom and enlightenment: the discovery of “Who and What we are.”

TCC consists of movements and a posture; each one begins and ends; each practice begins and ends; each relationship with a teacher begins and ends. Recently, I have experimented with doing TCC as if it were my last practice. This is recognizing, feeling and according with impermanence. Justin also says that feeling the flow of the Chi is according with the Real.

TCC is ‘Joy Thru Movement’, and joy is outside the pain/pleasure continuum beloved by the ego.

So it might be accurate to say that TCC is a spiritual practice, and its benefits are inherent in the practice itself. The spiritual benefits are already within us, covered up. The accumulation, balance and circulation of the Chi brings them out.

After trying to confuse you, I’d like to read a quotation from Spiritual Odyssey: “Most students come to [TCC] feeling, ‘I am going to do a beneficial exercise.’ Eventually they find it is beneficial – and joyous – but they still think of it as exercise, and still put the ‘I’ in there. As they proceed farther, they begin to slowly realize the Essence of [TCC] and one day they have the experience that ‘no one is doing it. [TCC] is doing [TCC].’ Now they have the ‘I’ out of the way. Their practice is done without thought, concentrating on the soles of the feet. This ‘non-ego’ state is greatly beneficial; it is what makes [TCC] more than exercise and has a deeply spiritual benefit.”